Veteran Dem strategist: Obama ground game could be the decider

In the final two weeks of the presidential campaign, it’s all going to come down to ground game.

And Donnie Fowler, the Silicon Valley-based veteran Democratic strategist — and a regular on Jennifer Granholm’s Current TV show, “The War Room,” — says that he’s done a recent analysis that should make Democrats feel a little more secure in the face of those polls showing Mitt Mo.

Fowler has been an operative in Dem politics for more than two decades, where he’s worked with seven different presidential candidates; he’s well worth following on Twitter (@FowlerDonnie). Here’s Fowler’s memo on his findings:

*Total Field Offices:
Obama 3-to-1
Under the lemonade stand theory of sales, TV ads don’t deliver the lemonade, lemonade stands do. The same is true for GOTV.
USA: Obama 755 field offices / Romney 283 field offices
Ohio: Obama ~125 field offices / Romney ~40 field offices
Florida: 103 / 47
Iowa: 67 / 13
Virginia: 47 / 29

*Total Voter Contacts:
Romney 50% Increase in 5 Days?!?
Romney says they have 45M voter contacts as of 10/23. Good for them, but if you count an email as a contact, then those big numbers don’t look so good.
Door knocks matter more and they’re impressive for Romney if true: 9M door knocks.
But note that the GOP says that only five days earlier on 10/19 that they had 34M contacts and 6M door knocks. They did not increase 50% in five days. There’s a lot of desperate-feeling spin going on about field operations that combines nicely with Team Romney’s insistence that their momentum is delivering the election for them. If you gotta brag about how big your gloves are …

*Hey, Ohio, Have You Heard from a Campaign?:
Obama +7
Meanwhile, Team Obama ain’t giving out numbers of voter contacts and doors knocked. But when pollsters in Ohio asked voters if they have heard from the campaign:
Heard from Team Obama in Ohio? 36%
Heard from Team Romney in Ohio? 29%

*Early Vote:
Obama Even in Florida, 3:2 Advantage in Iowa & N.Carolina
As many as one-third of voters have cast early ballots in several battleground states and in most cases the Democrats are tied or turning in significantly more ballots than the Republicans.
Percentage of ballots requested or sent:
Florida: Republicans 41% / Democrats 40%
Iowa: Republicans 31% / Democrats 44%
N.Carolina: Republicans 32% / Democrats 48%
Ohio: a larger percentage of “Democrats” have voted early in Cuyahoga (Cleveland) than Republicans, compared to their base registration statistics.

Bottom line:
Fowler warns that “none of these voter contact and early vote numbers guarantee an Obama victory.”
But he says “in the last thirteen days, these are huge indicators of what’s really happening on the ground in the midst of massive spinning, especially by Team Romney, and which team is better prepared to drive their base out in this base turnout election.”