Plumbing Iowa for Democratic Caucus Votes? Bring Money
To most people, all the national Democrats beating a path to Iowa this month look an awful lot like presidential candidates. But to the state Democratic Party, they look like something else: revenue enhancers.
Showing its entrepreneurial spirit, the state party is offering potential candidates access to its detailed voter database -- for a price. Specifically, they can mine the valuable data for $50,000 (act now, urges the party, and get a discount from the usual fee of $75,000). The details were reported by the political newsletter the Hotline and the Des Moines Register.
  Former senator John Edwards (N.C.) is one of a number of Democrats working Iowa 18 months before the 2008 presidential precinct caucuses are held. (Photos By Charlie Neibergall -- Associated Press) |
For an additional $50,000 next year, candidates can secure access to a database buttressed by information derived from the 2006 primary and general elections. Or campaigns can ignore the current offer and purchase the full database next year for $85,000.
Candidates have until Saturday to decide whether to take advantage of the discount.
Eighteen months before the often-pivotal Iowa caucuses, potential candidates are already swarming the Hawkeye State.
This weekend, Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.) was to honor a state representative at a coffee shop in Muscatine, while former senator John Edwards (N.C.), the 2004 vice presidential nominee, planned to attend a barbecue for party faithful in Indianola, among other events.
Edwards and Bayh have made the biggest splashes in Iowa since the 2004 election. But they are being joined in Iowa this month by the 2004 presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), and former Virginia governor Mark R. Warner.
Also active in Iowa is Tom Vilsack, who will retire from the governorship at the end of his term as he ponders a 2008 bid. He and Bayh are the only two potential candidates to have political staff workers already on the ground, according to the Register.
A poll last month by the Register showed Edwards leading other potential Democratic contenders, with 30 percent of the vote of people likely to participate in the caucuses. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), who has not made a priority of visiting Iowa, came in second, followed by Kerry and Vilsack.
Two years ago, Kerry won the Iowa caucuses.
Clearer Path for Sen. Cantwell
Faced with the prospect of a primary fight over her support for the war in Iraq, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) is working behind the scenes to assure antiwar activists that she is no Joe Lieberman.
Michael Meehan, Cantwell's chief of staff, was in Seattle last week to huddle with Dal LaMagna and Mark Wilson, vocal opponents of the Iraq war who have floated the idea of running themselves, giving her an intraparty battle of the sort Sen. Lieberman (D) is facing from antiwar candidate Ned Lamont in Connecticut. Cantwell, who voted for the 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, has also held more than a dozen meetings with antiwar constituents.
