The State of the Field-Ops War

[babylonsister]

The State of the Field-Ops War

Two weeks out from Iowa--who has people on the ground, and the strategy to organize them?


Thomas F. Schaller | December 21, 2007



He's baaaack. Though his role is unclear -- paid or unpaid, advising or taking over? -- news that legendary Democratic field wizard Michael Whouley, the man who engineered Al Gore's national popular vote win and John Kerry’s 2004 Iowa victory, has joined the Clinton campaign's field effort sent a ripple through the world of people who make it their business to win campaigns where they matter most: on the ground. One report said Whouley was recently "conscripted" to bolster the Clinton team for the home stretch in Iowa.

After a choppy start a year ago, Clinton's campaign has solidified its Iowa ground game, supervised by formidable veteran organizer Teresa Vilmain and supplemented by the efforts of JoDee Winterhoff, two native Iowans who know the state well and who benefited recently from reinforcements. "Clinton nearly doubled the size of her late-out-of-the-gate field operation in Iowa, adding about 100 new people, though she still has not caught up with the forces that Obama has had in place pretty much since June," reported Time's Karen Tumulty. "Emily's List, the political network of pro-choice Democratic women, had planned to put its money into helping Clinton in the big states that vote on Feb. 5 but is now moving its resources into Iowa."

John Edwards, who surged late in 2004 to finish second in Iowa and has basically remained in-state since, also has a formidable team. State director Jennifer O’Malley served as his Iowa field director four years ago, when Edwards surged late to finish close behind Kerry. The Edwards campaign recently bragged that it has recruited two precinct captains in almost 90 percent of Iowa precincts. At the Democratic National Committee fall meetings in Northern Virginia a few weeks ago, Edwards adviser Joe Trippi told me he felt confident about his candidate's field situation. Asked if he thought the Edwards and Barack Obama campaigns might collude to defeat Clinton by brokering the sort of deal that Edwards struck with Dennis Kucinich's campaign in 2004 to, Trippi was very coy. "It's too early to say, but I think people will know what to do when the time comes."

As for Obama, much of the fuss over his autumn rise in national and Iowa polls has been focused, per usual, on messaging, television ads, key debate exchanges, and especially the recent sparring with fellow senator Hillary Clinton. But the secret to Obama's chances to capture the nomination, and his firewall against flaming out like so many Democratic insurgent campaigns past, may be something far more mundane than his open-collar stump speeches or the endorsement of Oprah Winfrey: His campaign has a strong and sophisticated field operation, particularly in Iowa.
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With the first-in-the-nation caucuses only days away, tales of Howard Dean's 2004 primary collapse will soon roll from the tongues of the national punditry. Obama and Dean are different in many ways, of course. The later is a short, sometimes-churlish, white, northeastern governor who sought the nomination by running against the entire party; the former is a lanky, sometimes-blithe, black Midwestern senator who is seeking the nomination by running against the party's presumed heiress apparent.

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http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_state_of_the_field_ops_war