Reply #93: NY Times Magazine

[Yupster]

had an interesting very long article last weekend. It had a reporter follow around the Ohio head of the 527 organization "America Coming Together" during election day.

There ws some very interesting parts.

He explained how extensive and expensive the 527 GOTV effort was. It went as far as buying $ 3,000 worth of Big Macs for voters standing in one line. The checks were written by unions mostly.

It talked about him getting the first exit polls around 2 pm showing Kerry up four points. The next ones came in about four pm and showed Kerry up by 2. The last round came in about 6 pm and showed a dead even race. He drove over to a Republican precinct and checked the number of voters posted on the wall each hour or two. It was a sickening feeling. With two hours to go until the poll closed, the precinct had 68 % voting, blowing away their normal turnout. The precinct ended up with 78 % voted.

It talked about Republican ex-urbs that didn't exist four years ago.

A very interesting read. I posted it a few days ago.

It ended on a sad note with Kerry conceding. The 527 workers were in an unusual position because there really wasn't even anyone to thank them for their months of work since they didn't work for the Kerry campaign.

The article made clear they absolutely were separate from the campaign and didn't do any coordinating, open or hidden or assumed or anything.

Throughout the article the guy belittles the Republican turnout effort. I know ground game and you can't run a volunteer ground game, he would tell the reporter. The reporter made ure he put that in a few times.