OBAMA on Ground Game: "Let’s see how this baby runs."

Obama Battles Block by Block to Get Voters to Polls

Lukas McGowan, left, focuses on getting voters out for Barack Obama.
“Once we register them,” he says, “that’s only half the job.”

FALLS CHURCH, Va. — Lukas McGowan was sitting in an old barber’s chair, a cellphone pressed to his ear, as he contemplated a critical assignment for the closing chapter of the presidential campaign: the ground game.

The most pressing matter inside this field office for Senator Barack Obama was not the next debate or the latest scorching exchange with Senator John McCain, but getting every possible voter to the polls. As Mr. McGowan surveyed an assembly line of activity, a more immediate question popped into his mind: Have all the spots been filled in the 6 to 8 p.m. shift for walking neighborhood precincts?

“When we identify sporadic voters, we want to go back to their house until they can’t stand us anymore,” said Mr. McGowan, 23, who oversees the Obama operation in Fairfax County, which is Virginia’s largest. With a smile, he added, “As long as we’re kind and respectful.”

If the primary race was an experiment in building the capacity of the Obama organization, the general election will show whether a political campaign can change the electoral map.

snip
“We’ve been designing and we’ve been engineering and we’ve been at the drawing board and we’ve been tinkering,” Mr. Obama said. “Now, it’s time to just take it for a drive. Let’s see how this baby runs.”

...2 page article http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/us/politics/12ground.html