DENVER - At a luncheon yesterday sponsored by Time Magazine, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told a group of reporters that while he thinks this will be a close election, he believes their ground game has them well positioned heading into the final phase of the campaign. "McCain is at more of a high water mark than we are," Plouffe said.

Responding to a question about the tightness of the polls, Plouffe argued they are just one metric among many. Plouffe said the campaign spends a "tremendous amount" of time and energy on voter ID, voter canvassing, in some cases talking to 10,000 voters per night.

"We look at places where we can adjust the electorate," Plouffe said, citing Florida as one example where they believe the possibility exists of turning out some 900,000 new and currently unregistered voters.

"Our goal, which we may not meet," Plouffe said, "is to make African-American turnout the highest in history."

Plouffe told the group the campaign is focused on 18 battleground states, and that in those states, "we will have the turnout advantage, and we like who the undecideds are."

Speaking specifically about Ohio, Plouffe praised the Bush turnout operation in 2004, saying that he remembered getting a call from a Kerry operative on election day who believed they had the state won because they were surpassing turnout targets in every county.

Plouffe said the Obama campaign is in an even strong position this year. "Is McCain going to replicate what Bush did (in Ohio)? If he does, we think he'll lose. He has to do better than 2004."

Overall, Plouffe said he believes the combination of turnout and persuasion (i.e. tv ads) is worth 1-4 points for Obama on election day.

Speaking about how to attack McCain, Plouffe said that while McCain's image as a maverick was once unassailable, his tack right in the primary has weakened that image and given them a real opportunity. He brushed off a suggestion that their attacks on the number of houses McCain owns might similarly damage Obama's image as being above "slash and burn" politics by saying that the reason the houses issue is important is because it demonstrated that McCain is out of touch with average Americans - reinforcing another angle they've been trying to work against McCain.

"You can't force feed voters things they aren't willing to accept," Plouffe said.