Scenes from the ground game

Twenty houses in four hours. That's what Barack Obama volunteer Maria Logsdon hits every weekend, knocking on doors in the suburbs north of Denver.

In a finicky state that polls show could go either way, both Obama and John McCain supporters are kicking their ground efforts into overdrive.

"People are really excited, but they need that personal visit to get their support," said Logsdon, 44, an occupational therapist who visits Hispanic households on Obama's behalf each weekend because she speaks Spanish.

The McCain camp, meanwhile, was at a recent Chile & Frijoles Festival in Pueblo, and supporters say they're working phone banks and churches and making door-to-door visits to build Hispanic support.

"It's neighbor-to-neighbor personal contacts that are going to win this thing," McCain spokesman Tom Kise said. "We're making some inroads there."

-By Kristin Wyatt.

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Dale Lehrer, of the northern Milwaukee suburb of Grafton, is a lifelong Republican who has come to regret her vote for President Bush's re-election in 2004. Lehrer, 55, switched sides this election and is spending 20 hours a week hosting events and canvassing for the Obama campaign.

Some of her Republican friends thought she was joking at first. Her own husband, a Republican who won't tell her who he's supporting, "thinks I'm a fanatic," she said.

"There's no way we're going to win Ozaukee County," Lehrer admits, "but from a percentage standpoint we'll probably blow them out of the water from what we've had historically."

Republicans concede that Obama's campaign is doing more to target voters in the Wisconsin suburbs than did previous Democrats, but they say they are confident that McCain will do just as well as Bush in the area.

"I just keep telling them, 'Spend your money. Knock yourself out,'" Republican state Sen. Ted Kanavas says of the Obama campaign. "The bottom line is the Republican Party is fine in Waukesha County. It's invigorated."

-By Ryan J. Foley.

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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - A bad political dream motivated Clifford Rees to become a campaign foot soldier in the presidential battleground state of New Mexico.

A retired state worker, Rees vividly recalls dreaming that he awoke on Nov. 5 - the day after the general election - and experienced "that same sinking feeling that I had after the general elections in 2000 and 2004, that my candidate had lost. Only this time I realized I could do more, that I needed to get off my couch."

Rees, a 56-year-old retired lawyer, has walked door to door on Barack Obama's behalf, talking to people in the Santa Fe area about why he supports the Illinois senator. He's worked on the campaign's phone bank operation - calling potential voters to urge them to cast a ballot for Obama.

Republican John McCain's campaign has 10 offices in the state to Obama's 39. But his staffers say they don't need to match Obama's network to run effective voter persuasion and get-out-the-vote operations.

"We have hundreds of volunteers reaching out to voters per week through phone banking and door knocking," says Ivette Barajas, a spokeswoman for McCain's campaign. "We also have various coalitions, like Vets for McCain, Women for McCain, Students for McCain that provide outreach to specific voters to help get out why Sen. McCain understands the issues that matter most to them."

-By Barry Massey.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Voters who are young or African-American or who sat out the last few elections had never been more sought after as the campaign hits its last weeks in Ohio.

Meghan McCain, the 24-year-old daughter of the Republican nominee, visited voters in rural central Ohio. Obama sent music mogul Russell Simmons to rally voters in urban centers of Columbus and Cleveland. And NBA star LeBron James - the closest thing Ohio has to a sports saint - joined Obama's campaign as a pitchman.

"It's all about getting young people to understand how important it is to vote. This is a time that could be life-changing for a lot of people," said James, who campaigned for Obama in his native Akron.

Both campaigns are using the biggest megaphones they can find to build on past years' models. Republicans still plan to carry rural areas; Democrats want to run up big numbers in the state's urban centers.

But both are attempting to go past that.

Obama's Ohio campaign is playing in areas that don't normally get campaign staff. His massive neighbor-to-neighbor program reaches goes into rural areas and traditionally Republican areas. The Democrats have a satellite office within 42 miles of every Ohio resident. All told, Obama's 300-person-plus staff in 79 Ohio offices is twice the size of John Kerry's in 2004, aides said.

Obama's campaign is forcing McCain's to spend time in areas once thought reliably Republican. Luckily for McCain's workers, the Ohio GOP has long organized the state with a groundgame that never truly shuts down after elections. The grass-roots volunteers remain engaged, and the state and county parties keep tabs on them.

McCain is running a leaner campaign, but the Republican National Committee's collaborative Victory Committee is supplementing those efforts. McCain has 40 Ohio offices, but they're open far fewer hours and have far fewer paid staff.

"The groundwork had been there for years. That gave us a good foundation through the dog days of summer," said Jon Seaton, McCain's aide tasked with running Ohio and Pennsylvania. "In other states, creating the infrastructure was a lift. We could get right into it here."

-By Philip Elliott