The Ground Game in Virginia

The Washington Post this morning has an interesting story on the ground game in Virginia. The McCain campaign is excited about its accomplishments in the Old Dominion:

The McCain campaign says that Virginia is its third-best state when it comes to meeting its goals for phone-calling and door-knocking. The number of voters volunteers contacted in a single week -- 130,000 -- exceeded all but one of McCain's battleground operations, a senior campaign strategist said.

The Post story leaves comparisons to the reader, but it is obvious from the story that the McCain campaign's ground game must be languishing not just in Virginia but across the country. Observes The Post:

Obama's 3,000 volunteers knocked on 262,000 doors on a recent weekend (italics mine) -- a huge number compared with the 300,000 doors that Democrats knocked on during the state's 2005 gubernatorial campaign.

Just those three facts tell us a lot about what's happening on the ground in this campaign:

1. A successful Democratic gubernatorial campaign in Virginia in 2005 partly relied on a total of 300,000 door-knocks;

2. Virginia is the Republicans' third best state for phone calls and door-knocking, and in a single week, they knocked on 130,000 doors: their second best record in the whole country.

3. Obama's volunteers in a single weekend recently knocked on 262,000 doors in Virginia.

On just one weekend, Obama almost equaled the number of door-knocks that elected Kaine governor in 2005. In a single weekend, Team Obama knocked on 50 percent more doors than Team McCain knocked on in an entire seven-day period. Be mindful that though the comparison in The Post article shows Obama in a favorable get the vote out position in Virginia, Virginia is one of McCain's two or three best operations in the whole country.

What is my takeaway message? We must redouble our efforts and try harder. We're not doing enough. We need to do more. Barack Obama for president!