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From Page One democrats from A1


YELP.com and DailyCandy. On Thursday, the 2008 presi- dential campaign’s surviving grassroots operation, now Orga- nizing for America, unveiled a spiffy Web site where supporters can get customized information about voting rules and deadlines in their states. It takes but a few keystrokes to fill in a voter regis- tration form that then requires only a signature and a stamp. But for all the wizardry, what the Democrats don’t have is a can- didate on the ballot named Oba- ma. Instead, they face a political climate in which hope and exhil- aration has given way to anger and disappointment. To the de- gree there is enthusiasm now, polls show, it is largely on the Re- publican side. There does not seem to be a similar effort within the GOP. A spokesman would not discuss its operations and scoffed at the bet that Democrats are making this year. “When that announcement was made, it just wasn’t taken very credibly,” says Republican National Committee spokesman Doug Heye. “Those voters just aren’t going to be there this time.” He’s not alone in thinking that. Some veteran Democratic Party


operatives are also skeptical that the $50 million investment will pay off — except, perhaps, in keep- ing the grassroots operation alive for Obama’s reelection bid two years from now. Some even sug- gest that the president’s team has put his long-term interests ahead of his party’s immediate struggle for survival. “I have zero confidence that


they’re heading in the right direc- tion here,” says one longtime Democratic organizer who didn’t want to be quoted by name crit- icizing his party’s major midterm election initiative. Added an- other: “I think they’re going to come in for a very rude awak- ening. It’s going to be brutal.” If that turns out to be the case, the doubters say, Democrats will wake up the morning of Nov. 3 wishing they had spent that $50 million on more traditional methods, like television ads, for reaching their base and persuad- ing independents. Rick Farmer, a Democratic ac- tivist in Sarasota, Fla., is seeing the challenge firsthand as he knocks on doors in a region where people are dreading the arrival of the effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on their beaches. “I can’t tell you how much anger there is out there,” he said. “I have people ready to spit in my face.” Some, he said, tell him, “We’ve been hood- winked — not by Obama, but by government.” In Mobile, Ala., Organizing for America volunteer Darlene Gay- Allen blares the Dells’ “I’m Only a Man” from her boombox as she registers voters and tries to per- suade her neighbors not to lose faith. “President Obama is only a man, and he’s doing the best he could,” she said. Last year’s Democratic guber-


natorial losses in Virginia and New Jersey only increased the doubts that Obama’s magic can rub off on other Democrats. Although the president stumped for the party’s nominees in both states, voter falloff was sharper than typical for an off- year election. Several private post-election analyses, which Democrats and their allies are us- ing to plan their campaign strat- egies, showed that the decline was particularly steep among African Americans, Hispanics and, espe- cially, younger voters. “There wasn’t a real effort to ex- cite them,” counters Democratic National Committee Chairman Timothy M. Kaine, the former Vir- ginia governor. “The effort in Vir- ginia was to go after independent voters, but we ended up losing out on the group of Democrats and Democratic-leaning folks who had turned out in 2008.” Party officials concede that


their efforts to remotivate the new Obama voters are not likely to af- fect contests where Democrats are running far behind. But they insist it is not unreasonable to be- lieve they can make a difference in races that will be decided by two to four percentage points. In Pennsylvania, for instance,


Gov. Ed Rendell — himself a for- mer national Democratic Party chairman — notes that Democrats now outnumber Republicans in voter registration by 1.3million, an advantage nearly three times larger than when he ran for gover- nor in 2002. “They are motivate- able,” Rendell said of newer Dem-


on washingtonpost.com


Get the whole story at PostPolitics


Check out all the political news of the day from The


Fix, Federal Eye, 44 and the other usual suspects. postpolitics.com


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ocratic voters. “Can you motivate all 100 percent of them? No. Can you motivate 20 percent of them? Yes.” How much higher it goes than that, Rendell said, “will de- cide whether we win or lose.” The party plans to embark on a massive new program this fall to register college students, includ- ing many who volunteered for Obama as high school students but were too young to vote. It is working barbershops and


Newcomers courted in D.C. mayoral race


A lot of Democrats have registered to vote in the city since the 2006 race, and that makes them a force to be reckoned with in the Fenty-Gray primary showdown. C1


beauty salons in African Amer- ican communities, and organiz- ing events around the World Cup to reach out to Latinos. Every Wednesday in California, party organizers and volunteers attend


naturalization ceremonies. But what will matter more than


anything else, many Democrats say, is Obama himself. How effec- tive will he be in convincing those who came to the polls for the first


time in 2008 that this election is crucial to accomplishing what he promised then? “It is very important to make


that case to these voters and that the president be involved in it as well. And he will be at points along the way,” Kaine said. “The president is definitely signed into this plan. He likes the communi- ty-organizing aspect of it.” So the party will try things his


way.


A5 Democrats spend big in hopes of luring Obama’s first-time voters


Has Obama indeed reinvent- ed the art and science of win- ning elections, or will 2008 turn out to have been a unique mo- ment that suited the particular gifts of one politician? The Dem- ocrats are about to lay down $50 million to find out. tumultyk@washpost.com


Staff writers Sandhya Somashekhar and polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.


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