By Dylan Matthews
There's been a lot of concerned talk among Obama supporters lately about how the presidential race is closer than it ought to be given the fundamentals (unpopular incumbent, awful economy), which is usually followed by fretting over the possibility of a McCain victory. I've never been convinced by this argument, not just because every electoral projection shows Obama with a fairly comfortable lead, but because Obama has a much better ground game than McCain. He has three field offices for every one of McCain's, many more organizers on payroll, and, most importantly, a 35 to one advantage in voter contacts.
Sean Quinn has a great piece over at FiveThirtyEight.com putting that last number in perspective. A voter contact is made every time a campaign worker or volunteer interacts with a voter, whether by canvassing, phone-banking, or other means, and gains information about their leanings on the race. It's an excellent indicator of how much organizing is actually being done by a campaign, and the Obama organization has taken it to an entirely higher level. As Sean puts it, of the presidential campaigns, "One is an NFL team and the other is now a high school JV team."
