The Bush and Kerry campaigns hit the home stretch in the Granite State

Remember game seven of the Red Sox vs. Yankees series? A different kind of midweek buzz for Dartmouth students, it was the deciding showdown between two American giants that traded blow for blow performances. After securing the right players, each team had worked for months in the trenches to grasp the shifting advantage. Wearing and chanting their support, the most riled up fans wanted to secure a victory they felt was just and overdue. Friends and neighbors argued at fevered pitch about questionable calls during a game with no margin for error. Even if you were apathetic about the process, you paid attention because the outcome was history making.

Get ready for “crunch time” in another season - this one dominated by Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns. The battle for the White House appears to be another deadlocked race between old foes, surrounded by controversy and rife with energy on both sides. The craze around this election, hailed as the most critical of our generation, is justified. In the next four years, our president will confront pivotal issues like the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, in addition to perennial thorns like our current fiscal crisis or energy dependency. New Hampshire is accustomed to being a political hub during the primaries, but in this year’s hotly contested race, the state’s battleground status will continue to galvanize its constituency right up to November 2nd. Both campaigns will flood their top tiers of manpower and money into the last 72 hours to secure or overturn 7,200 votes, the tenuous margin by which Bush won the Granite state in the last, very contentious election.

Crunch time is the culmination of months of spectacle-party conventions, debates, and a barrage of political ads-into a few days of good, old-fashioned local politics. For campaigns, the national dialogue between pundits and pollsters is tuned out by the response of individual households in a few key swing states. In the fight for New Hampshire, both parties have pooled vast resources because making every vote count means reaching out, one on one, forming interpersonal connections with every possible voter. As both parties launch grassroots initiatives closer to the election, voters feel a mounting intensity of pressure from both campaigns, and in turn become more responsive to their messages.

Democrats and Republicans have fundamental differences in party structure that extend into their strategies and drive their crunch time initiatives. The Democratic Party is traditionally one of competing factions within a diverse base, united primarily by an energized message for change. Democrats initiate grassroots campaigning months before crunch time, because its low-cost, decentralized form can sway independent voters that hold a unique blend of concerns - much like the party itself. Republicans, on the other hand, are accepted as the party with a well-funded, bureaucratic structure that is single-minded to elect a candidate. With a more identifiable and homogenous base, Republicans are hinging the election on voter turnout and using their organizational advantage to get likely supporters to the polls. The underlying question behind winning New Hampshire is whether more voters will go to the polls for a hopeful Democratic message or get to the polls with a strong Republican mobilization plan.

At Victory 2004 headquarters of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, a powerful message of change compels independent voters to recognize the concrete differences between the two parties. Since last spring, thousands of workers have arrived from across New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and even Illinois to operate phone banks, canvass door to door, and create visibility at busy intersection. Campaign volunteers take time off work and leave their own families on nights and weekends to engage their peers in casual conversation about issues that resonate with working class families. Friends, talking to friends, illustrate that a loss of local manufacturing jobs, the burden on small businesses, and a rise of casualties in Iraq have spread unifying anxieties in their immediate environment. Many campaigners have taken the complementary action of offering their own homes to host fundraising parties, demonstrating their personal stake in an energized community. By taking a decentralized neighbor–to-neighbor approach, Democratic volunteers inspire voters to turn the frustrations expressed in their backyards or at the dinner table into a vote for change in the election booth.

Despite all the talk about the importance of the swing voter, the New Hampshire Republican Committee and the Students for Bush Campaign are focusing their crunch time efforts on mobilizing established supporters to the polls. In Republican-leaning New Hampshire, grassroots initiatives thrive by identifying communities that are united behind a common conservative interest and accordingly adopting localized policy messages. This specialized campaigning is far more efficient than the widespread Democratic drive to bring in swing voters that voice diverse concerns. While the Democrats rely on questionable data based on one phone call or front door visit,
Republicans are uniquely armed with a vast network of focused data on constituents Databases of information act as a roadmap for identifying strongholds of support in key demographics groups. In turn, Republican operatives target these groups with large-scale “get out the vote” initiatives. For instance, Republicans can speculate that an area densely populated with affluent entrepreneurs, hunting licensees or military servicemen will respond positively to issue-specific mailings and phone calls. Rather than have volunteers canvass in every neighborhood, Republican candidates direct manpower to register a concentration of voters that endorse Republican positions. On election day, grassroots volunteers merge databases of registered voters with drivers license information to call and offer a ride to supporters who have not yet shown up at the polls. Whatever the Republican campaign lacks in passion or coverage compared to the Democrats, it more than makes up for in precision.

But that doesn’t mean that Democrats aren’t learning from their conservative counterparts. Democrats have also amassed vast databases of voter information, but the only demographic they broadly track is constituents who have donated during past elections. Since then, the old roster of players has been replaced, and the post 9/11 world has put us into a whole other ball game. Republican campaign leaders are currently being investigated for connections to ‘phone jamming’ to tie up Democratic phone banks that offer neighbors a ride to the polls. This tactic may simply be the extension of a results-driven strategy for Republicans; but for Democrats, with the ball knocked out of their glove, it is just heartless play.

This type of hand-to-hand combat between Republicans and Democrats will probably mean increasingly tight elections in the future as campaign strategies become more evolved and voter savvy. Even in this political cycle, to call which party’s approach should prevail in New Hampshire is far too close for any umpire. Until November 2nd, both parties will have to keep their eye on the ball.