My Alma Mater doesn't have much of a ground game...

...but Barack Obama sure does.

For those of you loyal readers who don't work in politics and have never worked on a campaign, consider yourselves lucky. A political cycle is like the Hobbesian state of nature; solitary, poor, nasty, and brutish. The only difference is that instead of being short, it is long. Ungodly long.

The worst part of any campaign is field work. "Field" is shorthand for knocking door-to-door, making phone calls, registering and identifying voters, and generally persuading them to (a) show up on election day, and (b) vote for your guy/gal. It isn't glamorous, but it is vital.

Remember a couple of months ago when the McCain camp ran their series of "Paris Hilton" ads? The polls narrowed, and people asked "why isn't Obama fighting back? Shouldn't he be running tons of ads to counter this? What the hell is he DOING with his money?"

This is what he was doing with his money:


From all accounts, the Obama campaign has put more money into field operations than any campaign in history. But the more important part is that he organized EVERYWHERE, not just the traditional battlegrounds. Any idiot would have open offices in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. But Indiana, North Carolina and Missouri? The latest rumors report that Obama has 25 offices open in Indiana. McCain has... none. No offices. Until recently, the "Indiana for McCain" staff operated out of Michigan. He's reportedly moving staffers to the Hoosier state, but they only have a month to organize a state-wide voter identification and mobilization effort.

Now that we're 31 days out, it's becoming clear which states are really "in play". Had the Obama folks not organized in North Carolina, they would have to dump probably a million dollars into media buys. But because they organized there, they can just throw a few extra tens of thousands of dollars to bolster the GOTV ("Get Out The vote") efforts. It's a much cheaper alternative, which also doesn't preclude additional media buys.

Long story short, Obama is in a position to exploit states that traditional campaigns couldn't. And McCain had a much tougher time getting momentum in those same states because he's just starting up there.