Ground game is key for Democrats

Mike Jordan, a supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, talked to Emily Overbeck, while canvassing a neighborhood in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last month. (David Lienemann/Associated Press)

BOONE, Iowa - John Edwards has the practice, having placed second in the last Iowa caucuses and visited more counties than anyone else. Barack Obama has the buzz, which has translated into an unmatched volunteer army. And Hillary Clinton has the machine, a formidable alliance of the state's leading political minds and institutional backers.

The three leading Democratic presidential contenders head into the Iowa caucuses Thursday with distinct approaches to winning. But with just five days left, all their fates now hinge on the same thing: How good their painstakingly built ground organizations - the deepest and biggest in Iowa history - perform when it counts.

The extremely tight race - the most recent polls show a virtual tie among the three - means the victor will probably be the candidate not with the best stump speech but the best network of local precinct captains. Or the sharpest voter-mobilization campaign. Or the smartest baby-sitting arrange ments for caucus-goers with young children. Or perhaps even the biggest push by unions and other "independent" groups - particularly for Clinton and Edwards.

"This race has been within the margin of error for a long time," said Steve Hildebrand, Obama's deputy campaign manager, who is in Des Moines helping lead the caucus operation. "This could be decided by between 3,000 and 5,000 votes."

The campaigns expect a larger turnout than in 2004, when about 124,000 showed up at the Democratic caucuses. The candidates' fierce Iowa politicking - the speeches from flatbeds, the requisite visits to the Iowa State Fair, the endless TV ads - now gives way to more mundane work. Each campaign is focusing on essentially just two things.

The first is their "get-out-the-caucus" plan - making certain, through phone calls, home visits, e-mails, text messages, and neighborly coercion, that committed supporters will in fact show up to vote, and that they have all the road directions, rides, child care, and food that they need.

"We really don't need excuses," Hildebrand said in an interview. "We really need turnout."

Nothing is left to chance. After some Clinton supporters expressed concern about venturing out in the snow, her campaign bought 500 shovels and devised a plan to clear their paths. On Friday, the campaign packed the shovels into U-Hauls and drove them to field offices across the state.

The second crucial task is making last-minute pitches to the large number of voters who have not made up their minds. In a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll published Friday, about one-fourth of the supporters for Clinton, Edwards, and Obama said they might vote for someone else.

Obama is personally recruiting precinct captains in rural areas where he lacks them. Every time he snags one, an aide rings a bell at Iowa headquarters in Des Moines and an office-wide cheer goes up. Obama's wife, Michelle, is scheduled to sit down with a group of undecided women tonight in Des Moines.

The leading Democratic campaigns this cycle have created the strongest and deepest political organizations Iowa has seen. They each have two to three dozen campaign offices. They have precinct captains in the vast majority of the 1,781 precincts. Their corps of thousands of aides and volunteers amount to small armies.

But each leading contender has unique advantages.

Edwards, the former North Carolina senator who surged into second place in the 2004 caucuses, is the only caucus veteran. His supporters are passionate and seasoned, and he began the 2008 race with dozens of precinct captains already in place. His campaign has what it calls a "99-county strategy," contending that Edwards enjoys strong support in rural hamlets his opponents have yet to visit.

"Having a foundation that's been laid over months and months really has given us a sense of the strength we'll have on caucus night," said Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, Edwards's state director, who helped run his 2004 campaign. "Until you go through it, you don't really know what it's like."

Obama, the Illinois senator, has been running only since February, but the raw excitement his campaign has ignited has drawn legions of volunteers and zealous backers, including thousands of Iowa college and high school students whose participation could be decisive. His campaign is considered the best-organized, especially at the ground level.

"They know the people are there, they just need to make sure they come out," said Jordan Oster, a 21-year-old student at Drake University in Des Moines and an Obama precinct captain.

Clinton, despite her contention that she is a new face in Iowa, has strong institutional support. Her caucus specialists are the best on the market: Teresa Vilmain, a veteran Iowa political hand; Jerry Crawford, a Des Moines power broker and long-time Democratic activist; and Michael Whouley, a ground-organization guru who guided Senator John F. Kerry to a surprise victory here in 2004. Clinton's unique appeal to women could also make the difference - women make up 60 percent of Democratic caucus-goers.

"We have a very consistent base of support," said David Barnhart, Clinton's caucus director.

Edwards and Clinton have the added benefit of politically savvy unions and other ostensibly independent advocacy groups working Iowa neighborhoods.

A battalion of Service Employees International Union activists, in addition to funding a pro-Edwards TV ad campaign, is on the ground canvassing and phone-banking for him. The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees has between 200 and 250 people here doing the same for Clinton, while EMILY'S List, a group that works to elect Democratic women supportive of abortion rights, has a campaign to help Clinton target women who have not caucused before.

Andrew Bouska, public affairs director for AFSCME Iowa, which has 40,000 members in the state, said the union learned from the 2004 election that the most successful strategy was pairing activists with voters who shared their profession. "When you have someone who wears the same uniform as you do or deals with the same clients or the same patients, they tend to listen," Bouska said.

Obama's campaign, which lacks the same kind of institutional help, is worried that such third-party activity could be decisive.

But the bulk of the campaigns' ground work is being done by activists such as Megan Mitchell, a 22-year-old Wellesley College graduate who works in Clinton's office in Ames, a college town north of Des Moines.

On Friday morning, Mitchell set out for the nearby city of Boone, armed with Clinton bumper stickers, a stack of addresses, and a GPS unit. Her charge was to visit supporters and remind them, gently but firmly, that they needed to caucus on Thursday.

Her first stop, a house in the shadow of the Boone water tower, was a success. The man at the door said he would be there, and could even drive others. Check.

But the next hour illustrated the grueling nature of political organizing. Even when people were home, which was not often, they were not always receptive. A woman at one house said from behind the door, "I'm not dressed," forcing Mitchell to return later. A woman in an apartment complex told her pointedly to leave. A third woman said she was a Clinton supporter but was unlikely to caucus.

Clinton's campaign, like the others, emphasizes building personal relationships with potential caucus-goes, especially those who have never participated before. Her campaign mailed packets to voters with personalized nametags, to make them feel they are truly expected at their caucus.

"It's real important that people feel urgency," Barnhart said.

The leading candidates already do. They have just days left until show time.

"There are six campaigns that are all energized for one night," said Andrew Lietzow, a 56-year-old Des Moines realtor and precinct captain for Obama. "And there will be five of them that will be anywhere from moderately disappointed to really grieving."

How does Lietzow see his job Thursday night? "Herd 'em in like herding cats," he said.

Scott Helman can be reached by shelman@globe.com.