The Ground War

By: Joe Strupp USA Today reporter Kathy Kiely is used to covering presidential candidates from the air. Since 1984, she's flown on the campaign planes of Walter Mondale, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. So what was she doing talking to folks at a recent pig race in North Haverhill, N.H.? Getting the story, which increasingly means listening to voters on the ground rather than candidates and spin doctors in the sky. ""You go to places that are off the beaten path; I am covering it from the grass roots up,"" says Kiely, who has eschewed flying around with the candidates during the past few months for road trips through toss-up states like West Virginia, Oregon, and Arkansas. This year, she observes, reporters are turning traditional coverage ""on its head.""

After more than 20 years writing about politics and presidential elections at major daily papers, Kiely became one of several USA Today reporters to tackle a new ""battleground state"" beat this year. While the national daily still has reporters following George W. Bush and John Kerry around the country ? more by air than bus these days ? most of its reporters are focused strictly on voters in the 15 or more states that are still too close to call.

""They have gone back to the person-to-person approach,"" Jill Lawrence, a veteran USA Today political reporter, says about both the candidates and the press in 2004. Reporters ""are getting more time out of the campaign bubble, and more perspective.""

David Broder, the longtime political columnist for The Washington Post, predicted this surge in shoe-leather reporting during an appearance at April's American Society of Newspaper Editors conference, at which he said the slogan for 2004 coverage should be, ""watch the damn voters.""

The result is a new approach among many newspapers to reach down to the voter level for stories, opinions, and trends. While swing states have always been a focus, journalists say this year's contest has produced a much more intensive approach in even fewer states. In nearly every case, major newspapers have severely altered their coverage to give readers a new view of the election from the voters and volunteers in what some refer to as a ""ground war.""

""I've had fewer people on the planes and more people who have gone out to get the flavor and the feeling of the race,"" notes Don Frederick, national political editor for the Los Angeles Times. Maralee Schwartz, national political editor for the Washington Post, says the paper launched its ""Ohio Project"" earlier this year with two reporters focused solely on the Buckeye State. ""We are down in the trenches more,"" she says. ""We would usually just do a few pieces near the end [of the campaign] on turnout and focus more on the ad wars. But it is really being more balanced by these ground-war tactics.""



Getting into the 'swing'

The ground war reflects the fact that while television advertising remains as key as ever, both sides in the race are building blocks of support at the smallest levels, and began such moves as early as a year ago. Volunteers and campaign workers are assembling in greater numbers to make personal contact with voters, while the candidates themselves are doing more to press the flesh at as many appearances as they can.

In addition, the rise of Web publicity and fund-raising, as well as the new ""527"" committees that collect and spend campaign funds more widely, have given average voters increased avenues for involvement and impact. Add to that a strong division over issues ranging from Iraq to gay marriage, as well as polling that indicates a tight race, and voters' viewpoints carry more meaning than ever. ""It is really not a national election anymore,"" observes Barbara Serrano, deputy political editor at the Los Angeles Times. ""It causes the reporting to be more geographically tailored.""

Most editors say they have not boosted staffing considerably compared to four years ago, pointing to budget constraints. But newsroom leaders contend they are able to cover both the traditional campaign news and the increased grassroots efforts by rotating staffers and utilizing existing resources.

""It grows and shrinks,"" Richard Berke, Washington editor for The New York Times, says about the political assignments. ""In terms of actual reporters, it is about the same.""

Berke's paper has distinguished itself with a special ""State By State"" series, a meticulous look at battleground states with in-depth profiles, so far, of Ohio, New Mexico, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin. The project includes an ambitious map of each state showing a county-by-county voter breakdown from the 2000 presidential election, as well as party breakdowns of all state legislative seats and statewide elected offices.

Web sites also have taken advantage of their limitless capabilities, with several newspapers, such as the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, providing an updated online battleground map. The L.A. Times map is among the richest, with the latest polling data for each state, as well as information on how the voters there cast ballots in each previous presidential year since 1988. Drawing on its interactive features, users can assign states to different candidates to create their own scenarios for a Bush or Kerry win.



Echo-activists

Several major papers have chosen at least one or two battleground states in which to pinpoint a major portion of coverage, with reporting almost exclusively linked to real voter opinions over political spin. ""The idea is to illuminate what happens on the ground in a swing state,"" says John Harris, a Washington Post reporter who has teamed with fellow staffer Paul Farhi for the paper's Ohio Project. ""You have to look at which places matter most. The two sides are arguing over such a small handful of voters, the micro-campaign matters.""

During the past few months, Harris and Farhi have spent a combined six weeks or so in Ohio, penning lengthy articles on how the voters feel and what the campaigns are doing there to gain an advantage. One recent story looked at the use of ""echo politics,"" in which the campaigns have local supporters promote their candidates via e-mails to friends, calls to area radio shows, and even water-cooler talk. Other pieces have reported on Bush's use of house parties to stimulate turnout and pro-Kerry groups like America Coming Together, which has registered nearly 300,000 Ohio voters, mostly through a band of 450 hourly staffers who go door-to-door.

""We went several decades with the focus on broadcast mediums,"" Harris observes. ""Now the pendulum has sort of swung back."" Post veteran (and bestselling author) David Maraniss, meanwhile, has spent the majority of his time in Dubuque, Iowa, writing a series of stories focused specifically on the eastern Hawkeye State city as a microcosm of voter thought.

The Boston Globe, which has increased its overall coverage of Kerry due to his local links, has also put a major focus on Ohio by forming a focus group of voters that it checks in with regularly. ""Issues are probably much clearer than they were in 2000,"" says John Yemma, Globe deputy managing editor. ""The get-out-the vote effort is something you have to watch even more closely."" A lengthy Globe story in late June reported solely on what the focus group believed were the state's most important problems, citing job losses at nearby manufacturing plants, local churches' stance on abortion, and area gas prices.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is taking a similar approach with a Philly-area citizens panel created to give feedback as the election proceeds. ""We will be visiting with them through the fall,"" reveals Ned Warwick, Inquirer national and foreign editor, who added that the paper had done more stories during this election cycle than in the past on suburban voter views in this swing state. ""They [suburbs] are filled with independent voters who can be swayed.""



The 'Show Him' state

An ambitious solo effort involves Tim Jones, a veteran reporter with the Chicago Tribune, who has staked out Missouri as the quintessential swing state and is spending most of his time there gauging voter and candidate views.

""I've discovered the more you get into Missouri, the more complicated it becomes,"" Jones says via cell phone during breakfast at a Courtyard by Marriott in St. Louis one summer morning. ""Being here allows you to dig into the stratas and substratas and nuances of a state that can be so [politically] discriminating."" Tribune editors chose Missouri, in which Jones has spent more than three weeks since May, for two reasons: It remains undecided, and it has voted for the winner in every presidential race except one (1956) since 1900.

Jones estimates driving more than 3,000 miles across Missouri so far. As he pointed out in a July 9 story, the state has produced native sons as diverse as Mark Twain, Harry Truman, and Rush Limbaugh. ""It mirrors the nation,"" he wrote in the same story. His coverage mixes the views of residents ranging from a Missouri City schools superintendent to a souvenir shop owner outside Kansas City, with issues as diverse as the loss of manufacturing jobs and the rise in military spending. Conspicuously absent from most stories are any spin from the Karl Roves or James Carvilles of the world.

A key stop in Missouri for Jones and others, including USA Today's Kiely, has been Clay County, famous because Gore won the county by one vote out of nearly 80,000 in 2000. The county infamously cast no votes for Abraham Lincoln in 1860, according to a Jones story. Missouri also was the only state that year to be won by Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, further adding to its independent-voting legend.

Despite staying in 50-year-old motels, often with no Web link, and venturing into desolate parts of the state that leave his cell phone and Blackberry useless, the 54-year-old Jones hails the effort as the most fun he's had in more than 20 years of reporting. ""It is as far away from politicians as I can get,"" he says. ""You can really get a sense of what people are saying, and thinking.""

The Los Angeles Times plans a similar effort following the Republican National Convention, but has yet to choose its target state or reporter, according to Serrano. The Times reporter will take up residence, probably in an apartment, for the final two months of the campaign. Serrano speculates that Ohio or Florida are the most likely locations: ""The advantage is that you are not doing one story from the state, you can do different perspectives and really soak up the place.""



Church and coffee

In other cases, newspapers are taking different approaches to the voter-on-the-street interview than the usual random sampling. The Los Angeles Times, for example, sent columnist Ronald Brownstein and writer Faye Fiore to a Minneapolis suburb in June. On a Sunday morning in Edina, Minn., the pair split up, one going to interview churchgoers and the other to speak with coffeehouse visitors who don't attend services regularly.

""That is the type of piece that we would not have done in the past, but that is now definitive,"" the Times' Frederick says.

Campaign veteran Jodi Wilgoren of the New York Times epitomized the new voter-level approach with an Aug. 17 piece on the planning for John Kerry's ""front porch"" events, describing how residents in one Oregon neighborhood had to act fast to ready their yards for the nominee after getting last-minute notice.

While they are not tapping into every comment from Bush and Kerry and their mouthpieces, the ground war embeds say they do get a lot out of the lower-level politicians and local party leaders, who are often not shy about their feelings of the higher-level race. ""Those folks usually have the best feel and will be more honest than the campaign spokesman,"" USA Today's Kiely observes, citing recent interviews with a West Virginia mayor and a New Hampshire state senate candidate, both of whom were glad to point out problems their presidential choices were having. ""They are also in contact every day with constituents so they get an earful.""

As the ground war emphasis adds a different approach to newspaper coverage, several editors say it also gives newspapers an upper hand on their broadcast competitors because the stories require a deeper, more descriptive tone. ""It is more richly told in print than on television,"" says Dan Balz, a veteran political writer for The Washington Post. ""The visuals are not as compelling and it is harder for [TV] because of the limitations on their time.""

Warwick of the Inquirer agrees. ""Newspapers have the advantage because they have the time and space,"" he observes. ""It is our strength of substance and resources over the 'pop' of TV.""