Republicans and Democrats Push Hard to Get Out the Vote

Sound up: Yes, is Mr Pierce available please? My name is Jeff. I’m a volunteer calling on behalf of NH victory…

Jeff Brown worked the phones at Republican Victory headquarters located in the Manchester Millyards.

Brown says he’s been spending a lot of time here trying to contact people to vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

It almost becomes a second job. I mean, you leave work, you come here, you don’t get home until after 9 o’clock at night most weeknights. Weekends it’s more of the same. Saturday, Sunday you’re here, making phone calls, doing the door walks, getting involved any way you can.

As Brown called voters other volunteer canvassers came and left during the day-long get out the vote effort.

Republicans called the effort, “Super Saturday”.

McCain’s New Hampshire spokesman Jeff Grappone says hundreds of volunteers came to help out.

This is a morning until evening effort, where everybody knows there’s just a little over two weeks to go till the election…and trying to do everything they can, knock on every door, make every phone call, to get the word out about john mccain and sarah palin and why its so critical for nh voters to come out in droves for them.

Republican officials said volunteers were working not just in Manchester, but also out of 7 other offices around the state.

That may have been the case, but a much larger crowd was gathered at the nearby Democratic Party headquarters.

And dozens were outside holding signs and chanting.

Sound up: when I say o you say bama, o-bama…

Many of the volunteers had come from out of state, and had spent their morning knocking on doors.

Martha McNamara had come up from Boston with her young daughter.

She said they came because New Hampshire has been identified as a tossup state for the presidential candidates.

Well I think obama’s got Massachusetts pretty much sewed up, because it’s a long standing democratic state. And it seems we could do a lot more good in New Hampshire. (chanting)

Democrats are working out of 17 offices around the state.

Their campaign finance filings in mid October show them out raising and out spending their GOP counterparts by a margin of nearly ten to one.

Republicans leaders say they’ve raised more money in these final weeks, but it is likely the Democrats have as well.

In the meantime, Democratic campaign spokeswoman Sandra (Sondra) Abevaya says more than one thousand volunteers are contacting voters around the state.

People in NH are pretty accustomed to the uh political season here and for them what’s most important we’ve found is having an opportunity to talk to people one and one and discuss the issues that matter to them and where the candidates stand on them.

Democratic officials say they’re targeting voters in their own party, as well as Independents who might vote their way.

New Hampshire Republican officials say they’re doing much the same thing.

But State GOP Chairman Fergus Cullen says the party is also taking their canvassing a step further.

This is part of the evolving trend in politics called “micro-targeting”--the idea that someone who happens to be registered as a Democrat say in a working class community like Rochester might have a lot more in common, culturally, with Republican candidates than they do with some of their democratic candidates who tend to be cultural liberals.

With only two weekends left before Election Day, it is not hard to imagine that both parties will be stepping up their voter contact efforts.

But however they identify support, the aim of both parties is crystal clear.

Republicans and Democrats are hoping to turn out enough votes on November 4th to claim victory.