FARGO, N.D. - Not a single yard sign pokes out of the frozen snow along the straight tracts of one-story houses. In the wind-whipped parking lot outside Hornbacher's supermarket, not one car has a presidential bumper sticker. Big-name candidates? John Edwards was supposed to visit last week, but then he dropped out of the race.
North Dakota is one of the 24 Super Tuesday states that will vote tomorrow in what amounts to a national primary. But its small population - slightly more than Boston's - spread over 70,000 square miles of prairie, plains, and badlands, and its correspondingly low delegate counts - just 13 for Democrats, 23 for Republicans - have rendered North Dakota one of the least important priorities for candidates in both parties.
And so, amid the most contentious presidential nominating contests in a generation, North Dakotans are choosing their candidates in a bizarre political environment: no polling, no sign- wavers at busy intersections, few television ads, and no appearances by candidates - except for Ron Paul, a Republican congressman who plans to visit the state today.
But that does not mean there is no campaigning going on.
"This is the most active I've ever seen it, with the presidential candidates," said Rick Gion, a spokesman for the state Democratic-NPL Party.
The party's website crashed the other night because of heavy traffic, Gion said. Barack Obama has put nine staff members on the ground, an unheard-of number for a caucus here. In the northwestern corner of the state, a farmer spray-painted "RON PAUL" on seven large hay bales stacked beside a highway.
A handful of surrogates have stumped for their candidates, including Ann Romney, whose last-minute trip here Saturday was covered heavily in the local media. And all of the campaigns had volunteers working the phones this weekend in small groups or, more commonly, their homes.
"It may look like nothing's going on, but, like the rest of the country, North Dakota is practically electric," said Nancy Vogeltanz-Holm, a volunteer and designated spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton's campaign in the state.
Still, the ground fight here pales in comparison with the battles roaring across big states such as California, where the contest is playing out in arena-sized rallies, extravagant ad blitzes, and celebrity-studded press conferences.
But rather than feeling neglected by the candidates, most voters here say they prefer a race that relies more on word of mouth than sound bites.
"North Dakotan voters are very independent," said Connie Cleveland, a 47-year-old lawyer who votes Republican, as she watched her son and daughter practice for a tournament the other night at a curling club in Fargo. "People don't like to be told how to vote; they don't like prepackaged campaigns."
Talk radio is one of the liveliest forums for presidential campaign chatter. Conservative host Scott Hennen's morning radio show, "Hot Talk" on Fargo's WDAY-AM 970, which reaches about 150,000 listeners weekly in North Dakota and Minnesota, not only lets locals air their views, but also gives the campaigns a chance to make their case using long-distance surrogates.
Broadcasting live from the West Acres Shopping Center in Fargo on Friday morning, Hennen toggled between promoting an American Heart Association women's health campaign, running reports on the latest winter wheat prices, and chatting with Liz Cheney, the vice president's daughter and a Romney backer.
"Tell North Dakotans and Minnesotans why Mitt Romney ought to be the choice on Tuesday," he asked Cheney, who quickly lit into John McCain, senator of Arizona.
"Governor Romney is the only conservative in this race," she shot back. On immigration, global warming, and campaign finance, she said, "John McCain represents the very liberal wing of our party."
North Dakota's population is relatively homogeneous, mostly white and of German and Norwegian descent, but its political temperament, a blend of Western conservatism and prairie populism, is as idiosyncratic as its landscape. Bush won nearly two-thirds of the vote in North Dakota in 2004, and Republicans hold most statewide offices. But the state's two senators and lone congressman are Democrats.
How this year's crop of candidates will fare here is anyone's guess, as no reliable pollsters have surveyed the electorate.
"There's really no way to know here," said Chad Nodland, a Bismarck lawyer who edits a left-leaning political blog, North Decoder.
Last week, though, the "Hot Talk" phone lines crackled with alarm about McCain, whose distaste for farm subsidies and moderate views on issues such as immigration make for a dangerous combination in this state.
Listeners called him too liberal and too old for the job.
But Attorney General Wayne Stenejhem, a McCain supporter, said his candidate will do just fine. "He has a maverick streak, which is the kind of thing North Dakotans appreciate in a politician," he said.
Perhaps the most energetic GOP group is for Paul, whose supporters have organized their own groups, put up their own signs, and even bought their own ads in their local paper. Charlene Nelson, a volunteer-turned-paid coordinator for the campaign, said Paul's libertarian ethos is well suited to North Dakota.
"Loving freedom and wide open spaces, that's our character," she said. "Ron Paul speaks to freedom."
On the Democratic side, Obama's campaign has invested by far the most resources, as he has in all seven states holding Democratic caucuses tomorrow, where organization is key.
Political observers note that Obama has the support of Senator Kent Conrad and Representative Earl Pomeroy. Senator Byron Dorgan has not endorsed. Obama ran television ads early, dispatched former senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota here to campaign for him, and even granted a coveted phone interview last week to the Fargo Forum.
The other night, several Obama staff members and volunteers stationed here made phone calls out of a small office in a strip mall in Fargo. John Clemson, a 55-year-old software specialist who started helping the campaign two months ago, said the state presented a challenge for a young, black candidate, but after his victories in Iowa and South Carolina, support for him seems to have grown.
"I think it's shifting," he said.
Clinton, who began airing her first local television ads late last week, has a steering committee of about four dozen volunteers, who over the weekend were preparing to participate in her national town hall meeting tonight. Vogeltanz-Holm believes North Dakotans will rally to Clinton partly because of their practicality.
"They support people who get the job done," she said.
Both Clinton and Obama are courting former loyalists of Edwards.
The biggest challenge confronting all the campaigns is getting people to the caucuses. Party officials are predicting record turnout, but they say it is unlikely to exceed 15,000 in either caucus, which amounts to only about 5 or 6 percent of the voting-age population.
That, political observers here say, is largely because North Dakota traditionally held late primaries and only switched to early party-held caucuses in 2000. Even to many people who never miss a regular election, the caucuses still seem a bit mysterious.
"I really haven't engaged in those things in the past," said Ken Sperry, an 84-year-old retired beekeeper from Kindred, who said he was not sure whether he and his wife would attend.
But the "fire-breathers," as Hennen calls the diehard activists, are doing all they can to let people know the caucus is here. A shipment of McCain yard signs recently arrived at the GOP headquarters in Bismarck.
How to plant them in the rock-hard ground in Bismarck, where there is no snow, after a cold spell with wind chills of 25 below? "If you really are a hard-nosed campaigner," said Marlan "Hawk" Haakenson, a former mayor of Bismarck and a McCain supporter, "you get out there and heat them up with a little Bunsen torch, and they'll go in."
Lisa Wangsness can be reached at lwangsness@globe.com.
rising
falling 