Despite all the money, unclear if GOP side has an effective GOTV operation this year

I've been wondering about this for awhile. The GOP-allied groups have spent millions and millions and millions on t.v., but do they know how to turn out voters? That's unclear. I know how sophisticated the operation on the Democratic side is. In mid-term elections particulary, effective GOTV really matters. The Los Angeles Times thinks the Democrats have an advantage here -- and I think so, too:

With money and momentum on their side, Republicans are considered competitive in dozens of districts once thought to be out of reach. But races are tightening, and the voter mobilization program could determine whether the election provides better than average midterm gains for the GOP.

"There is a sense now that Republicans may not be able to capitalize on the backlash against [President] Obama and the Democrats because they lack the well-organized voter ID and get-out-the-vote effort that they have had in the past," said Lawrence Jacobs, a University of Minnesota political scientist who has been comparing the ground game of both parties. There is enormous variation now state to state, he said.

Democrats and allied groups are spending most of their $200-million political budgets in the largely invisible effort to turn out sympathetic voters.

The party was shocked to lose control of the House in 1994 in the so-called Gingrich Revolution. Since then, Democrats and labor have emphasized personal voter contact to win close races. In Pennsylvania last week, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said his organization planned to "touch" every union member in the state 25 times with mail, phone calls and personal visits in the campaign's final weeks.

Meanwhile, there's no trust among the right-wing groups. In some places, they're not sharing lists.

With so much money being spent, pundits and politicos overlooked the failings of the RNC and the efforts by Rove and others to bypass that organization. But, the RNC was the hub of GOTV -- and now it's not:

For the GOP, this year's patchwork approach is a dramatic departure from the last decade, when a single well-organized entity — the Republican National Committee — ran sophisticated voter mobilization programs that were years in the making. But the RNC has faltered in funding and organization recently, and outside groups have stepped up efforts, many of them starting only recently.

If you want to help with GOTV, PCCC has "Call out the Vote" and MoveOn has a call from home program, too.