Democrats unveil midterm election get-out-the-vote effort
Washington (CNN) - The Democratic National Committee announced details Thursday of a new addition to their get-out-the-vote efforts, which includes a website and a focus on recruiting new voters for the midterm election.
Democratic leaders vowed to spend $50 million, which they describe as an unprecedented sum, for their "Vote 2010" efforts, which include the unveiling of a new "Raise Your Vote" campaign.
Party officials say the new campaign is specifically geared toward making voting registration and getting information about voting as easy as possible for people in any state across the country to access. DNC staffers say this is the first-ever comprehensive voting information and registration hub ever housed at the party headquarters.
"Also unprecedented is the idea that when our organizers hit the doors to register voters and turn them out they will have already built a relationship with them over the last year and a half," said Mitch Stewart, director of Organizing for America, the political arm for President Obama. "This won't be the first time our organizers will have met with the pastor at the local church or the commander at the local VFW post. We're hitting the ground running."
OFA, which was the original infrastructure for Obama's presidential campaign, is now housed at the DNC.
Officials said the plan is to use on-line and traditional campaign tools to combat the usual drop-off in voting from presidential elections to the midterms. The decline is often predominant among key Democratic constituencies such as African-Americans, Hispanics and younger voters, all of which voted in large numbers for then-Sen. Obama in the 2008 presidential election.
Making matters more difficult for the Democratic majority is the tough political climate for incumbents. Since the Democrats control the White House, and have more congressional incumbents the political winds are likely to favor Republicans in November.
"We've decided to make the unprecedented commitment, not just in terms of dollars but also manpower and technology, because what we know is when we expand the pool we win," said Hari Sevugan, the DNC communications director. "While we know this won't be a panacea to the historical head winds we are facing, turning out these new voters will help at the margins and can make that 2 or 3 point difference needed in close races this fall."
Also making things tough for the DNC is that surveys suggest Republicans are more excited about voting this year than Democrats. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted last month indicated that more than half of all registered voters, who consider themselves Republicans, are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting this year; with only a third of registered Democrats feeling that way.
Paul Steinhauser on Twitter: @psteinhausercnn
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We got rid of Dole in NC, and we'll get rid of Burr in NC. Two republicans on the dole for corporations.
Vote NO to the party of NO.
Hopefully the Dimwits will run on their "achievements" over the last 16 months! To call this Congress an unmitigated disaster would be much too nice...throw these bums out in November!
They can call it the "Show Me The Money Campaign" paid for by somebody else.....
Yeah, their slogan should be vote for the demorats so they can spend your great grandchildren's money not just your childrens and grandchildren's.
Don't worry democrats we the thinking people in this country are with you, I will personally be voting democrat across the board, I am a independent but after Mr. Barton's remark, what is going on in NJ with Governor The Bully Chrisite who I voted for, and the tea party glamour boy Rand Paul, I will be voting democrat come November.
if we stick togeather we can pull this off unlike the repos who are busy fighting among themselves. Hope the tea baggers keep interfearing
I wonder how much money the DNC will funnel to MTV and its various vote (democrat) campaigns?
It seems like the repos continue to make racist remarks about our president. This is going to blow up in their faces. The democratic party as a whole has always been for people. the middle class reguardless of your race or religion. It is disgusting the remarks made by some of our officals and talk show people about the office of president and even about his family. Wake up America. Democrats stick togeather. Do I like all of them ? No. But look at the choice. The repos have not done one thing in the last two years but say No and tear down this president and this country. The tea baggers want to take the country back. From what? Over half of us voted this administration in . Are they saying we are unpatriotic and ruining the country. We will have no rights at all if the repos win. No free choice . They will tellus how we can worship and who we can marry and what language we can speak and what schools we can attend and the books we can read. Check out some of the red states and see the laws they have passed in the last few years reguarding education and relegion.
The Democrats mid-term get out the vote effort? I believe you unveiled it earlier with the article about more stimulus money being spent.
I think a significant portion of the Democrats' strategy for this election should be on the Party of "NO" and how the GOP is wasting taxpayer money on their salaries by doing nothing whatsoever to contribute to the solutions we all need. So far it's only been the Democrats who are earning their paychecks.
And George Soros is saying to the DNC: "who's your daddy"!