For
Sen.
Barack
Obama
to
win
Georgia,
his
campaign
must
first
change
the
minds
of
the
existing
average
voter.
“We
know
that
we
most
likely
couldn’t
win
the
state
with
the
current
electorate,
we
had
to
grow
the
electorate
in
order
to
win,”
Steve
Hildebrand,
Obama’s
deputy
national
campaign
manager,
told
Southern
Voice
during
his
second
trip
to
Georgia
in
as
many
weeks.
Hildebrand,
who
is
gay,
said
the
Obama
campaign
is
relying
on
diversity
to
win
this
election.
To
that
end,
the
campaign
invested
nearly
$3
million
in
television
advertising
with
52
paid
staff
in
33
offices
across
the
state,
plus
almost
5,000
volunteers.
Those
volunteers
have
been
working
to
register
new
voters
until
the
registration
deadline
30
days
before
the
election,
at
which
time
they
will
move
into
“get
out
the
vote”
mode.
Obama’s
presidential
campaign
is
attempting
to
expand
turnout
among
those
under
age
30
and
African
Americans,
said
Edmund
Thornton
III,
who
was
recently
hired
as
Obama’s
LGBT
field
coordinator
in
Georgia.
Thornton’s
job
is
it
to
energize
the
gay
base
and
help
create
a
database
that
will
target
gay
voters.
“The
biggest
part
of
my
job
is
I’m
generating
lists
[of
gay
voters].
As
I
get
this
information
I’m
putting
into
the
Democratic
voter
file,”
said
Thornton,
a
former
chair
of
the
Stonewall
Caucus
of
the
Young
Democrats
of
Georgia.
“This
is
the
first
election
where
we
had
a
national
candidate
that
started
creating
a
database
for
future
elections
where
we
could
identify
and
target
the
LBGT
community
from
here
on
out.”
Thornton
said
information
would
be
used
to
phone
bank,
seek
out
volunteers
and
ramp
up
enthusiasm
in
the
base.
He
is
also
working
to
register
gay
voters
and
host
events
at
gay
venues.
FIGHTING
FOR
GEORGIA
Hildebrand
said
Georgia
was
targeted
as
one
of
18
battleground
states,
which
included
such
Republican
stalwarts
as
Alaska.
Despite
recently
discontinuing
television
ads,
and
polls
showing
an
average
12
percent
lead
for
GOP
presidential
candidate
Sen.
John
McCain,
Hildebrand
believes
Georgia,
and
its
15
electoral
votes,
are
winnable.
“We
didn’t
pull
them,
we
stopped
running
them,
there
is
a
big
difference,”
Hildebrand
said
of
the
ads.
“We
didn’t
pull
an
ad
buy
because
we
were
running
out
of
money
or
we
because
we
needed
to
pull
it.
We
had
a
strategy
that
in
early
July
we
would
go
up
in
18
states
that
we
determined
were
going
to
be
our
battleground,
and
at
the
same
time
we
put
full
staffing
complements
in
those
18
states.”
The
campaign
stopped
the
ads
during
the
Democratic
National
Convention
held
Aug.
25-28
in
Denver
and
has
only
returned
to
the
air
in
states
where
McCain
has
begun
to
run
ads,
Hildebrand
said.
McCain
has
no
offices
in
Georgia,
made
few
appearances
in
Georgia
and
has
run
no
ads
in
Georgia.
Calls
to
McCain’s
Southeast
office
in
Tallahassee,
Fla.
went
unreturned.
Hildebrand
said,
“By
all
accounts,
[McCain]
is
taking
this
state
for
granted.”
In
2000,
Chuck
Clay
led
Georgia’s
campaign
for
President
George
W.
Bush
as
chairperson
of
the
Republican
Party.
He
is
currently
president
of
InsiderAdvantage,
a
political
research
firm
that
follows
Georgia
politics.
Clay
said
McCain
might
not
have
to
do
much
to
win
the
state.
While
early
numbers
showed
a
closer
race,
McCain
has
garnered
more
support
in
Georgia
as
the
campaigns
have
worn
on.
“Numbers
that
were
a
month
and
a
half,
or
right
after
the
primaries
that
showed
the
state’s
numbers
were
close
or
fairly
competitive,
have
moved
toward
McCain
and
that
has
largely
been
in
women,”
Clay
said.
“I
don’t
know
if
those
were
Hillary
Clinton
supporters,
or
if
they
were
attracted
by
Gov.
Sarah
Palin,
but
they
have
switched
their
support
more
to
McCain.”
Dr.
Harvey
Newman,
a
political
science
professor
at
Georgia
State
University,
said
that
it
once
looked
like
conservative
voters
might
stay
at
home,
but
the
addition
of
Palin
to
the
ticket
makes
it
unlikely.
GAY
VOTE
MAKE
A
DIFFERENCE?
The
Obama
campaign
is
banking
on
new
voters
who
often
are
not
considered
in
polls
to
push
them
over
the
top.
“We
still
believe
its
winnable
and
we’re
here
to
fight
it
out.
We’ve
registered
a
huge
number
of
voters
in
this
state,”
Hildebrand
said.
Hildebrand
said
the
Obama
campaign
has
registered
at
least
100,000
new
voters
in
Georgia
since
the
beginning
of
the
year.
“Frankly
it’s
been
our
most
successful
program
in
the
country
as
far
as
registration
goes,”
he
said.
If
Obama
does
ride
a
wave
of
new
voters
to
the
White
House,
it
will
defy
common
political
wisdom
that
successful
voter
registration
doesn’t
translate
to
changing
...
The
following comments were posted by our readers and were
not edited by SOVO. We ask that you
treat others with respect; any post deemed offensive will
be removed.
MORE LOCAL
Celebrating a King
Coretta Scott King reflection, Rick Warren protest part of gay MLK activities
Let freedom dance
Gay, lesbian promoters plan big parties for MLK weekend
