Obama's grass-roots battalion vs. McCain's ragtag platoon

In Wisconsin's blue-collar Paper Valley, the Democrats are banking on an outpouring of volunteers while the Republicans are left with fear itself.

By Walter Shapiro

Read more: John McCain, Politics, News, Walter Shapiro, Barack Obama, 2008 election, Sarah Palin

AP Photos

Sen. Barack Obama at a campaign event in Green Bay, Wis., Sept. 22, 2008. Right: Sen. John McCain at a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wis., Sept. 18, 2008.

Oct. 6, 2008 | GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Mid-morning Saturday, the Republican headquarters here in the fiercely contested northeast corner of Wisconsin reflected the somnolent air of the half-empty indoor mall in which it was located. A few Republican stalwarts wandered by to pick up McCain-Palin lawn signs and other GOP campaign paraphernalia. A signboard on the wall announced the target of "878 Doors" on which to knock, but it was evident that most of the canvassing -- the lifeblood of grass-roots organizing and get-out-the-vote drives -- would be done by pairs of high-school students too young to vote.

Two hours later, in contrast, the pulse rate was racing at the local Democratic headquarters as more than 70 political foot soldiers (most of them middle-aged) readied themselves for an afternoon of canvassing, phone calling and scrawling vote-for-Obama postcards to neighbors. On the sidewalk of the down-at-the-heels strip mall, Obama volunteers grilled lunchtime hamburgers and hot dogs as if this were an alcohol-free Packer tailgate party outside of Lambeau Field.

Sometimes in politics, the obvious can be more telling than the subtle. For all the glib talk about how Sarah Palin has energized the conservative base, it is hard to find evidence that the Republicans have papered over their enthusiasm gap here in Paper Valley, a moniker designating the dominant local industry in the Green Bay-Appleton area. "Our volunteer base is getting older and we're trying to turn that around, but it's not easy," concedes Tom Van Drasek, the Republican chairman of Brown County, of which Green Bay is the county seat. "McCain got started late here on the ground -- and we're struggling to catch up."

With the McCain campaign retreating from Michigan into Wisconsin (a state that John Kerry won by a paltry 11,000 votes in 2004), the Paper Valley is scorched-earth political terrain. According to the latest media-monitoring measurement by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project, the Green Bay area was sixth in the nation in terms of the number of TV spots aired during the second week in September, even though it is the 69th largest media market in the country. John McCain and Barack Obama held Green Bay rallies four days apart in mid-September. As Mark Graul, a Republican strategist who ran the 2004 Bush campaign in Wisconsin, puts it, "John McCain has to win this congressional district [the 8th] by 10 points in order to win the state." (In 2004, George W. Bush defeated Kerry by 11 points in the heavily Catholic 8th; two-thirds of the district's electorate lives in the Green Bay-Appleton area).

Dan Kanninen, the Obama campaign's Wisconsin coordinator, underscored the importance of the Democrats' organizational edge in a state where Obama swamped Hillary Clinton by a 17-percentage-point margin in the mid-February primary. "The 2004 election," he said, "was a base-versus-base election, where they turned out their base and we turned out ours. But this campaign -- and we certainly still consider our base to be important -- is more about persuasion, and that's where our neighbor-to-neighbor advantage comes in."

But if there is a worrisome sign for Obama, it is personified by undecided voters like Matt Dallaire, a 34-year-old bus driver and part-time technical-school student who lives in Allouez, just south of Green Bay. I met Dallaire at his front door Saturday morning when he was visited by two earnest Preble High School students (17-year-old Zach Howard and Geri Sundstrom, 16) canvassing for McCain.

Dallaire explained that he was attracted by McCain's "values" but repelled by the Republican nominee's support of "amnesty" for illegal aliens. Dallaire, who is worried about the Wall Street whirlpool, also said without prompting, "I think Obama would clearly be better for the economy right now." So, I asked, if you are concerned about McCain's views on immigration and tilting toward Obama on the economy, why do you still consider yourself an undecided voter? "I get a lot of e-mails saying bad stuff about Obama," answered Dallaire, as he shook his head at the memory of some of the poison-pen charges, which he declined to specify. "It's crazy stuff. And it's all probably BS. But it makes me think twice."

McCain's hopes in Wisconsin (where he has trailed in every published statewide poll since the primaries) depend on think-twice voters like Dallaire. The underlying problem is not just race, although that is obviously a factor. Rather, it is all the cultural symbols that Palin was evoking when she sneered about Obama in Colorado this weekend, "This is not a man who sees America as you and I do." Graul, who is not associated with the McCain campaign, said, "Obama won the primary against Hillary based on personality. But that was before people started hearing things about Barack Obama. Small things. [Antoin] Rezko, Obama voting 'present' on tough votes in Illinois, his pastor. For the first time in Wisconsin, people are saying, 'Wait a minute' about Obama."

Even though most Wisconsin polls show the "undecided" vote in single digits, my strong (though anecdotal) impression is that such numbers understate the uncertainty lurking among the voters. Canvassing in Suamico, north of Green Bay, with Curt Andersen, a 62-year-old Obama supporter, we spoke with a barefoot woman in her 30s, who stood at the front door simultaneously trying to control her chocolate-brown Labrador and her young son. When Andersen asked whom she was supporting for president, she replied, "I honestly don't know." Then when I pressed for more detail, a look of pure agony crossed her face as she wailed, "I don't know and I can't verbalize it."

Next page: "People can see through the distortions about Obama that will be raised -- whether it's race or whatever else will come next"