Campaigns are won with trench warfare (commonly known as the ground game) and air support (ads and media). What’s unique about political marketing is that unlike, say, selling blenders, you can get a horde of like-minded volunteers who will give up their precious free time to talk to hostile voters for you–for free.

Unfortunately, the hopeless enthusiasm gap this year means that the McCain campaign has had trouble putting clipboards into hands, and so they’ve contracted out canvassing to paid staff. Still standard campaign practice.

It’s too bad they’ve gotten so desperate they called on Obama voters who needed a buck.

Two women walk out of John McCain’s Mid-West headquarters carrying a pile of voter canvassing sheets, one sports a baseball hat declaring her a “team leader” of the Republican campaign. And both are black — an unusual sight in an election where Barack Obama’s support among African Americans is almost monolithic.

Are they volunteers? They look at each other sheepishly. “Not exactly,” replies one. “We work for an employment agency,” says the other. Who are they voting for? “I don’t want to say,” says the first woman. “Obama — of course!” whispers the braver of the pair.

That, my friends, is a Field FAIL.

[h/t Loudoun Democrats]