…And CR’s get a plug from our alumnus.

Karl Rove sees some incredible similarities in the Obama ground game and with the BC’04 operation. Utilizing the internet to allow volunteers to self-direct their activity, the effort to expand the electoral map, and creating an army of volunteers are all lessons learned from the Bush/Cheney campaigns.

However, Mr. Rove finds some faults with the program they are running:

There are problems, however. Mr. Obama’s people admit they want to sucker Mr. McCain into spending money. To be successful, a bluff must be credible. In places like Nebraska and North Dakota, Mr. Obama can’t rely on local issues – like Mr. Bush did with coal in West Virginia in 2000 – to unexpectedly win a critical state. Organization alone won’t suffice. And putting Obama dollars into Texas, for example, to help win five state House seats may simply cause Texan Republicans – not Mr. McCain – to raise money and work harder to counter.

In addition (and here’s where we come in):

Democrats don’t have the same large volunteer pool the GOP does with its Federated GOP Women, College and Young Republicans, and local party committees. In the primaries, Mr. Obama instead moved hordes of volunteers from state to state. It was a brilliant tactic, but Nov. 4 is different. The volunteers adequate for primaries held over five months will simply not be enough to compete in 51 separate elections (all 50 states plus the District of Columbia) all on one day.

Of course there is always Barack Obama’s problem with flip-flopping:

By taking Nixon’s advice, Mr. Obama is assuming such dramatic reversals will somehow avoid voter scrutiny. But people are watching closely, and by setting a world indoor record for jettisoning past positions, Mr. Obama may be risking his reputation for truthfulness. A candidate’s credibility, once lost, is very hard to restore, regardless of how fine an organization he has built.