'06 election cycle shaping up

The Fix over at the Washington Post lists America Votes as potentially one of the biggest players in the 2006 elections. As a former volunteer, I hope this isn't the case, or that they've seriously learned from their previous mistakes.

America Votes was one of the lead failures in the 2004 Ohio debacle, spending who know how much on well-intended but pointless bussing of volunteers from safe states to battlegrounds like Ohio. In a feat of shear idiocy, these volunteers were sent door to door to attempt to convince strangers thought to be Democrats to get out and vote, with only a weekend for canvassers to work a neighborhood. It was the kind of beltway or east-coast plan that could never succeed, especially when pitted against the more organic Republican turnout plan that made use of residents who voters would know as neighbors. For a party of the people, we sucked at grassroots in '04.