Republicans to make push in last 3 days before vote

Election Day efforts will begin 72 hours early this year for some Penn students.

Those students are taking part in the Bush campaign's new grassroots effort known as the "72 Hour Task Force," designed to get dedicated Republicans out on the streets during the crucial hours leading up to the close of the polls.

Canvassers will be focusing on encouraging known Republican voters to turn out and vote on Nov. 2, rather than convincing citizens who are undecided, or whose political affiliations are unknown.

Republican organizers plan on using phone calls, door-to-door interaction and leaflet distribution to reach their constituency.

Some of the task force members will be paid $50 per day, while others will volunteer their time.

Historically, the Democratic Party has been better known for its grassroots efforts in these down-to-the-wire hours, specifically using union workers to reach out to their fellow union members and canvass neighborhoods.

However, under Bush campaign manager Karl Rove's leadership in the 2000 campaign, Republican strategists took the grassroots methodology and made it their own.

The implementation of the new 72 Hour Task Force marks an extension of this technique.

It also follows the historical effort made by the Republican Party, which has registered 3,047,073 new voters since 2003, according to the Republican National Committee.

Republican organizers are calling the 72 Hour Task Force an "innovative and winning approach to putting people back into politics."

They also say that all 50 states will have strong task forces, with a national list of 1,644,940 potential Republican volunteers to call on for this effort.

A few of those volunteers attend Penn.

One of them is the head of the State Federation of College Republicans, Wharton senior David Copley.

Copley says he will skip class to take action during these crucial 72 hours.

"If it's a couple days of classes versus re-electing the president, you gotta think that one of them is of such paramount importance right now. We're gonna do whatever it takes," Copley said.

Copley estimates that 4,000 students in Pennsylvania are signed up to work on the task force, including "hundreds of Penn students."

Copley will work heavily with others in the so-called battleground counties of Montgomery, Delaware and Chester, as well as on campus.

"It's all voter turnout," Copley said. "Know who your voters are and get them to the polls."

Wharton freshman Michael Shiely will also be participating in the group. Shiely thinks this effort could give Bush the edge in this election.

"I think it makes a huge difference," Shiely said. "I mean, you can look at poll [numbers] all day long, but what really matters is who you get out to the polls. When a race is this close, you really need to get all your supporters out there."

In addition to the phone banks and door-to-door work, some volunteers will also be at the polling places themselves, watching to see which registered Republicans have not showed up to vote, so that they can be contacted. Shiely expects to spend some time at the David Rittenhouse Laboratory polling place on campus.

The grassroots Republican workers will be "basically imitating what the Democrats have been doing for years," Copley said, "but do it better."

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