US: Democrats and Republicans are using sophisticated methods to mobilise their vote, writes Dan Balz in St Paul, Minnesota
It may seem like a distant memory now, but Democrats not so long ago dominated the battle between the parties to get their voters to the polls.
Over the past six years, Republicans reinvented the system, using sophisticated computer modelling and vast amounts of consumer data. In 2002 and 2004, they demonstrated their newfound superiority, to the dismay of Democratic Party officials and their allies.
"It's no secret that the other side figured this out a little sooner," said Josh Syrjamaki, state director of America Votes, an umbrella organisation of labour and liberal interest groups.
"They've had four to six years' jump on us on this stuff . . . but we feel like we can start to catch up. I guess we'll find out in about a month and a half how much we've caught up."
On a blustery afternoon in their office suite, Syrjamaki and Ed Coleman, technology director for the Minnesota chapter of America Votes, were hunched over a laptop, teasing out information that Democrats hope will begin to narrow the sizable gap with the Grand Old Party (GOP).
The laptop linked them to a huge new database that holds the names, addresses, voting histories and consumer preferences of every Minnesota resident eligible, though not necessarily registered, to vote.
That's a weapon which allows them to identify, locate, contact and turn out likely Democratic voters who have been largely invisible to them in the past.
Campaigns and candidates once used blunt instruments to mobilise voters, targeting geographic areas where there were concentrations of Democratic or Republican voters.
Those techniques remain an essential part of the turnout wars that can decide a close election. Increasingly, however, campaigns have begun identifying potential voters literally one by one, even if they live in areas dominated by the opposition party.
Using surveys and modelling, consumer and political data, the parties convert the electorate into subgroups that turnout specialists call by names like "Flag and Family Republicans", "Education-Focused Democrats" and "Older Suburban Newshounds".
This is known as microtargeting, and it turns traditional political mobilising on its head by giving campaigns the opportunity to create virtual precincts of voters and poach on the opponent's turf.
With the click of a mouse, a Democratic campaign operative can call up a list - and accompanying map - identifying by name and address voters who may live in a Republican precinct or county but who, by virtue of ideology, party identification, religion or favourite drink are more likely to vote Democrat.
In 2004, the biggest jump in GOP votes came in non-GOP precincts, according to former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie.
These voters are often difficult to motivate, but both parties see them as critically important additions to the reliable voters they have concentrated on in the past.
"It's a heavier lift, but we're now going to find them, whereas before we never even talked to them," said Karen White, national political director for Emily's List, which backs Democratic women who support abortion rights. "Now we're in the game."
The Republicans have attracted attention to their microtargeting skills by emphasising the importance of consumer information in predicting voting patterns - Republicans prefer bourbon, for instance, while Democrats prefer gin.
Such lifestyle information is helpful in tailoring messages for voters, though party identification or frequency of church attendance remain more reliable indications of how someone is likely to vote.
Harold Ickes, a driving force behind outside efforts to put Democrats back in the game, said Republicans have two clear advantages over the Democrats. First is a deeper and richer database, which improves the GOP's ability to "model the electorate" - the term for identifying and classifying different voter blocs - and to tailor messages to individual voters. Second is a trained staff who know how to make use of the databases.
Ickes is president of Catalist, which is creating a national voter file that will be available for purchase by an array of special interest groups and political campaigns - including 2008 presidential candidates.
The firm's budget for the year, Ickes says, is "in the low $9 million (€7.14 million) range", and so far Catalist has produced voter files for about half of the states, including the important 2006 battlegrounds. Ickes says the firm's customers the Service Employees International Union and Emily's List.