The Democratic National Committee will have a test version of its micro-targeting models available in only half a dozen states; the basic GOP system has been in place nationwide since the campaigns began.
"We are not where we need to be," says Maren Hesla, who handles voter outreach for Emily's List, a liberal group that is part of a coalition helping Democrats develop more sophisticated grass-roots operations, including micro-targeting, in about two dozen states.
Hesla insists that her party "will have enough going on in enough key states to surprise people about what we are able to accomplish."
The question is whether it will be enough to help Democrats achieve a breakthrough victory.
So serious do some Democratic leaders consider the technology gap that they have begun devising their own separate systems, especially for House and Senate races.
"It's every man for himself," said Donna Brazile, a longtime party strategist who managed Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign and is now working to unite party leaders behind a strategy for translating favorable opinion polls into victories.
Brazile, like Hesla, says she sees positive developments for Democrats, but she also worries that the party is behind.
Although micro-targeting may seem like inside baseball, activists in both parties say that the methods and technology Rove and others pioneered may revolutionize campaigns. They predict the new techniques will become as crucial in future campaigns as opinion polling -- virtually unheard of in congressional races four decades ago -- is today.
"The revolutionary change here is that Republicans ... are going after voters as individuals, as opposed to a census tract or a media market," says Harold Ickes, a Democratic Party strategist.
Campaigns traditionally relied on geography or other broad indicators to target voters. Democrats, for example, would blanket predominantly African American neighborhoods because those populations had historically supported Democrats. Republicans would focus on suburbs, which were historically Republican.
Such targeting was far from precise. And many of the old targeting assumptions are less true now. Some suburbs have become more liberal as jobs spread beyond the central city. And enough African American voters peeled away from Democrat John F. Kerry in 2004 for Bush to retain the presidency.
