Obama's funds, organizing give key edge

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- If spending big dollars and investing in voter mobilization can win this election, Sen. Barack Obama will do so in a landslide. The huge organizational and financial advantages that the Republicans have enjoyed in so many elections over the past 40 years are being held by the Democrats in overwhelming force this time around.

This did not happen overnight: The voter-registration efforts of MoveOn.org and the financial support of George Soros, as well as the remarkable success in Internet fundraising by Democratic candidates former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in the 2004 election were far from enough to beat President George W. Bush, with most Americans still feeling confident in their prosperity. But they still helped the generally hapless Kerry win more than 59 million votes.

Obama has invested his hopes heavily in the ACORN organization -- and the Obama campaign has put $800,000 in tangible cash into it too. There is no doubt the ACORN voter-registration drive is a massive one, but it is already caught up in a hurricane of controversy.

ACORN claims to have enrolled a highly impressive 1.3 million new voters. Critics charge the real figure is around 400,000, less than one-third that.

ACORN has become, like Soros in the 2004 campaign, an object of hate and accusation on the conservative right. It is a matter of record that criminal investigations for voter-registration fraud against ACORN are already under way in 14 states.

Obama was even able to buy 30 minutes of prime time for an ambitious infomercial on most U.S. television networks Wednesday night. Even the money-raising machine of Karl Rove and his K Street connection never managed to do that for the Republicans.

The infomercial ran as public sentiment, at least according to some highly respected polls, was tilting back toward Obama. The daily Zogby tracking poll taken Wednesday before the infomercial aired showed Obama rising a full 1.1 percentage point in a single day, with Republican candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., falling by an identical amount.

"The race now stands with Obama at 50.2 percent, compared to 43.3 percent for McCain. Another 6.5 percent said they are either undecided or favor another candidate," pollster John Zogby said.

Obama's financial resources are quite literally limitless. Very large sums appear to be coming from outside the country, possibly from Middle East sources. If annualized, the Obama campaign's ad spending on the presidential -- that is to say, the post-primary -- campaign would come to $750 million, according to CNN -- an amount only exceeded among large corporations such as Verizon and AT&T.

Analyst Tim Carney, writing in the Evans-Novak Political Report newsletter Wednesday, concluded that this well-funded organizational edge may well prove decisive.

"The key for Obama is not exactly his enthusiasm edge -- that helps, and has important trickle-down effects on congressional and Senate contests -- but his organizational advantage. In states like Virginia, Obama has dozens of field offices, all with paid staff. This is the case in all swing-able states," he wrote.

Carney's assessment, when published on the conservative Human Events Web site, provoked some angry "shoot the messenger" comments. But he also pointed out that the race is not yet over and that even with Obama's organizational advantage, there were reasons to suggest that the high voter-registration expectations factored in by pollsters as a Democrat advantage may underperform in reality, as they have so often before.

"The election is still winnable for McCain. Remember that pollsters are factoring into their results an assumed higher black turnout and higher youth turnout than normal," Carney wrote.

"Also, remember that Republican voters -- especially this year, with Democratic politicians attributing opposition to Obama to racism or redneck prejudice -- are far coyer about answering pollsters."

Having said that, it takes a lot of faith -- or wishful thinking -- for Republicans to still ardently believe in a McCain victory. Important North Carolina -- a Republican stronghold in 2004 -- is a case in point. Last week Obama had 45 statewide offices operating there, as opposed to only 30 for McCain. Ad spending in the state was running 3-to-1 for Obama, and the early voting returns were 2-to-1 for him.

"With less than a week to go, today's numbers are not a good development for McCain," Zogby warned. "There is no momentum for him, and the clock is starting to run short."

According to Zogby, Obama now even "holds about one in five conservatives." However, the pollster concluded, "Six days, including Election Day, is an eternity and McCain cannot be counted out yet, though he may need a wing and a prayer."