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Vote 2008: Obama's ground war: Democrat's campaign strategy pairs high-tech tools with old-fashioned canvassing, phone banking(Santa Fe New Mexican, The Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sep. 21--Scene 1. Barack Obama Headquarters, Santa Fe: The field office located between Delicasa and Chow's in the shopping center on St. Michael's Drive and Pacheco Street is buzzing with activity. Only a few campaign buttons remain in a basket at the front. There's a call list for people who want bumper stickers. A staffer circulates around the room with a box with some of the biggest, juiciest peaches of the season, the gift of a Velarde grower. More than 250 Santa Feans walk in and out of here every day. Amid posters of the candidate is a sheet of paper where they can write why they want to volunteer for Barack Obama. Among the responses: "Because I'm moving to Canada if Obama loses." "Because I didn't do all I could in 2004 and look how it ended up." "Because this the last chance to change our futures for the better." This is command central for Region 4 where Alfred Johnson, a recent Stanford graduate from Washington, D.C., (whose heroes from history are Martin Luther King Jr., Alexander Hamilton and Theodore Roosevelt) runs the show. He's in charge of the grass-roots campaign in eight counties in Northern New Mexico. There's a staff of 13 that includes 11 field organizers, some of whom are paid and some of whom are not. "The idea is to put this in the hands of the people," Johnson said. "We are making it as local as we can possibly make it." The Obama campaign in heavily Democratic Santa Fe attracted enough volunteers that it opened a new south-side campaign office last week, one of 35 in the state. Their work is a cornerstone of the Obama campaign strategy in New Mexico and elsewhere. It's a huge, well-organized effort. About a month ago, a group of team leaders spent two days in Albuquerque at community organizing sessions with Marshall Ganz, a civil rights activist, member of the United Farm Workers and currently a lecturer in public policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass. Teams of volunteers are canvassing their neighbors. Veterans are calling veterans. People are registering voters, hanging out, clipboards in hand, at sports events, the Santa Fe Farmers Market, community centers. They've held bake sales, raising $450 in Eldorado. Some have even committed to bringing meals to the volunteers at the field offices. Or put on barbecues for their neighbors. Or hosted watch parties. In contrast, the McCain campaign is nearly invisible in Santa Fe. There are 10 offices in New Mexico listed on its Web site, but the Santa Fe County office is also the Republican Party headquarters. A recent check of the Web site showed no events currently scheduled in the area, evidence the campaign is focused on friendlier territory elsewhere in the state. At the Obama headquarters, the faces -- young, middle-aged, old, mostly white -- are constantly changing. Volunteers sit at computer terminals entering information about voters into a massive database. Others scan lists, making calls to registered Democrats on their cell phones. When someone signs up a new volunteer, he or she rings a bell, the kind you might see at a motel reception desk. Lucia Oliva Hennelly, a Stanford student from Santa Fe who's voting for the first time this year, is helping organize an event for youth and making calls from headquarters on a cell phone. "I am concerned about the economy, level of education in the U.S. and the environment. I see Obama making a big difference," she says. At a table in the middle, field organizer Kai Schwartz trains fresh walk-ins in how to canvass door-to-door. One group takes off, clutching Google maps, lists of sporadic-voting Democrats and their canvassing scripts. They're replaced by another gaggle of about eight. Janet Rubenstein, a Realtor, who notes, "I have plenty of time," has lately been sending the Obama campaign $100 a week. But she wants to do more. "I couldn't take the thought that Barack didn't become president, and I didn't do anything," she said. "I think this is a matter of life and death." Rubenstein added she didn't want to move to Mexico and found the John McCain-Sarah Palin ticket "almost scarier than Bush/Cheney." Schwartz hands out maps with a dot marking each contact in the area the group will canvass. The targets today are mostly friendly Democrats who have not gone to the polls in every recent election. A 23MG, she explains, is a 23-year-old male who is a registered Green. The campaign needs 460,000 votes to win in New Mexico, Schwartz tells them. That would be about 83,000 more than President Bush recorded when he won the state's five electoral votes in 2004. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state 1.6 to 1, she adds, but they don't all vote. The goal of the Obama campaign, Schwartz says, is to hold all the states that John Kerry won in the last presidential election and pick up Iowa, Colorado and New Mexico. The race is closest in New Mexico, she says. One of their prime objects, Schwartz tells the volunteers, is to see if people will vote by mail (designated as VBM on the volunteers' lists). She encourages them to try to persuade voters to fill out the application to vote by mail while they are standing at the front door. Each carries a list of reasons this is a good thing. It's "safe and reliable," according to the campaign; you can avoid long lines and possible voter intimidation on Election Day; and once your ballot is sent to the county clerk and accounted for, the "get out the vote" (GOTV) calls will stop. The campaign will collect the VBM requests and drive them to the County Clerk's Office within two business days to comply with state election law. Don't be discouraged if you don't reach as many people as you hope, Schwartz says. The contact rate -- especially on a beautiful, sunny Saturday afternoon in Santa Fe -- will be only about 20 percent. The completed contact lists are due back the following evening, Schwartz said, and will be used to generate new lists. "Bigger. Better. Cleaner lists. That's how we are going to win this election," she declares. Before the group leaves, Schwartz advises them: "This is not a persuasion canvass." The idea is to be yourself, tell your own story of why you are supporting the candidate and direct voters to the Obama Web site for information on issues. Or better yet, you could print out a copy of his position answering the voter's question and bring it back to them. "That's amazingly powerful," she says. "It demonstrates what kind of campaign this is and how dedicated people are." Rubenstein, her pal Toni Zupanc, a retired teacher, and Chloe Sernet, an intern from The University of New Mexico who works weekends for the campaign, head out to the San Mateo neighborhood. Sernet admits she's not politically active or politically savvy, for that matter. "I'm just terrified for my future," she says. As predicted, few people are home. Those who are, are already supporting Obama. In an almost scripted scene, voter Lucy Foley is relaxing on her front patio with a copy of the Obama memoir Dreams from My Father in her hands when Sernet opens the gate. She agrees to fill out a VBM application. The Hispanic issue Tom Chepucavage has a 9-month-old baby so he's had to reduce his volunteering from 2004. If anything, however, he's more enthusiastic this time around. But he believes it will be a tight race. Like many volunteers, he's concerned about Hispanic voters who might write in the name of another candidate or not go to the polls. "I still think we have a very large problem with Hillary Clinton supporters in the north," he says. "I believe we haven't reached out enough to more of Santa Fe" and the rural communities in the north, he says. "I couldn't emphasize that enough." While a number of local Hispanic politicians (County Commissioner Virginia Vigil, City Councilors Miguel Chavez and Rosemary Romero, former Legislator Patsy Trujillo, congressional candidate Ben Ray Lujan) are canvassing for Obama in Santa Fe, "It's sort of a slow sell," Don McAvinchey says, adding, "Mr. Obama is making inroads. A lot of effort is going into the northern part of the state." Some volunteers say they have heard that among older Hispanics there is an element of racism that could reduce the vote for Obama. Taking a break from phone banking at the St. Michael's Drive field office, Violeta Salazar Anderson, a Spanish speaker originally from Rio Arriba County, says she hasn't run into such sentiments while canvassing in her neighborhood around Rancho Viejo and near the Camino Carlos Rey area. "What I'm hearing is that Hispanic families are very strong supporters of Obama." And many told her their relatives were too. "Even Hispanic men, they're supporting Obama," she says. Martha Romero, who comes from around Mora, says she was up there with her sister to pick raspberries recently and local people "seemed pretty positive. I was very encouraged. Not a single person was really opposed." Romero, who moved back to New Mexico from California, says, "I think there's a long history of (racism), but I think that people are coming around -- Hispanic young people in particular. They, for one thing, have more exposure than their grandparents. The campaign understands this issue and is working really hard to reach out to these people." Romero, who has worked with community colleges and has conducted leadership training courses, says she is voting for Obama because his "ability to look at different perspectives and talk to those who disagree with him and then say why he does what he does is a breath of fresh air." Scene 2. Team 429 meeting, home of Dwight Strong and Nancy Nodelman: While Nodelman makes the pizza run, Strong and some volunteers who have arrived early set out crackers, cheese, nuts, lemonade and a huge bowl of M&Ms. Leaders of Team 429 are meeting on a weekday night at the couple's house to talk about the grass-roots campaign in their neighborhood near Zia Road. Strong says he hadn't canvassed or made calls in recent elections. But "this time around is different. We've got a war going on that is sucking up all our resources. Our economy is suffering. It's time we stepped in and did as much as we can." After returning with the pizza, Nodelman says, "I feel that this is necessary. We're really at an impasse. I feel very committed -- and almost desperate." As the team leaders gather around the dining room table, Bob Ertmer says he learned his lesson about involvement when he showed up late once to vote in a school board election. The candidate he didn't support won by a single vote. So, Ertmer says, "I know one vote can make a difference. And in New Mexico, the votes are very close." With their field organizer, Kai Schwartz, perched on a stool, team leaders talk about some nuts-and-bolts matters. Ertmer agrees to notify all the members every Sunday night to relay the location of the next meeting and work with another member to match canvassers up with each other so nobody has to go out alone. As they prepare to make calls to neighbors, David Barton and Janet Gotkin volunteer for the "slightly less friendly list." Others choose the sporadic-voting Democrats. The group fans out around the house with their lists, scripts and cell phones. Lynn Udall, brother of U.S. Rep. Tom Udall who is running for the Senate from New Mexico, finds a quiet corner in the den. They mentally prepare what they will say to voters to encourage them to volunteer for Obama and to vote by mail. The house murmurs with friendly greetings such as "Hi, Arlene. This is Dwight Strong, your neighbor." David Barton, a professor at Northern New Mexico College, leans against the kitchen sink and begins dialing. One voter says her choice in the presidential race is "too personal," and the caller bids her goodbye, explaining, "I didn't want to push it." Another woman tells him she is leaning against Obama because "military service is big for her." A man admits he is "leaning toward Obama," but when Barton asks what he agrees with the senator on, the voter replies, "pretty damn well everything he says." Barton joined the campaign after reading Obama's second book, The Audacity of Hope. "I couldn't think of a presidential candidate in my life who can think and write as well as he does," he says. "And writing is important to me." Santa Fe Grassroots When Gov. Bill Richardson was still a candidate for president, and Obama wasn't putting many campaign resources into New Mexico, the Obama camp had Santa Fe Grassroots. Gaye Politt, starting with the names of some contributors, began to contact people who might be interested in volunteering. They had access to the campaign's Build the Hope volunteer database. They began meeting. She set up a Web blog (that is still going) to keep in touch with everyone. By the time Obama won Iowa and Richardson suspended his campaign, there were 350 supporters. And when the candidate came to Santa Fe Community College just before the February caucus, Politt, 62, was asked to introduce him -- "It was the absolute highest honor of my life." When the campaign left the state, Santa Fe Grassroots went back to what it was doing -- gathering volunteers. Once Obama had the nomination in the bag and the campaign was back on the ground in New Mexico, 1,000 volunteers were ready and willing. Politt said she continues to work 10-12 hours a day, but now she and the other supporters are following the strategy of the national campaign. "They're the generals and we're the soldiers," she said. "That's really what we were working for." Politt, who hadn't been involved in community organizing before but got elected as a New Mexico delegate to the Democratic convention this year, said, "I want my country back. That's the No. 1 reason I support Barack." Scene 3. Eldorado: Eldorado has one of the campaign's strongest grass-roots efforts in Northern New Mexico with at least 100 volunteers. There are even rumors that some of these folks will be tapped to help out in Espanola, where the campaign is trying to win over Hispanic voters, many of whom supported Hillary Clinton for the party's nomination. Almost every night of the week, there's a phone bank at somebody's house, and on Saturday mornings, dozens of people have showed up at the home of Daisy Brumby, a Headstart teacher who began volunteering full time for Obama in December 2007 and is a captain for canvassers in the subdivision southeast of Santa Fe. Brumby says the field organizer for Eldorado, Zoe Lees, brings her the packets each week. After they're returned by canvassers -- about 40 of them altogether -- the information is distributed to data-entry people in Eldorado. "It's a really organized effort. No one person is doing everything," Brumby says. "We're a well-oiled machine at this point." Many people ask why the campaign is "wasting our time in Eldorado," where Obama already seems to have overwhelming support, Brumby says. "The thing I tell them is that we need to squeeze every last Democratic vote out of Eldorado in order to counter all the cowboy counties. Once I tell them that, they get it," she says. Among the older volunteers, Brumby says, she often hears they haven't felt so energized since the Kennedy election -- "Baby boomers are practically high on it" -- and "younger people say mainly that Palin scares the hell out of them." Brumby, who is just 32, campaigned for John Kerry in 2004, mainly as a vote against Bush. "Obama is the first politician I ever wanted to vote for," she says. "The thing that attracted me to him was the idea that every person can make a difference in the world. With a lot of people pitching in to make their community better, that's the way we change the world." Don McAvinchey and his wife, Sarah Furr, have been hosting the Thursday evening phone bank. He equates McCain with Bush, saying, "Personally, I just couldn't sit back and see another election go to this horrendous regime led by the Bush folks, not in good conscience." The goal in the subdivision south of the city is to bring people back into the Democratic fold. He says he's only met one person seriously interested in voting for the Republican ticket. "It's just a matter of whether we can get enough out of this area. If we can make inroads in Santa Fe to up the numbers," McAvinchey said, "we're feeling pretty confident of taking the state." Ron Dans and his wife have been canvassing the subdivision pretty much every weekend for the last month. "It's a little intimidating," he admitted. "Almost everybody in Eldorado has a wall. Dogs come out and bark at you. You wonder, 'How far can I go?' But you have to get over that. Not a single person we went to see was in any way upset. People all thanked us for taking the time and energy to do this job." The election in New Mexico, he observed, is "all about turnout, not about convincing swing voters or changing people's minds." Previous campaigns have taken a "scatter-gun approach to volunteer" work, he said. But with Obama, "there's a plan." The mantra "The campaign is extremely well organized," said JoAnn Balzer, a member of the campaign's New Mexico finance committee who is well on her way to her goal of raising $100,000 for Obama. "There's a terrific support structure, and that enables us as volunteers to be very successful." With the Internet, she said, "you can become really very effective if you can use the technology efficiently and wisely." Balzer, who recently purchased a round-trip ticket to Washington in January, said she's working her "tail feathers" off for victory because "the stakes have never been higher. I think basic things like what books we're able to read could be in jeopardy as well as equal pay for equal work, a woman's right to choose, our status in the world, our financial environment. ... I believe everything is up for grabs." Her mantra, she said, is not to let a day pass "without doing the most you can to help get Senators Obama and Biden elected." Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or [email protected]. Vote margins in New Mexico presidential elections 2000 Gore State: 286,783 County: 32,017 Bush State: 286,417 County: 13,974 2004 Bush State: 376,930 County: 18,466 Kerry State: 370,942 County: 47,044 To see more of The Santa Fe New Mexican, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.santafenewmexican.com/. Copyright (c) 2008, The Santa Fe New Mexican Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. 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