He has persuaded the Chicago staffers that Florida can be competitive. Voter registration numbers have shifted Democratic in Miami-Dade, Pinellas and Sarasota counties. Local races in Hernando, Marion, Citrus, Lee and Pasco counties have netted wins for Democrats. And in 2004, 1.6 million Democrats didn't vote, including 600,000 African American voters.

Obama's national advisors seized on the number. They 'saw this universe of `sporadic' voters as a remarkable and untapped potential,'' Schale says.

Schale warns though that capturing those votes won't be easy. Florida is ''a big, crazy state fraught with all kinds of historic land mines -- like dating a girl who's broken up with guys 100 times before,'' he says. ``And it's very expensive.''

But as soon as Schale took the job, he realized it was more than a campaign. When the staff announced the opening of its Florida headquarters in Ybor City, there were no celebrities, not even any elected officials -- but 400 to 500 supporters showed up.

''For a fricking office opening!'' Schale recalls. ``Clearly, something was happening here.''

TURNING OUT THE VOTE ***

It's 9:52 p.m. on Nov. 1 and the Florida team is in the middle of a nationwide conference call with 22,000 staffers. Obama calls in, moments before taking the stage for a rally in Springfield, Mo.

''I just wanted to call tell you how proud I am of you,'' Obama says. ``Your hard work is extraordinary. Four months ago were behind in most of these battleground states. We now know we can register voters. Our greatest challenge is turning them out.''

He urges everyone to double their efforts. ''We can all get sleep afterwards,'' Obama says. ``I want everybody out in the field. We've gone too far for us to come up short.''

It is vintage Obama. The staff has grown accustomed to a pat on the back, then a request to do more -- both in Florida and nationally, says Angela Botticella, Florida's field director.

''We don't stop when we ask you to vote. We ask you to talk to your neighbors, or start a phone bank, or knock on doors or donate food,'' says Botticella, 25 and a California native.

''It's about turning conversations into relationships,'' she says.

In Florida, that means 1,414 ''Neighbor to Neighbor'' teams with a total of 22,000 volunteers. They are trained to tell people where to vote, which days they can vote and to follow up, relentlessly. Once identified, the campaign knocked on their doors or called their homes until they voted.

''It's pretty incredible,'' Botticella says.

Schale's strategy of dividing the state into five regional pods, each with its own focus, message and staff, is intended to center attention on regional issues often lost in the larger campaign.

In Miami, the campaign showcased health care and Cuba. On the Space Coast, it wasObama's plan for protecting NASA from budget cuts, and in the Panhandle, the campaign pitched a proposal to end water wars with Georgia that are crippling the seafood industry.

Targeting turnout is so important that Paul Tewes and Steve Hildebrand, two of Obama's national strategists, were dispatched to Florida in the final weeks help the effort.

Tewes, seated at his computer in the ''boiler room'' with the rest of the team's Florida brain trust, wonders aloud: once early voting ends, can the campaign get home-bound voters and any others who missed the absentee ballot deadline to complete in-person absentee ballots on Monday?

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