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| Hunt: 'It has everything to do with running for president,' said GOP contender Mike Huckabee to the press before pheasant
hunting Dec. 26 in Iowa. Andy Nelson - staff |
Before Iowa caucuses, candidates scramble
With a week before the first test of the primary season, presidential candidates are pulling out all the stops.
from the December 28, 2007 edition
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The start of the final week has seen candidates cramming their schedules with events across the state and driving home campaign themes, all with an eye to churning enough excitement to drive supporters to the caucus sites. Appearing with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and daughter in Iowa Wednesday, Clinton cast herself as the only candidate with the experience to bring about change. Obama was expected to lay out his closing argument to Iowans at a Des Moines speech Thursday.
"There's an old phrase that the key to success in the caucus is organize, organize, organize and get hot at the end," says professor Dennis Goldford, of Drake University in Des Moines. "You're getting close to the point where it's less about making a new sale, than making sure people already committed to you turn out."
A lot can change in the countdown to caucus night, he says. John Kerry's campaign was faltering in late December 2003 before missteps by Howard Dean and new television ads meant to soften the Massachusetts senator's image helped catapult him to first place here.
Mr. Dean, who had earlier appeared to be surging, drew media coverage for an "Adopt an Iowan" program in which supporters sent hand-written notes to voters in the Hawkeye State. He still finished third. The run-up to the caucuses, says pollster Dick Bennett, is when "we begin to see if the candidates really do have the organization they say they do."
In recent days, the candidates have not only faced attacks from each other. The pro-business Club For Growth announced Wednesday that it is buying $175,000 in Iowa television ads condemning Huckabee's tax record as Arkansas governor. On Thursday, some 22 talk-radio hosts from around the country were expected to converge on Des Moines for a marathon broadcast sponsored by The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group critical of the bipartisan immigration measure backed by the Bush administration earlier this year.
Several candidates are launching bus tours across Iowa this week, while others, such as former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and McCain, continue to focus efforts in other early-voting states, where their poll numbers are higher.
For Iowa voters, the crush of attention in the final weeks is both exhilarating and wearying. Joan Brown, a retired hairdresser from St. Charles, says she has gotten three to four phone calls a day from campaigns seeking her support.
"When it becomes annoying is when they call at 6 p.m. when you're having dinner or at 10 p.m. when you don't want to talk anymore," Ms. Brown, a Democrat, said Wednesday night while waiting for Clinton to appear at a campaign stop in Cumming, Iowa. "You don't want to hear it again, but, you know," she added, shrugging, "it's only every four years."
• Staff writer Linda Feldmann contributed reporting from Washington.
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