Democracy's foot soldiers
(sptimes.com)
Updated: 2004-11-02 09:15

Throngs of get-out-the-vote activists have widely divergent backgrounds and beliefs, but similar intensity.

A sight that should make any supporter of President Bush queasy: more than 40 vans aligned off Cypress Street in Tampa. These are the Hillsborough County vehicles for America Coming Together, the Democratic group that by Tuesday will have at least 10,000 canvassers spread across Florida mobilizing voters.

Likewise, a queasy sight for Democrats: 300 volunteers lining up at a sterile office complex near Clearwater, eager to start knocking on doors on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign. They were part of the first wave of 102,000 Republican ground troops expecting to knock on more than 1-million Florida doors between last Thursday and Election Day.

The contest in America's largest battleground state will be won or lost on the ground, and never has Florida seen get-out-the-vote campaigns as massive as what started this weekend across the state. Both sides boast ground organizations exponentially bigger than anything they've ever fielded.

What's more striking than the staggering numbers of foot soldiers tapping on doors, delivering voters to the polls and making phone call after phone call is the intensity of those involved.

Whether it's Christian conservatives pounding the pavement in Port Richey, Unitarians from Washington, D.C., knocking on doors of farmworkers in rural Hillsborough County, or stay-at-home moms phoning voters in Brandon, the state is brimming with first-time political activists who passionately believe the future of the country rests on what happens on Tuesday.

In Tampa: Leather for Kerry

With his slight Southern accent, Gil Curry addresses most everyone he meets as "sir" or "ma'am." Never active in politics, the retired phone company executive became so disturbed by the war in Iraq that he took to painting antiwar slogans on his Jetta and parking in downtown Tampa.

Now he has one of the most satisfying and least efficient duties of the grass roots campaign for Sen. John Kerry. Curry drives people to the polls who can't get there themselves. With early voting lines often stretching well over an hour, he's lucky if he can bank seven Kerry votes in a single day.

He rented a big Lincoln with leather seats, "because I felt people ought to feel they are as important as their vote."

Juan and Idalia Cardoso, Cuban immigrants who became citizens five years ago, received a brochure on their doorknob offering transportation to vote. They were thrilled when Curry picked them up at home in Town 'N Country.

"Thank you, thank you so much for this," Idalia Cardoso said, before forgetting Curry's name and referring to him as "our friend."

The Cardosos are seniors who often traveled back to Cuba; they're disgusted by President Bush's new restrictions on sending money and traveling to their native country. But they were Democrats anyway, as Mr. Cardoso made clear scanning the lengthy sample ballot while on line at a library.

"What we will do," he told Curry, "Kerry and all other Democrats."

"Well sir," Curry responded sheepishly. "I would say you should really pick the best person."

In Port Richey: Christian outreach

Above the paintball and flooring shops in an aging U.S. 19 strip center, dozens of volunteers are buzzing. They're folding Christian Coalition voter guides to distribute (though such guides are not supposed to be connected to any campaigns), studying precinct maps, working the phones and tearing into sandwiches and donuts.

Veteran volunteer Dori Mitchell, a bubbly resident of the upscale Trinity development, was surprised to see so many new faces last Thursday. She grabbed a sandwich, for the protein, and tossed the carb-laden bread. Before long, she hopped into one of the six newly arrived vans to start pounding the pavement in the Orchid Lakes subdivision.

"I'm a volunteer working on behalf of President Bush. If you'd like to have your absentee ballot picked up and returned for you, you can call the Republican headquarters," she chirped after finally finding someone home on her list of addresses.

Jerri Cooper explained she was firmly behind Bush but had not ordered an absentee ballot. So Mitchell gave her the address of a nearby early voting site "to help President Bush carry a big lead coming into election day."

By every name on Mitchell's list are notations like 0/1 or 1/5, designating how many times in the last few elections that person has voted. Like many of her Democratic counterparts, she is targeting Republicans who often fail to make it to the polls.

This is Mitchell's first campaign. She is a Coast Guard wife who home schooled her teenage son.

"This election is different than any that we've had before. To me, it is a spiritual battle," she said. "Right now this country is 180 degrees from where it should be. You've got stem cell research, gay marriage. Abortion is not the sole issue any more."

All the military families she knows are firmly behind Bush, but as she walked past a Kerry-Edwards yard sign, she acknowledged, "I'm scared poopless. ... I know Christians in my own church who are going with Kerry. I'm like, "How could you possibly do that? What's wrong with you?"'

Statewide: Opposite approaches

The Bush-Cheney operation is an Amwaylike enterprise, driven from national headquarters in Virginia and issuing precinct by precinct targets and goals to local volunteers. They've been training and building for these frenzied final days for a year.

The Democratic grass roots efforts are decentralized and often redundant. There's the Kerry-Edwards campaign, with tens of thousands of volunteers and twice as many full-time staffers as the Bush campaign in Florida; on top of that are assorted Democratic groups operating independently of Kerry-Edwards and spending millions to mobilize liberal voters.

In 2000, Republicans met every ambitious target in Florida but were stunned by Democratic turnout. They ramped up their grass roots efforts to unprecedented levels in 2002 and even higher this election.

Bush-Cheney knocked on 75,000 doors in Florida in 2000; this year, they expect to top 1-million.

"I think they did catch up to where we were in 2000," senior Kerry adviser Tad Devine said of the Republicans. "What they didn't anticipate was how much farther we'd be able to go."

Republicans historically have headed into election day significantly leading Democrats in Florida because of their strong advantage in absentee voting. Not this year. For the first time all 67 counties opened voting locations two weeks before election day.

By Saturday more than 1.8-million Floridians had voted; at least one poll found Democrats leading heavily in early votes.

In Tampa: Muslims switch sides

Four years ago, the crowd leaving Ramadan services at the Islamic Society of Tampa Bay was ripe for Republicans. Bush overwhelmingly won over Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans; they account for roughly 120,000 votes in a state Bush won by 537 four years ago.

The scene Friday offered a stark reminder of how much has changed with this socially conservative electorate. After services, buses drove some 70 worshipers to early voting sites, offering sheets of candidate recommendations that amounted to nearly straight Democratic tickets.

"This is life and death," Saleh Mubarek, a Bush supporter in 2000 who now backs Kerry, said as he left services. "The most fundamental things in this country - freedom and civil liberties - are threatened right now."

Over and over, the Tampa Muslims said they fretted about the Patriot Act and how American authorities have targeted them for suspicion since Sept. 11. In get-out-the-vote phone banking, the Council on American-Islamic Relations is finding more than 80 percent support for Kerry, a virtual reversal of how area Muslims are believed to have voted in 2000.

"I have a bad feeling about this election," Yudebsy Aissam said as she waited on the bus to vote early, citing drug costs, the economy and resolving the war in Iraq as her top priorities. "I am afraid they will try everything in their power to get President Bush back in power."

In Wimauma: Unitarians and farmworkers

"It might be better for you to vote today. If you go to the Ruskin library you can vote this afternoon," Patrick Earle, a Unitarian Universalist Church member from Washington D.C., told a voter in Wimauma Saturday, switching between Spanish and English.

Earle is a high school teacher volunteering with the Florida Consumer Action Network Foundation, which has about 1,000 people mobilizing minorities and infrequent voters in 333 targeted Florida precincts.

Officially, it's a nonpartisan organization whose workers never directly recommend a specific candidate. In practical terms, it's a Democratic group targeting voters deemed likely to vote against Bush.

That's not always predictable.

"I had been leaning to Kerry, but I saw some TV ads, and I don't think they would lie," Claudia Garcia said, thanking the FCAN volunteers for the early voting information. "The ads said Kerry was not present during important votes. I'm still sort of deciding, but that bothers me."

Down the street, FCAN organizer Renata Lana met Lori Eck, a retiree not on the targeted voting list. Eck voted for Bush in 2000 but was eager to help canvassers trying to elect Kerry.

"He's not good to look at, but I'll tell you what, he's tough, and he's smart and unlike Bush he listens," Mrs. Eck said of Kerry. "I have never in my life been so impassioned about an election. If Bush wins again, I don't know we're going to do, because nothing will change. I just pray that the Lord handles this."

In Clearwater: Phoning for Bush

Even the true believers working phones at the central Pinellas Republican headquarters acknowledge that if bumper stickers and yard signs decided the election, Kerry would win their swing county in a landslide. But signs and stickers won't decide it; people like Tara Scully might.

"I'm a volunteer calling on behalf of the Bush campaign to let you know you don't have to wait until election day to vote," she said into her phone. "You can avoid the long lines and secure a win for President Bush."

After months of nonstop TV ads and phone calls, people are getting less patient with phone bankers. But Scully, a bookstore cafe manager, wants to make sure that if Kerry becomes president, she'll be able to say she did everything in her power to beat him.

"Our security is at stake. You're looking at Osama bin Laden on TV threatening the United States of America," and picturing President Kerry in these times "scares the daylights out of me. My fear is indecision, and not knowing what to do and going to Ted Kennedy for advice."

She picked up her phone and returned to the urgent work at hand.

"Hi, I'm a volunteer for President Bush ..."

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