They need no lamp nor light of the sun

Democrats (and their reluctant supporters) hoping to relive 2004's pre-election victory anticipation giddiness are advised to read Ruy Teixeira's latest dispatch. For myself, the most interesting part was his disparagement of GOTV in general and the GOP GOTV effort in particular. Of course, given my mindless adherance to the organizing model, I can't help but be somewhat skeptical of Teixeira's skepticism in both the general and particular cases. Consider, for example, this Mark Mellman passage that Teixeira approvingly quotes:

But didn’t the GOP prove its efforts were much more effective than the Democrats’ in 2004? No. Check the data. In Ohio’s base Democratic precincts turnout was 8.2 points higher than it had been in 2000. In base Republican precincts, turnout increased by a slightly lesser 6.1 points. Winning a state is not the same as doing a better job on turnout.

This data seems to me to be exactly what you'd expect to see given the supposed core strength of the Rovian GOTV system --namely, the ability to target isolated Republican voters in otherwise Democratic precincts. On the other hand, I know a few hard core Dems who've somehow wound up on a lot of Republican mailing lists, so maybe the hype really is out of control.

In other news, check out the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Congressional Support the Troops scorecard.