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President Bush swept into Hobbs four years ago like a rancher armed with a cattle prod.

The presence of political celebrity that October day, less than a month before his re-election, energized voters in the southeast New Mexico town as if he was herding them to the polls. Even Democrats were in awe.

"They never had seen a president of the United States in this part of the country," said Ken Johnson, a Democratic volunteer at the time who is now chairman of the Lea County Democrats. "It was really exciting, even for Democrats, that the chief executive would take time to come and see the people."

Such attention to rural New Mexico was key to the Republican victory in 2004, and it's proving to be a cautionary tale heeded by Democrats as they prepare to battle for the state again this fall.

New Mexico is considered one of a handful of battleground states during presidential elections. In both 2000 and 2004, the state chose its candidate by a narrower margin than any other state in the union, said Albuquerque pollster Brian Sanderoff.

While this year's Democratic nominee wasn't determined after Tuesday's 22-state nominating election, the eventual winner will have to pay close attention to the small pockets of rural Democrats in New Mexico if they stand a chance of winning the state's electoral votes in November, party leaders and pundits said.

"We won all of the major urban areas in the state in 2004," said John Wertheim, who at the time was chairman of the New Mexico Democratic Party. "Quite frankly, and I felt this at the time, we did not focus enough attention in some of the more rural parts of the state, in the smaller towns."

New Mexico is a perfect example of the blue vs. red dichotomy that has played out nationwide in recent presidential elections.

Its major urban areas — Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Las Cruces — are typically won by Democrats. They're large and lonely blue bastions set in a vast sea of rural Republican voters.

In past elections, winning the big cities might have been enough for Democrats, Sanderoff said.

But while the Republicans won, as expected, their territory in rural New Mexico, it was vast margins of victories there that made the difference. Bush won by wider gaps than in previous elections, Sanderoff said.

Even in those rural counties that Republicans are almost guaranteed to win, Democrats must still work to draw their small collections of supporters to the polls, Sanderoff said.

"What the Democrats will have to do is cut their losses in the rural areas. All those east-side communities where (Republicans) do so well have pockets of strength for Democrats," Sanderoff said. "You're not going to win those counties, but you can soften your losses."

Nothing does that better than a personal appearance by a candidate.

Consider the numbers in Lea County.

In 2004, registered Republicans in the county outnumbered Democrats by only 1,595 voters — 13,209 to 11,614. Another 4,445 voters registered as independent.

Bush, however, won by an stunning 10,784 vote margin.

"I think what helped Lea County go Republican last time is when the president came," Johnson said. "This was like his home turf. There were thousands of people who showed up to see him."

That factor played out again during Tuesday's caucus.

Turnout was highest in areas where Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton paid visits, while rural areas like McKinley and Lea counties saw just 10 percent and 12 percent turnout respectively, Sanderoff said.

Not to be discounted from 2004, however, was the Republicans' vast operation statewide. Even Democratic leaders now look back with admiration at the Republicans' organizational effort.

"I look back on that campaign and I think about one number: 15,000, the number of volunteers we recruited," said Scott Jennings, a former White House deputy political director who ran the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign in New Mexico. "We had one volunteer for roughly 25 votes he received."

That's not including the thousands of West Texas volunteers that invaded the state on behalf of their favored son, Bush.

"The point is, when you have a pool of volunteer resources that vast, it opens up a world of doors for you in terms of communication," Jennings said.

While the Republicans in 2004 had the advantage of starting early — they already knew their nominee would be the incumbent president — operating a strong organization is key, Jennings said.

"We applied the same theory of grass-roots recruitment to every single county," he said. "I drove down to Roswell with a team and we put on a volunteer recruiting seminar. We did it in Las Cruces, Albuquerque, Farmington. To both rural and urban areas. We preached the same message: This is going to be a very close race."

Party leaders say the latest crop of Democratic contenders aren't likely to make the same mistakes.

"I will say I don't think the Obama campaign or Clinton campaign are going to fall into that trap," Wertheim said. "They're very good about reaching out to all areas."

That's already playing out.

The Clinton campaign has paid a lot of attention to northern, rural Navajo voters.

Johnson said an Obama field worker spent most of last week in Lea County and held a party in Hobbs on Saturday night with about 25 volunteers.

But what's important — or at least most effective — is a little face time with the party's rural voters.

"Even if they send the vice presidential candidate, that would be nice," Johnson said. "Just so they know that we care and we are there.

"We want to back them. We just like to know that we're appreciated too sometimes."