Inside the Fight for Iowa

The Iowa Caucus is exquisitely difficult, the most daunting and complicated political process in America.

And because it is so difficult, it is a true test of the ground game: the ability of campaigns to identify, win over and deliver voters under conditions that are borderline bizarre.

"First-time caucus-goers get the shock of their lives," says Michael Mauro, Iowa's secretary of state. "They don't know they have to stand in a corner, and there is no secret ballot."

The process can take more than two hours. It is done only at night. People get to make speeches, argue and twist arms. And, afterward, neighbors sometimes stop speaking to each other for years.

"We are asking for genuine sacrifice," says Jerry Crawford, a Des Moines lawyer and power broker who is working for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"We are asking people to overcome the hassle factor. When I look at the faces in the crowds, I look for determination. I look for an expression on a voter's face that says: 'I will get there!'"

Most will not get there.

Turnout is very low for the caucus, less than 10 percent of the voting-age population.

But the winners are still the winners and the losers are still the losers, no matter how many people made them so.

With both parties' top candidates locked in tight races — and with a public eager for results based on actual votes, not just polling and punditry — Iowa has become more important this cycle than at any time in recent memory.

The ground game in Iowa is a game of inches.

Even a few thousand voters — the veterans that John F. Kerry's campaign sought out in 2004, for instance — can be the margin of victory.

The trick is finding those voters who might be especially receptive to your message.

"There is not a campaign worth anything that is not counting on its data director," says Patrick Dillon, the Democratic chief of staff to Iowa Gov. Chet Culver and a former John Edwards staffer.

"He is a 19-year-old Berkeley computer science dropout who is linking his laptop to an Excel spreadsheet and going through the voter files. That is what he does every day: culling lists, matching lists, slicing and dicing lists."

In the end, a campaign could know how many evangelical Christians with school-age children, Ford Explorers, fishing licenses and an interest in the environment are out there and what their phone numbers are.

Especially what their phone numbers are.

More than a million phone calls will be made to Iowans before the caucuses.

Not that it is all high-tech number-crunching. There is still the old school.

There is still Ned Chiodo, a Des Moines golf course manager and lobbyist who has lived all his life on the Italian South Side of Des Moines and who organizes today as he has for decades: neighbor to neighbor.

"It takes local people with local knowledge," says Chiodo, who is backing Clinton. "Everybody has caller ID these days. They don't pick up the phone unless they know you. So you make your list and you check it twice to see who is naughty and who is nice. And you better do it before Christmas."

That's the other thing. Though the caucus will not take place until Jan. 3, effective campaigning may be over well before then because of the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

John Norris, who was Kerry's Iowa director in 2004 and is now an Obama volunteer, thinks any campaigning that matters will end about Dec. 20, which is why the ground game is reaching a fever pitch right now.

Norris talks about a woman who supported Edwards in 2004 but who is now supporting Obama. Why?

"Because an Edwards volunteer only knocked on her door once, and we knocked on her door several times," Norris says.

Culver, who is staying neutral, compares the caucus to a fire in a fireplace.

The organizations lay the fire, and the candidates light it with their message.

"And then it can go 'whoosh,'" he says.

He also thinks the outcome is yet to be determined.

"It's going to be who is the best closer," Culver says.

"Who is training their people at the right level? Who is in the best shape? Who is going to be able to pull away down the final leg of this race? I think it could be a night of surprises."

There are other questions: which candidates are holding potluck suppers before the caucus to help ensure that voters show up, which are providing baby sitters and which has the most tire chains.

And in the Iowa ground game, a game of inches, a vote or two here and there can make all the difference.

To find out more about Roger Simon, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007, CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.