Exact;y!
I don't understand why Obama didn't spend the time and money to recruit, organize, train, plan and implement such an effort months ago.
Perhaps he was simply overconfident.
It's even more basic that that.
Assume something simple: A literature drop.
The area may have 1000 houses, but only 500 of them have registered voters. A good local guy that basically knows where the registered voters are might be able to drop them in an afternoon, maybe coming back after he gets the new list of registered voters and dropping the stuff off at the new voter's houses. Someone untrained might leave the material at each residence, taking up more time and using more resources. They'll both get the same result, but the local guy will do it more quickly and more cheaply.
On election day, the local guy might know that for Sally to vote, you'll have call her before Noon, because she goes to work at 1:00 PM. The new volunteer may not know that.
It makes sence to use the people in place, supplemented with new volunteers, but if so, Obama is using the existing organization.
I've been canvassing before. You're a given a sheet with a list of homes with registered voters and what primaries they voted in. There's no guessing whether or not someone is registered. Try again.
