Getting out the vote in battleground Virginia

The get out the vote flyer
As a Virginia resident, the last few days have been absolutely off the hook when to comes to the 2012 election cycle. In the last week, during advertisement breaks on television programs, we Virginia residents have been subject to a constant revolving barrage of political advertisements by Obama, Romney, Kaine, Allen and most certainly the super PAC's. If something is not done about the Citizens United court decision, politicking in this country will certainly go downhill. We have watched adverts featuring "energy voters" and all sorts.

In the last week, it got to a point during advertisement breaks, at least 80% of all the advertisements were political adverts leaving time for only one, two or three spots for regular (annoying) advertising, unless like me you switched to the Food Network,  which got political adverts, but a much lower percentage! If one was really seeking a complete advert shut out then you witch to Al Jazera...! We have gotten calls from Obama for America daily, probably about three times a day well as Mitt Romney's Campaign. It has honestly been a barrage. But guess what, I do not mind at all. It is all part of the political game.



And finally on Saturday we also got a visit from Obama for America's Virginia ground game operation. A nice lady knocked on the door, introduced herself being from the Obama for America campaign and inquired about the voters in the house and the candidate we planned to support. Of course she was well received. She even had door tag flyers that had your polling station address! Now that is a serious ground game!

I must say that we did not get this level of a barrage either in 2008 or even 2010, of course 2010 was not a presidential election year. But it has been very interesting to observe in a toss up, swing state like Virginia, how much attention we are getting this time around.

With the visit from the Obama campaigner, I believe it goes against a constantly repeated mantra in the media that the Republicans are more energized that the Democrats for this election. Consider that in 2008 and 2010, nobody came knocking on our door or left us a flyer from the Democrats. (Oh I have not mentioned all the correspondence we have gotten in the mail as well). Also in addition, for this election, no one from Mitt Romney's campaign came calling to the house. Of course there might be several reasons for that.

However, the Obama campaign being able to get volunteers who were willing to go door to door to campaign on behalf of their candidate to me is an indication that the election this year is getting as much attention at par, I would say with the 2008 election. If anything the Obama supporters realized they had to do even more work this time around, hence the visit we got from the campaign worker.  

Don't forget despite Obama winning Virginia in 2008, The Republicans won the governorship in 2010, now those of us in the state know this was primarily because the Democrats presenting a rather weak candidate to run against Bob McDonnell. And I hope Democrats in Virginia realize that unless the sky falls, in two years the current Republican State Attorney General is also going to run for governor. So hopefully they will have their act together by then.

But back to the presidential race. We for one, are waiting for tonight when we can regain our television from the various campaigns, and Super PAC's of course we hope to celebrate the re-election of the president of the United States.

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