DES MOINES, Iowa (Official Wire) — Barack Obama volunteer Marilynn Wadden rang more than a dozen doorbells in her first hour canvassing a tidy neighborhood here before stopping to take stock of her progress. Only a handful of voters were home, and, of them, only one agreed to have a ballot mailed to him so he can vote early. Two people said they supported the president but preferred to vote on Election Day. And another said he would back Mitt Romney.
“I wouldn’t do this for pay. It’d be too discouraging,” Wadden, a 70-year-old retired principal, said. She added that she works to re-elect the president “because in my heart I know how important this is.”
If the race is close here and elsewhere, the outcome may come down to how well Obama volunteers like Wadden do their jobs — compelling everyone they can to go to the polls, especially those who are leaning Obama’s way, but not a sure thing.
National and state polls taken before the first debate show Obama with a comfortable lead over Romney among Americans who are registered to vote. But the surveys also show Obama is locked in a tight race with the Republican among likely voters, a disparity that underscores the importance that turnout efforts will play in determining who wins the White House.
The latest Associated Press-GfK poll, for instance, found Obama with a commanding lead, favored by 52 percent of Americans to just 37 percent for Romney. Yet among those most likely to vote, the race was statistically tied, with Obama supported by 47 percent of likely voters and Romney by 46 percent. In Florida, a recent Washington Post poll showed the president ahead by 9 percentage points among all registered voters but up by just 4 percentage points among likely voters.
Read more at Official Wire. By Philip Elliott.
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The pendulum swings, but it never maintains one direction. Obama tried to stop the swing and it is telling that he cannot stop it.
How can any one in there right mind vote for this muslim terrorist who wants to destroy our Country. These people are so brain washed that don’t even know they are voting to have all there rights taken away and live in a communist state run by muslim radicals,
AMEN Avatar; I’ve been trying to figure this out for a long time; either they are brainwashed by listening to MSM, they haven’t been paying attention to the fact that our freedoms are systematically being taken away or they want to be slaves to Big Brother; absolutely crazy!!
How can any one in there right mind vote for this muslim terrorist who wants to destroy our Country. These people are so brain washed that they don’t even know they are voting to have all there rights taken away and live in a communist state run by muslim radicals,
I too have walked and gone to doors and on the phone bank. I think both are a waste of time, except maybe to Obama’s people who are too lazy to do things on their own. Most people are not home and all but one home said they were voting for Romney. Only one household said they were voting for Obama.
I never had one call go through on the phone banks. Most people would just hang up or no answer.
And everyone I know said they were so sick of all the negative ads and absolutely hated the phones calls all the time. I think positive ads are more effective, but I guess in O’s case, they have to be negative, as he has nothing to run on.