PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Who can say no to a wide-eyed 4-year-old, dressed from head to toe in pink princess gear, standing shyly on the doorstep?

Not many people, it seems.

That's why, in the final, frenzied days before Oregon's Nov. 6 election, the supporters of a new children's health insurance program deployed trick-or-treaters for a get-out-the-vote drive.

Door-to-door canvassing is a tried-and-true way to communicate with voters, both the most time-consuming and, perhaps, the most effective.

This cycle, only those urging a "yes" vote on the two statewide ballot measures that will be decided next Tuesday are mustering the manpower to go door-to-door.

Opponents of the measures, which also include a proposal to scale back private development rights, are relying on TV ads and radio spots to make their case in the last few days.

That's a much more expensive, but also a logistically simpler choice, particularly in a short election cycle. Public campaigning on the two measures didn't really begin in earnest until just after Labor Day, two months before the election.

"We've been encouraging people to talk with their neighbors about Measure 49," said Dave Hunnicutt, with Oregonians in Action, the private property group that has led opposition to the land-use proposal. "But we're not going to try to run a door-to-door campaign. It's an expensive and difficult task. We don't have the resources to do that."

Still, Hunnicutt said he was comfortable with a television-based strategy.

"It's more effective than having some creepy character showing up at your house and telling you how to vote," he said.

Lisa Gilliam, a spokeswoman for the group backed by Philip Morris to oppose the tobacco tax increase, said the company had dumped another $1.1 million in their campaign in the final week to drive their point home, particularly to undecided voters. Most of the group's money so far has gone for broadcast ads, now playing around-the-clock.

"We will stick with our plan, and campaign up until 8 p.m. next Tuesday," she said.

On Halloween, Jennifer Sargent waited for her daughter, Mia, resplendent in her pink princess gown, to finish picking out her candy before making her pitch on the children's health proposal. The program would be funded with a 84.5-cent increase in the state's cigarette tax, and would cover an estimated 100,000 poor children by 2011.

Sargent, who works for the Oregon chapter of the AFL-CIO, found mainly receptive voters on the block to which she was assigned, in a liberal corner of southeast Portland, though some said the measure hadn't been an easy call.

"I had a tough time with 50," said Janet Ambrose, after handing Mia some candy. "I like that they can't touch the money, that it has to go to the kids. I didn't like the fact that it's going into the constitution."

Canvassers out to persuade voters to approve Measure 49 said one of the benefits of going door-to-door is a chance to cut through the fog of competing claims that have been made on TV ads.

Cindy Kimball, a self-employed Salem artist and political activist, spent Wednesday walking the streets of an upper-middle-class subdivision south of Salem, where growth has been rampant.

"I'm definitely confused by all of the TV ads," voter Emily Croxall told her. "They have these families that are saying they are going to lose their land if Measure 49 passes."

But after hearing Kimball's pitch - that a vote for the measure would protect rural land from the onset of strip malls - Croxall promised to cast her ballot with a "yes" vote on Measure 49.

"I like the preservation of Oregon farmland. I don't want to see a lot of houses in areas that are rural," Croxall said.

Kimball said she's gone out door-knocking for Measure 49 eight times already, and that canvassing for the measure has been especially challenging, because it's a complex issue.

"I often will spend 20 minutes with people explaining the measure to them," she said. "Sometimes you go out for three hours, and you're lucky if you have time to contact 20 or 25 homes."

Turnout numbers have been low, but organizers on all sides are hoping for a surge over the last days of the vote.

According to numbers tracked by the Oregon Democratic Party, by week's end about 35 percent of Democrats had voted, compared with 34 percent of Republicans, and only about 22 percent of voters who are not affiliated with any party. 

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)