Canvassers Make a Final Frantic Push in Iowa

(Chris Hondros - Getty Images)

Clinton 28

Every call counts

Every knock counts

The sign on the bank said 2 degrees as Shaun Loneman, Jessica Johnson and Ian Erickson made their afternoon rounds for Obama in Carroll. As Johnson idled the car, the 21-year-old Loneman rang doorbells, holding a clipboard in his gloved left hand. His right hand was bare.

"It's easier to turn the pages and hold the pen," he said.

Stacy Rummerfield answered the door at a wood-frame house on North West Street, where Christmas lights framed the carport and snow covered the front lawn. Yes, she said, she and her husband intend to caucus, but they are still deciding between Clinton and Obama.

Remarkably, in a campaign where canvassers are as omnipresent as bill collectors, this was her first political contact. She had received no mail, no visitors, no telephone calls -- perhaps because she and her husband have only cellphones.

"Can I ask who it's between?" ventured Loneman, a University of Northern Iowa junior.

"It's Hillary and Obama," said Rummerfield, 23. "We're debating over the war and health care."

Loneman reminded her that Obama opposed the war before it began and described a few key differences between their health-care plans. He gave her a number to call for more information and said someone from the campaign would follow up. He urged her to go the courthouse where Precinct 3 residents caucus.

"If you're undecided, you can go there and be undecided," Loneman said. "You can go there and hear the explanations from people about why they're going to do what they're going to do."

Up the street, at another door, Loneman was disappointed when no one answered because he had been tracking the decision making of a high school senior who lived there. The Obama campaign has mounted a large operation to attract teenagers who will turn 18 by November and can caucus now.