Dec 20, 2007 3:06 pm US/Eastern
Dems Eye '2nd Choice' Supporters In Iowa
WASHINGTON (AP) ―
It's not just in horseshoes that close counts. The same goes for Iowa's presidential caucuses.
The state's complicated rules for winning the Democratic
presidential contest mean that being a voter's second choice can
sometimes translate into solid support on caucus night. And the crowded
race for the 2008 nomination means these second- choice supporters are
more important and receiving more attention than ever.
That's because candidates must reach at least 15 percent support in
any given precinct to have their supporters counted there. If they
don't, those caucus goers are up for grabs by other campaigns in a
free-for-all negotiating session where voters often switch sides.
"Have we been targeting those voters and keeping track of them from
Day One? Absolutely," said David Barnhart, the Iowa caucus director for
Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The most valuable Democratic second-choice voters are those who
support second-tier candidates Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd
and Dennis Kucinich. Though those candidates have pockets of support
around the state, they all are polling in single digits and aren't
expected to reach the minimum 15 percent threshold in many of the
state's 1,781 precincts.
Recent polls have the four combined pulling in roughly 15 percent of
the voters. That's a significant number that will be available on Jan.
3, especially when Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are in such a
tight three-way race for victory in the state.
"If one of those candidates are really far ahead, those
second-choice voters wouldn't be that important," said Drake University
political science professor Dennis Goldford. "They are going to be the
500-pound elephant in the room. They are really going to sway things."
Goldford said second-choice voters could be Clinton's downfall. He
said he sees merit in the theory that voters who like Clinton are
already with her.
Clinton's Barnhart disputes that reasoning, and says voters who
support Dodd, Richardson and Biden like seasoned leaders and would be
more likely to support someone like Clinton than a less experienced
candidate like Edwards or Obama.
Recent polling suggests all three leading candidates share in the
support of second-choice voters. An MSNBC/McClatchy survey taken this
month showed the three in a statistical tie at the top with all seven
candidates in the race. When allocating the second choices of
Richardson, Biden, Dodd and Kucinich voters, they remained in a
statistical tie — with Edwards getting a bump of 6 percentage points,
Obama 5 and Clinton 2.
Here's how the caucuses work:
At 7 p.m. on Jan. 3, Democrats around the state will gather at
various sites for the presidential caucus. They will stand in
designated parts of a room, according to which candidate they support.
If an individual candidate does not have the support of at least 15
percent of the caucus goers in the room — sometimes as much as 50
percent in some precincts — the candidate is not viable in that
precinct and the supporters can either go home or decide to back
another candidate.
All the campaigns train their precinct captains to try to win over
the people in a below-threshold group, so those voters immediately
become the most popular folks in the room. However, the Clinton, Obama
and Edwards campaigns say the work to win these voters over won't begin
at the caucus — it's been part of their Iowa strategy all along.
Obama adviser Steve Hildebrand said the campaign is focused now on
reaching out to second-choice supporters and undecided voters. Instead
of plotting strategy as a top operative normally does, Hildebrand now
is putting his energy into one-on-one meetings with those two kinds of
voters in an attempt to win commitments for Obama.
Hildebrand, speaking on a cell phone from a coffee shop between
appointments, said he had just tried to win over a female pastor who
supports Richardson. She realizes the New Mexico governor may not have
enough votes and is open to supporting Obama, he said.
Edwards' advisers say they, too, don't give up on voters who support
one of the four lower-tier candidates. Instead, campaign staffers
stress Edwards' respect for their first choice and talk about what the
two candidates have in common.
They don't point out that the candidate might not be viable on
Caucus Night and in that case the voter should support Edwards,
advisers said. That could offend a loyal supporter. Instead, they hope
to build up goodwill so the voters will be inclined to move to Edwards.
Sometimes the candidate might be able to build goodwill directly. At
a debate in Iowa last week, Obama jumped in to defend Biden from a
question about whether he is comfortable talking about minorities.
Although Obama may not have been thinking about winning over Biden's
supporters in the moment, it can't hurt on caucus night.
In 2004, Edwards and long shot candidate Dennis Kucinich had an
informal agreement — if either candidate didn't reach viability, he
would encourage his supporters to back the other. Jennifer O'Malley
Dillon, who heads Edwards' Iowa campaign and was field director four
years ago, said the so-called pact has become an "urban legend" and its
impact overblown. But it probably resulted in at least a few more votes
in Edwards' second-place finish.
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
