Obama Buzz Building On The Ground In Iowa

[jefferson_dem]

Obama Buzz Building On The Ground In Iowa
by Todd Beeton, Thu Oct 04, 2007 at 04:16:21 PM EST

Ever since the Newsweek poll showing Barack Obama ahead in Iowa was released, I've read several posts devaluing the results of the poll. Ari Melber at The Nation called the poll "worthless" and Mark Bluementhal at Pollster says the methodology of the poll renders the likelihood of an Obama lead over Clinton in Iowa at about 50% (although Ezra Klein's place has it pegged at 67%.) A central conclusion of most of these posts is that not only is the predictive value of this poll questionable, but so is that of most Iowa polls since the caucus process is more time consuming and complex than merely going to a polling place and voting, thus making it difficult to determine who will actually turn out. But if the buzz that's beginning to generate about Obama from people actually on the ground in Iowa is any indication, and it is widely considered a more reliable indicator of support in the caucus, Obama's lead in Iowa may in fact be quite real.

David Yepsen of The Desmoines Register was on Hardball yesterday and expressed his enthusiasm for Obama's organization on the ground:

Right now I think Barack Obama's got a better organization in this state than Hillary Clinton does. He's got more field offices, he's spending more time in small towns in Iowa...The predictive value of these early national polls in Iowa is limited.

As he said in his column on Tuesday:

Obama’s spent more time than Clinton in the lead-off state, has plenty of money to deploy here and has built a formidable organization to go up against his two rivals.

<SNIP>

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/10/4/11218/6479

[Kagemusha]

1. I've kept hearing Obama has a better ground op too. I wonder, how can that be?

Hillary's people didn't wake up yesterday from a 20 year coma. It is surprising to hear that the challenger is out-doing her campaign in effort.

[frazzled]

2. He has training camps for volunteers and field workers

I thought that was ultra smart from the beginning. I've worked on presidential campaigns, and I believe the presence well-trained staff and volunteers is crucial. I think it sunk Howard Dean in Iowa: he had lots of enthusiastic people pouring into the state, but they hadn't been well trained in how to canvass, what to say, what not to say, how to make a telephone call. Poorly trained workers can do more harm than good to a campaign.

I learned most of my stuff from working in good field offices in New Hampshire, and from recieving training from advocacy groups in Massachusetts. I've worked on presidential and state legislative campaigns. I've seen good organization and bad.

I recently worked on my first local campaign in Chicago since moving here, and the phone banking on election day knocked my socks off. First, volunteers were asked to come to a meeting before the phoning day for training. On election day there was tight scripting and supervision of all callers, walking around and listening to volunteers in order to point out what to say if thus-and-such was asked again, and telling people not to say something that had been overhead. Scheduling of personnel was military-style organized. And they were still making us call people even ten minutes before the polls closed (some apartment buildings have voting in the building, so we focused on those addresses at that point, to get every single vote possible) ... even though, unbeknownst to us, our candidate was well ahead. They were leaving no stone unturned, and everyone was treated as a professional ... and expected to behave like one.

I compared that to some phone banking I did for the Kerry campaign when I first came here before the election. I didn't expect it to be New Hampshire style, where I had worked before, since Illinois wasn't a swing state .... but it wasn't even acceptable. The doors to the building weren't even open at the time we were supposed to start, volunteers had no idea of what they were supposed to be doing, callers were allowed to say things on their own, because left unsupervised, that never should be allowed (such as trying to argue with voters ). It wasn't crucial here, because it's a blue state. But it was the epitome of a badly run operation.

I think Obama has realized the importance of good ground organization.

[Kagemusha]

3. If so, good for him.

Even if he loses in the end - and he might - the party deserves nothing less than the best effort he can come up with, in no small part because that might help the party in the general election when at least some of those people apply those skills at a later date as well.

[Debi]

5. He has more of a bottom up campaign

Clinton is being organized more top down.

Ownership of support for a candidate creates a greater enthusiasm for that candidate. Don't get me wrong, Clinton has a very clean and well run camp here in Iowa. Obama's just has more spontaneous energy.

[rinsd]

4. I have no doubts about Obama's org on the ground but that Newsweek poll stank.

But Obama has raised the most money amongst Democrats in IA and he has had about 40 more events there than Hillary has.

[Nimrod2005]

6. You heard it here first:

Obama wins IA, Edwards right behind him, maybe 3 or 4 percentage points, then Hillary comes in 10%-12% behind Obama!