TURNOUT, TURNOUT, TURNOUT:

GOP fashioning Bush-style turnout operation for Cal election (MICHAEL R. BLOOD, 6/10/06, The Associated Press)

State Republicans are attempting to organize the largest mobilization of GOP election volunteers in state history to help deliver a re-election victory for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a strategy modeled on get-out-the-vote drives that President Bush used to capture Ohio and other swing states in 2004.

Party insiders say as many as 90,000 people could be enlisted in the closing days of the race to knock on doors, plant yard signs or make telephone calls to connect with potential voters, an unprecedented figure in a state thick with Democrats.

A record turnout by the state's 5.4 million Republicans could cut into a Democratic registration edge that otherwise puts Schwarzenegger and other statewide GOP candidates at a numerical disadvantage at the polls.

A smarter politician than Arnold would have figured out by now that building a stronger state party serves his own political interests.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 10, 2006 1:08 PM