Strategist focuses on president's devotees

[struggle4progress]

By Anne E. Kornblut, Globe Staff | August 30, 2004

<snip>
Bush spends a striking amount of time in Republican-leaning areas of swing states, seeking to ratchet up enthusiasm. His campaign has run advertising on cable networks tailored to such Republican-friendly viewers as golfers and fishermen. To Rove, an obsessive number cruncher, it all boils down to a simple empirical fact: There are more potential Republicans out there in battleground states than undecided moderates. Get the Republicans to show up on Election Day and the race is won.

But the approach breaks from conventional wisdom, and it is, by all accounts, a gamble -- one that could cement Rove's reputation as a political legend and shift the paradigm of future elections if it succeeds, as it apparently did in the congressional midterm elections in 2002, or offer an embarrassing indictment of Rove's master plan if it fails.
<snip>

Asked whether it is now mathematically possible to win a presidential race without any swing voters, Rove did not skip a beat. ''Yes," he replied.
<snip>

To that end, Bush often visits Republican-leaning pockets of battleground states, traveling to places he won by comfortable margins -- such as the western panhandle of Florida or York, Pa. -- rather than devote himself exclusively to evenly divided counties, or venture into hostile territory, as Senator John F. Kerry, the Democratic nominee, often does. Over the weekend, traveling in Ohio, Bush visited Miami County (which he won in 2000, 61 percent to 36 percent), Allen County (which he won 65 percent to 32 percent), and Wood County (which he won 53 percent to 44 percent).
<snip>

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/30/strategist_focuses_on_presidents_devotees?pg=2

[Julien Sorel]

1. Negative campaigns supress voter turnouts.

If you can get your guys to vote while the other guy's are discouraged, you can win.

[struggle4progress]

2. That might indeed be the Bushista strategy. eom

[Piperay]

3. VERY interesting

this explains alot about the chimp's campaign that didn't make sense to me (like invitation only rallies, it is just hardcore that they are interested in).

[girl gone mad]

4. So how do we keep his turnout low?

I think we've got to go after his record hard. Attack him of the deficit, attack him on the Catastrophic Success, attack him on the loss of jobs. We need to remind people that he's been a screw up and that he is not a true conservative.

Kerry will probably have to go negative in at least one of the debates, just like he did in the primaries.

[struggle4progress]

5. Point out that * is not a real conservative?

He pushes entangling foreign wars, he's not fiscally responsible, etc ...

[liveoaktx]

6. Get the Dems to turn out, that's how-if it's a statistical try on his

part to get more Repubs out, then take 5 Dems with you to the polls that did not vote in the 2000 elections.

[Piperay]

7. This is scary because it

shows how THEY only care about their own and don't give one damn about anyone else, now they don't even need their vote. If these thugs get in another 4 years they will ram through EVERYTHING they want, they don't NEED to care about the opposition. :-(