WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- With President George W. Bush facing what's shaping up to be a bruising re-election battle, Republican campaign operatives are focusing on setting up a formidable grass-roots machine to help prevent another general election squeaker.
In chad-jinxed Florida, state re-election officials have benefited from 12 special training sessions conducted by Bush-Cheney 2004 national and regional staff. They then conduct training sessions for more local operatives, who do the same in turn.
More sessions are on the way.
Supporters in other states -- especially swing states such as Missouri and Ohio -- are likewise being taught the ins and outs of coffee klatches, leafleting, voter registration drives, radio call-ins, door-knocking and letter writing to stoke a momentum they hope will build to a final -- and successful -- 72-hour push to victory come Nov. 2.
"We've been busy putting together a grass-roots organization because we believe the election will be close, possibly as close as 2000," campaign deputy spokesman Scott Stanzel told United Press International. "By building state leadership teams, holding training for county chairmen and precinct leaders, we hope to turn out a very good vote.
"We need people to talk to neighbors, who'll talk to others."
Stanzel said the campaign is close to hitting the century mark in training for senior leaders.
The official nerve center for the president's re-election bid is a brick-faced building in Arlington, Va., just across the street from a Metro station and a few minutes from the White House.
There are no large signs on the building, in which Bush-Cheney 2004 occupies two floors. A single guard and a receptionist sit in the campaign's waiting room behind frosted glass doors off the building lobby area.
A small sign in the lobby is the only indicator of where to find the president's re-election team offices.
They are not exactly what one would expect a political campaign headquarters to be like. It is busy, but there's still plenty of time for frenzy. Right now it's the Democrats' arena as candidates vie for their party's nomination in a series of primary contests.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a decorated Vietnam War veteran, is the front-runner and is all but officially declared the candidate. He has won 14 of 16 primary contests heading into the Tuesday primary in Wisconsin, which polls indicated he would win the bulk of the delegates. Continued challenges by populists Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean -- the man many once believed would be Bush's opponent -- keep a horse-race atmosphere going, drawing media attention.
Kerry is considered a classic Massachusetts liberal. The liberal Americans for Democratic Action advocacy group, which scores lawmakers on their voting records, even gave Kerry a 2-point lead over Sen. Ted Kennedy in voting the liberal line in the last session of Congress -- 92 percent vs. 90 percent for Kennedy.
A University of Connecticut poll of 1,121 registered voters nationwide released Tuesday put Kerry in a statistical dead heat with Bush, 46 percent to 45 percent.
"Perhaps even more impressive than the closeness of the race is the fact that only 6 percent are undecided," poll director Ken Dautrich said. "This is extraordinarily low considering that the Democratic candidate is not yet officially selected and it is nearly nine months till Election Day."
The poll, taken Feb. 12-16, once again demonstrated a key characteristic of the body politic: the polarization between those who identify themselves as Republicans or Democrats.
Other recent polls have also indicated a close race as the president's overall approval numbers hover slightly more than 50 percent.
In Bush's Arlington headquarters, it's relatively quiet and businesslike to the ear and the eye. Individuals speaking softly into their phones populate dozens of modular cubicles outfitted with televisions and decorated with Bush-Cheney 2004 signs. The low-decibel tapping of computer keyboards is constant.
But the calm belies the intensity of the activity.
"We are preparing for a time when we will engage in a more one-on-one debate," Stanzel said.
Ken Mehlman, who was Bush's political director at the White House, is in charge of the re-election effort.
"We must prepare for an election every bit as close as the 2000 election," he told Republican National Committee members last July.
Grass-roots campaigns are nothing new. The Democrats have used it successfully for years, especially with the aid of labor unions such as the AFL-CIO.
Added to the mix today, however, is the Internet -- producing official campaign sites as well conversational blogs, chat rooms and money-raising solicitations.
Republicans rolled up their sleeves on grass-roots organizing for the 2002 midterm elections, when Bush campaigned extensively for candidates and the Republicans scored gains in the House and Senate.
Former President Bill Clinton reportedly credited the GOP with doing a better job than Democrats in turning out the vote that year.
Political activists attribute no small part of that success to the final 72-hour push by Republican college students.
"College Republicans formed a large part of the 72-hour task force volunteers for the party in the 2002 elections, going out door-to-door and getting people to the polls," said Michael Krueger, executive director of the College Republican National Committee.
"I would say college Republicans are fired up to re-elect President Bush and we're going out to be a core of volunteers, we're going to make sure our fellow students are voting and we're going to help in any way we can."
College campuses are not normally associated with the word "Republican," unless it is on a protest sign.
But Harvard University's Institute of Politics, in its latest quarterly survey of the nation's college students, finds they are "significantly" more supportive of Bush than even the general public.
And although their confidence in Bush has been shaken by the faltering economy, "these highly independent voters are very much up for grabs in 2004," it said in a news release.
Results of the survey were released in October, when the president's numbers were less than stellar.
According to the study, 31 percent identified themselves as Republicans, 27 percent as Democrats and 38 percent as independent or unaffiliated. Sixty-one percent of students approved of Bush's job performance, about 10 points higher than the general public at the time.
More than two-thirds of students questioned were registered to vote, and 82 percent said they would definitely or probably cast ballots in November.
Stanzel said Republicans on campus are actively recruiting new members to join in the election fray. Republicans were visible at several major college football championships, manning booths and registering voters.
"I think you'll see that the left does have the labor unions and they haven't been all that effectively lately," Krueger said. "They certainly didn't do a lot for Howard Dean or Dick Gephardt in Iowa. The right has people like the College Republicans."
