So, I spent some time today bouncing around to campaign headquarters with the stated purpose of finding out where the campaigns were recommending reporters go tomorrow night to watch a good example of their candidate’s caucus operation in action. Understandably, helping media find a good caucus site is not a high priority for any of the campaigns; by tomorrow night, good media coverage matters not. I’ll probably pick a suburban site somewhere here in Polk County, perhaps in or near where I So, I spent some time today bouncing around to campaign headquarters with the stated purpose of finding out where the campaigns were recommending reporters go tomorrow night to watch a good example of their candidate’s caucus operation in action. Understandably, helping media find a good caucus site is not a high priority for any of the campaigns; by tomorrow night, good media coverage matters not. I’ll probably pick a suburban site somewhere here in Polk County, perhaps in or near where I attended that Mitt Romney house party yesterday. But the real intent was to sneak a peek at the campaign’s Des Moines statewide headquarters, which is always an interesting window (though such offices are generally devoid of windows) into how the campaigns’ operations look on the eve of the caucuses. The size, space, organization, and staff demeanor is also very revealing of each candidate’s own style and resources. For the three major candidates, all of whom are located within a good 7-iron of each other on 2nd Street East in downtown Des Moines. One is greeted by an intimidating, bald private security officer at the Hillary Clinton HQ, and a border wall that prevents so much as sneaking a peak past the two women working the front desk area. (Such a walled, secure presence is a reasonable response in the aftermath of the New Hampshire kidnapping event last month.) On the other extreme, while waiting in the casual, twentysomething-staffed front area of the John Edwards offices. suddenly David Bonior, campaign chair, breezes in and finds time to chat for a few minutes. Somewhere between these extremes are the Barack Obama offices—a bit more workmanlike and fastidious than the Edwards operation, but absent the sense of paranoid control. These impressions are piecemeal and perhaps unrepresentative, but one wonders if they reflect the approach of each candidate’s campaign style. There is a trains-running-on-time, button-downed corporate feel to Camp Hillary that is perhaps reflected in stories like this; a more rag-tag, muddy union boots and garish rally posters feel to Camp Edwards, which perhaps reflects reports like this; and a cool, postmodern, we-just-filmed-a-Mac-ad quality to Camp Obama that affirms some of what I wrote for the Prospect recently here. What any of this means in terms of who will get how many people out to which precincts and how those caucus-goers will perform tomorrow is anyone’s guess. But if I had to place odds, and despite what I’ve written for the Prospect about Obama’s formidable field operation, there is a cold, IBM-meets-the-Yankees, machine-like authority to Clinton’s operation that suggest that she's solid, tough and ready to do battle. --Tom Schaller
