In Ohio, Obama's ground game outguns McCain's

But on Friday night, only nine volunteers manned the 24 phones in the McCain campaign office. The phone bank began operating on a daily basis just two weeks ago. And only five people have shown up on most weekdays since then to canvas local neighborhoods.

Obama's campaign, in contrast, has flooded this Republican bastion with volunteers. Some canvassers first hit the winding streets of nearby subdivisions in March during the Democratic primary, and they have worked almost nonstop ever since in search of supporters.

Ohio is a battleground in the presidential race, and here's the view on the front line: McCain's get-out-the-vote operation has struggled to build momentum, and it appears outgunned by Obama's.

Both campaigns have mobilized armies of volunteers and paid staff for the final push across the state, and both claim their efforts to target likely voters are more sophisticated and more efficient than in 2004. In that contest, President Bush won reelection by beating back a stiff challenge from Democratic nominee John F. Kerry in Ohio.

Back then, Bush's aides started early in the year and built an elaborate ground-up organization that focused on driving up the GOP vote here in Delaware County and similar, fast-growing exurbs that surround Cincinnati, Dayton and Cleveland.

This time, the Democrats have shifted strategies -- and may have the upper hand.

Learning from the Bush effort, Obama has taken his fight directly into suburban and rural GOP strongholds in an effort to curb McCain's potential margins. Obama has 82 offices in the state, nearly twice as many as McCain. Labor unions are backing his effort with more than 12,000 volunteers.

"McCain does not have the kind of ground organization that Obama has, not even close," said Nancy Martorano, associate professor of political science at the University of Dayton.

"I've never seen anything like the Obama ground game," agreed Paul Beck, professor of political science at Ohio State University in Columbus. "It is light-years ahead of what the Democrats did four years ago."

Some GOP leaders in the state complain that McCain didn't open his state headquarters until June, three months after he secured the nomination, and that the state campaign appears top heavy and run in part by outsiders.