Ben Smith's Blog: Political News about Democrats and the 2008 Election - Politico.com

Ben Smith's Blog: Political News about Democrats and the 2008 Election - Politico.com: "I've gotten lots of email over the last few days in response to a request for anecdotes of what sort of contact readers are getting from the campaign on the ground, and virtually all of the stories run the same way: Obama has been contacting these voters many, many more times than McCain.

This may be a self-selected sample, of course -- blog readers lean Obama. With that caveat, here are a couple of (lightly edited) samples:

An Obama supporter in Indiana:

I am a lifelong Republican. I have served on the local county Republican finance committee in the past. I am not supporting the Republican presidential candidate for the first time in my life. I have been contacted during the primary by Rudy Giuliani. No other Republicans have attempted to contact me at all, with the exception of local Indiana candidates. I have had no contact from the Indiana Republican Party and no mail from the McCain campaign during the entire campaign.

The real story though, is about my 24 year old son.

He attended college at the University of Hawaii. He graduated in May. He enjoyed his last summer in Hawaii and traveled to China before returning to Indiana in early September. One week before returning to Indiana, he changed his cell phone number to an Indiana area code. After arriving at the Indianapolis airport, we drove home. Two hours after his plane arrived in Indiana, he received a phone call on his cell phone. It was a local Obama campaign office. They welcomed him to Indiana and asked if he needed assistance in getting registered to vote. He did register and both of us have already voted for Obama.

How is it that an active Republican gets no contact from any Republican office or candidate (except the gubernatorial candidate) and a two hour resident of Indiana gets a phone call from the Obama office?"