Micro-Targeting Could be Key to Election

It's that time of year where doors get knocked on and pavement gets pounded.

Recently, the GOP has been lauded for their effective voter turnout machine. Can they do it again?

Though the Republican Party won the presidency in 2000, they lost the popular vote.

It made political gurus like Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman rethink how to win elections for decades to come.

Enter micro-targeting. It is a concept where vast databases of consumer habits are compiled so the GOP targets a certain message to certain voters. For example they would send a pro-family message to pro-family voters.

The Democratic Party is just starting to do this.

The Republican Party has been doing it for six years.

"The fact that we're a cycle or two ahead of them on the micro-targeting is a value to us," said Mike Duhaime, RNC political director.

The GOP also has advantages in spending, a huge voter vault containing names and numbers of potential republican voters and organization on the ground, but the democrats aren't conceding anything.

"We see the stories about their machine but I'd say we've been building a machine too," said Karen Finney, Democratic National Committee communications director.

The democrats acknowledge they're playing catch up but say they'll have an unprecedented get out the vote operation especially in conservative red states.

"Through the 50-state strategy, we have organizers on the ground in all 50 states and those DNC field staffers have been there for over a year now," said Finney.

Capitol Hill insiders all acknowledge that the Republican Party may have a well oiled voter turnout machine but to make it run, it requires one key component: voter intensity. This year, that seems to be in short supply.

"I think that voter intensity is critical and I'm not surprised to see some of those numbers because I think people are just frustrated," said Finney.

But is the evangelical voting block frustrated? They've been the key to republican victories in the past.

"We really haven't seen the dramatic drop off that people in the media would like to portend that we've seen among evangelical voters," said Duhaime

But that remains to be seen. At this point, there are still lots of question marks, and the answer will come Tuesday.