BURLINGTON, Vt.
Walk into the storefront headquarters of Obama ’08 here offering to volunteer, and you might be told to take a hike - to neighboring New Hampshire.
With Vermont considered a sure bet for the Democrats in the Nov. 4 election, Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign is exporting volunteers from the state in hopes of putting them to better use elsewhere.
It’s the opposite story in Utah, where Republican Sen. John McCain’s campaign is resting easy and asking volunteers to make visits or phone calls to Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, where the race is tighter.
Battleground states, these are not: In ultra-blue Vermont and deep-red Utah, the White House hopefuls aren’t putting up much of a fight. Their meager electoral votes - three in Vermont, five in Utah - already are assumed to be in the vault.
A look at two states largely left behind in the tumult of Campaign ’08:
VERMONT
In tiny Vermont - population 608,827 - it isn’t hard to tell which way the wind blows.
It’s the home state of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, where Democrats control both houses of the state Legislature, Sen. Bernard Sanders calls himself a socialist and Bush-bashing is an all-season sport.
Anti-war rallies are regular fixtures.
So are Obama stickers and merchandise, including the $38 Obama T-shirts being sold by Urban Outfitters on Burlington’s Church Street Marketplace. “We can’t keep them in the store,” said store manager Rene McCullough.
McCain merchandise? Not so much, unless you want a “McCan’t” coffee mug.
The Republican candidate doesn’t have a campaign office or paid staff in Vermont, and his supporters here are either being dispatched to New Hampshire or put to work phoning that state’s voters.
“We are trying to facilitate getting Vermonters excited about the campaign and turning them loose in New Hampshire,” said volunteer coordinator Carl Ettlinger.
Mr. Obama has three offices in Vermont, and while there’s no shortage of activity in them, much of it looks east. On Wednesday, two middle-aged women who walked in offering to volunteer were asked if they wanted to spend a day in New Hampshire.
They said no thanks.
George Schiavone, 68, a Republican National Committeeman, said some party members who spend the winter in Florida are headed south early this year - to help with the McCain effort there.
“They say, ’We’re not going to do any good in Vermont, so we’re going to Florida, that’s where we can do some good,’ ” Mr. Schiavone said.
Democratic nominee John Kerry won Vermont handily in 2004, and Al Gore posted a 10-point win over George W. Bush in 2000.
In this year’s race, Vermont donors have given more than six times as much to Mr. Obama as they have to Mr. McCain, $1.1 million to $177,000 according to Federal Election Commission records.
UTAH
In Utah, where a Democrat hasn’t won the state since President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, both parties are exporting their messages - via out-of-state phone calls or travels to Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and beyond.
“We’re a red state, and we’re hoping to make other states red,” said Marian Monnahan, chair of the Utah County Republican Party.
How red? Bill Clinton finished third there in 1992 - behind George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot.
“It’s tough sledding for Democratic presidential campaigns here in Utah,” said Kirk Jowers, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah.
Mr. Bush won Utah with 67 percent in 2000. In 2004, Utah voters delivered Mr. Bush’s largest margin of victory, with 72 percent.
Utah Republicans were ready to give Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney - a Mormon, like a majority of Utahans - the same kind of support. He got 90 percent of the vote in Utah’s February presidential primary but dropped out of the race a few days later.
Passion doesn’t run as high for Mr. McCain, who got just 5 percent of the vote in the primary, but polls show he still has a strong lead over Mr. Obama.
The only thing passing for a McCain-Palin headquarters in the state is a block away from Brigham Young University in Provo.
The school has about 1,000 members in its College Republicans club. Last month, about 100 boarded buses to knock on doors in Colorado. Similar trips are planned for Nevada and Oregon.
The Provo office, in a former pizza parlor, is wired with 32 phone lines that volunteers use to call voters in other states.
No energy is being spent to secure Utah’s Republican voters because it’s not needed, said Adam Piner, who’s running the office for the Republican National Committee.
The same could be said for presidential advertising dollars, which have been scant.
Stacey Rikard, national sales manager for KSL-TV in Salt Lake City, said the last money her station got from a presidential race was during the Democratic primary fight between Mr. Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Mr. Obama has raised $909,000 and Mr. McCain $754,000 in Utah in the last two years, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Salt Lake City hosts the state’s only Obama campaign office, which opened in mid-August and has been buzzing.
Campaign signs disappear out the door faster than they can be replaced, and 50 to 100 volunteers drive nearly five hours to Grand Junction, Colo., on weekends to marshal Democratic votes. Campaign officials estimate they’ve knocked on 35,000 doors in that state so far.
Mr. Obama was in Utah during the primaries but hasn’t been back since. That doesn’t seem to dampen the enthusiasm among his supporters.
“If you really want to see him, all you have to do is go to Colorado. He’s there all the time,” said Maggie Flanigan, 14, who’s been volunteering for the campaign.
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