American Crossroads and the Ground War

NPR reports that RNC is cutting back on voter mobilization and that groups such as American Crossroads are filling in:

Traditionally, outside groups like the American Action Network have mostly spent money on TV ads.

But now there's anxiety that Democrats might win the ground war. So the groups are putting in more effort there.

"We do expect to be able to pinpoint individual voters based on issues and how they feel about them, and communicate directly with them through a variety of means," says American Crossroads President Steven Law.

But microtargeting only takes you so far. Law says it's much harder for an independent group to organize the final stage of voter mobilization — the face-to-face contacts aimed at getting people to the polls. That's something the RNC would normally finance.

"I don't know whether at American Crossroads we would have a significant boots-on-the-ground component in this election cycle — I don't know that that's going to be achievable for us," Collins says.