Democrats Gear Up For Final Appeal to Undecided Iowans

By Peter Slevin and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 2, 2007; A01

CARROLL, Iowa -- Work hard for Hillary Clinton and get an invitation to visit with her in the Sac City fire station before a rally.

Commit to John Edwards and ride his bus to the next stop.

Volunteer for Barack Obama and grab a ticket to see him with Oprah Winfrey.

Barely a month before Iowa presidential caucuses that are still rated a toss-up, the Democratic candidates have turned to every kind of marketing strategy -- from starlets making conference calls to musicians playing concerts alongside the contenders -- in the increasingly tense final push to persuade voters to show up on Jan. 3 for the inaugural contest of 2008.

Undecided voters, according to several campaigns, may still constitute as much as half of the Democratic electorate, giving fragile hope to underdogs such as New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) as they unnerve front-runners Clinton, Obama and Edwards, who have spent millions of dollars to woo them only to find that they cannot lock the voters down.

"I feel like a bridesmaid," said Dodd, who moved his family to Des Moines so he could campaign nonstop but has yet to edge out of the low single digits in polls despite his 90 staffers, 13 Iowa field offices and the 10,000 phone calls his campaign makes here each week. "A lot of people say to me, 'I'm for you, but you're my second choice.' "

"Iowans are very volatile," Richardson mused as he drove through southwestern Iowa last week. "They can switch back and forth to you, so you have to have a strong finish."

Veteran political observers say the race remains particularly unpredictable, not just because polls show Obama (Ill.) running neck and neck with Clinton (N.Y.), but because Iowa's caucus process allows supporters of second-tier candidates to switch to another contender after the first round.

The front-running campaigns are also concerned about the readiness of their supporters to navigate the caucus system. The Clinton campaign estimates that 6o percent or more of their prospective voters either have never attended a caucus or have not done so in a long time.

Obama, too, is counting on energized first-timers, while Edwards, who finished second here in 2004 but trails in buzz and polls, is banking on fresh faces to bolster his more seasoned precinct leaders.

Worried about being outflanked, Clinton has added 100 people to her Iowa staff, raising the total to about 220. Last month, she spent about every second day in Iowa, and her campaign said she will increase that pace this month. But both of her chief rivals, Obama and Edwards, have traveled more widely in Iowa than Clinton, and Obama has outspent her on television advertising here.

The goal for all of them is to win over the undecided voters. Campaign officials describe the pool this year as typically older, more likely to be rural than urban, and more inclined to pick a candidate based on practical issues such as electability rather than on ideological grounds. For instance, rival candidates are wooing Edwards supporters particularly intensively right now, believing that holdovers from his 2004 campaign are increasingly showing up at the events of other candidates and expressing concern about Edwards's consistent third-place finish in the polls.

"Iowans make up their minds late, and we're trying to give them as many touches as possible to bring them on board," said a Clinton adviser. Among the more novel blandishments: a lighthearted video starring Bill Clinton that the campaign aims to show in 50,000 homes by Jan. 3. It opens with a shot of a double cheeseburger, then one of the former president huffing on a treadmill as the words appear, "Exercising is hard." But caucusing, the video concludes, is easy.

The campaigns have also flooded the state with a dazzling array of surrogates, from bestarred former military leaders such as retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark for Clinton, to bestirred musicians, most recently Paul Simon for Dodd and Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne for Edwards.

At Obama headquarters in Carroll one recent night, Ally Carragher, a volunteer from a Washington law firm, was calling high schoolers who turned 17 by Nov. 4, making them eligible to caucus. One of her young recruits had a chance to ask actress Scarlett Johansson a question during a campaign conference call.

"Do you think it would help if I called your coach and reminded him about the caucus?" Carragher asked another student who said politics might interfere with basketball practice.

At the same time, Brendan Beattie, an Iowa veteran of many campaigns, was calling committed supporters and offering tickets to an event featuring Winfrey and Obama in Des Moines, 90 minutes away, in return for volunteer hours. The going rate was two hours per ticket. As the night wore on, the list of willing Oprah fans grew long.

Brian Albert, who arrived this spring from a Bethesda law firm, was rustling up supporters to attend a mock caucus, in which Obama backers were to practice by choosing which they like best: beer, wine or soda pop. He explained to one prospect: "Going to the training will get you two tickets. If you want four tickets, you'll have to volunteer at the office."

On a recent night in Lake View, 25 miles north of Carroll in western Iowa, a pair of Clinton campaign workers set out to rally the troops in part by encouraging them to get to know one another. The concept, as a Des Moines adviser put it, is to make the caucus seem like a party, and who would want to go to a party where you don't know anyone?

Susy Bates, who arrived from Denver this summer, worked with six precinct captains, talking with them about ways to nudge supporters.

"She's ahead in New Hampshire, but the margin is shrinking a bit. If we don't do well here, it will make it harder. One or two more people can give us another delegate," said Bates, who tried to make the caucuses sound simple.

"How's everybody feeling about this?" Bates asked the group hopefully. "Feeling excited?"

Deb Campbell, a first-time caucusgoer and precinct captain, spoke up.

"I feel dumb," she said.

Campbell said later that she once felt intimidated by the caucuses: "Like a lot of people I'll be calling, I was scared and didn't know what to do: 'Do I have to make a speech?' "

The candidates themselves have zipped in and out of the nearby counties, and they will probably return. Two days after Thanksgiving, Clinton was in Sac City while Obama was just south, in Audubon. More than once, Edwards has visited Carroll, where his campaign has a surprising weapon: Bill Clinton.

"I'm Bill Clinton with the John Edwards campaign," this Clinton said when a neighbor opened the door for him. The name, not surprisingly, helps him get conversations started, not least with undecided voters who just might be ready to sign up.

But many here in Iowa think this year's intense campaign has made it even harder to close the deal with the state's famously fickle voters.

"I've always said people who are undecided don't have brains," said former Carroll mayor Ed Smith, a registered independent, "but truly this time is difficult."

University of Iowa political scientist David P. Redlawsk said this year's unusual field of strong candidates makes it easier to be undecided. And besides, he said, some of the uncertainty is "really just informed decision making." He foresees no repeat of 1976, when Jimmy Carter finished second on the ballot to "Uncommitted."

Herb Freese, a retiree in Allison, swears that he is not afraid of commitment.

"I'm an Iowa undecided voter and proud of it," he declared the other day, his denim cap pulled so low over his forehead it almost met his big grin. He reads all the campaign fliers, called "the slicks," that clog his mailbox. He will even take a robocall during dinner and start talking to the computer voice: " 'How are you doing? Are you eating now, too?' It amuses my wife no end."

Freese was listening to Joseph R. Biden Jr. talk at the library, his second date with the senator from Delaware.

He has heard the sweet talk of Clinton, Obama, Edwards and Richardson, but their affections remain unrequited, for now.

John Backer, a retired farmer from Greene, is leaning toward Edwards, his 2004 pick. But when the other campaigns call at night, he listens. He was impressed with Biden's performance at an event that included mini-lectures on the oil market, Pakistan and tax policy, but he did not sign one of the pledge cards waved by campaign aides.

"He's the only one I've heard," Backer said, "so it's not fair to everyone else."

For his part, Biden believes his difficulty closing the deal with voters such as Backer comes from Iowans' sense that the upcoming caucus vote is "more important than it ever was." Still running under 5 percent in recent surveys, he added: "I believe they think in their heart this is the most important election they've ever voted in, and they've been seized by their own importance."

Murray reported from Allison, Iowa.