George W. Bush's Ground War
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum

(FORTUNE Magazine) – When most people think about presidential campaigns, they think TV commercials. Like all candidates, George W. Bush will have plenty of those. Even if he clinches the Republican nomination on March 7--this election's Super Tuesday of primaries--he will pretty much stay on the air until election day. But his $75 million-plus war chest will buy more than an assault from the air. To a degree unprecedented in a national campaign (certainly in a Republican campaign), Bush will concentrate his resources on the ground. His chief political strategist, Karl Rove--known to political insiders as Mr. List--is assembling one of the most extensive and sophisticated get-out-the-vote programs ever attempted. If Bush wins, it will be largely because of Rove's operation.

Traditionally, Democrats have been the best at identifying voters and getting them to the polls. No group is better than the AFL-CIO, which is why Al Gore worked so hard to win the labor federation's endorsement for President. But Fortune has learned that in 2000, the Bush forces under Rove will focus on finding, then turning out, likely GOP voters in a handful of demographic categories: small-business owners, hunters and sportsmen, pro-life Catholics, evangelicals, and married couples with children. Most of its voter-locating energies will be trained on a dozen states considered key to winning the election. (The list of targeted states is one of the campaign's most closely held secrets.)

Candidates usually don't try to find their voters until a month or two before a primary. But because the Bush campaign has so much money, it began culling voter lists in ten important primary states over the summer. According to its latest filing with the Federal Election Commission, the campaign paid two telemarketers $270,000 to identify Bush backers in the early primary and caucus states.

Anyone who knows Rove, 48, knows how small a down payment that is; he is an acknowledged expert in phone and direct-mail techniques. When he arrived in Texas in 1981, Republicans did not hold a single statewide elective office. Today, thanks in great measure to Rove's constant refining of voter lists, every statewide office is held by the GOP. "He's the best I've seen at taking a voter ID list and refining it into a list of voters who will be for your candidate," says Texas state senator David Sibley, one of many Republicans elected with Rove's help. "Karl will identify voters down to the precinct level and work his way up from there; it's a methodical, scientific approach." Rove hasn't confined his pioneering methods to Texas. He has consulted for GOP candidates in more than 20 states and thus is well prepared to launch his drive nationally.

Ground-war tactics have been a careerlong obsession for Rove. He came up in politics with the best and brightest of the GOP operatives; the late Lee Atwater, who led President Bush's 1988 campaign, ran Rove's successful campaign to become president of the College Republicans in 1973. Even before then, Rove had made his mark with direct mail. In 1970 he sneaked into the offices of Illinois Democrat Alan Dixon, who was running for state treasurer. Rove stole letterhead stationery and sent out 1,000 fake invitations to the opening of the candidate's headquarters that promised "free beer, free food, girls, and a good time for nothing."

These days, contacting voters is a more serious business for Rove. Using phone banks, postcards, e-mail, and door-to-door canvassing, the Bush campaign is compiling the names, addresses, and other vital information on hundreds of thousands of voters. Leading up to the straw poll in Ames, Iowa, this summer, Bush precinct coordinators were given a specific number of people they were expected to persuade to attend, and each of those supporters was beseeched to bring others. By the time of the event, Bush staffers knew the names and phone numbers of virtually all of the 7,418 people who voted for Bush, as well as the names of the people responsible for getting them there.

The value of such a list, particularly in this era of low voter turnout, can't be overstated. Bush's opponents are already squealing about the advantage Rove has given the frontrunner. "My God, they've spent a fortune on phones and mail!" exclaims Bill McInturff, a pollster for John McCain. "They've even phone-banked Arizona [McCain's home state]." Bush aides have put out the word that they have an organization not only in every state but even in every U.S. territory, including Guam. Now that's a lot of ground.