THE GROUND GAME: OCTOBER 15th
October 15th, 2008, 11:17 am · Post a Comment · posted by Dan Lehr
Early Voting Shows Voter Surge in Georgia
From Politico’s Ben Smith :
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported recently on disproportionate early voting among African-Americans. Georgia doesn’t appear to be in play in the presidential election, but it tracks early votes contemporaneously (and online ), so it may be a useful bellwether for what’s happening elsewhere.
If it is, the news continues to be extremely good for Obama. Early vote totals have now reached 499,582 — more than 75,000 more than were cast early in all of 2004, according to Matt Carrothers, a spokesman for the Secretary of State. (The state is also newly encouraging early voting this year, so that’s a major factor in the overall increase.)
Most striking: The ratio of African-American voters remains extremely high. 37% of the early votes were cast by black voters, who make up just 29% of the state’s electorate.
& what about early-voting patterns in other states? Click here to see early voting turnout in North Carolina, New Mexico, Ohio, & Indiana.
BY THE WAY,
I had hoped to provide an account of some Obama supporters spending the night outside the Hamilton County Election Commission.
A shame that there ultimately wasn’t a story.
I think I can speak for most of us in the local media when I say that we don’t like getting played.
yet that’s exactly what several of my colleagues who covered the event last night felt was happening; as soon as the 11pm live shot cameras & lights went off, the supposed "campers" who would be "first in line" when early voting began on Thursday actually got into their cars & drove off, leaving only a handful of people. & when I say handful of people, I’m led to believe that’s more like "4 or 5." This morning when we went back to the scene our crew counted two (2) tents.
So local Obama (& all other campaigns’) staffers, please take my advice for the future:
Either do what you promise to do in your news release, or don’t bother sending out a news release at all.
You deserve any ridicule you hear about this today.
