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 latter 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.
But the two Democrats share one crucial attribute: Obama is now, as Dean was four years ago, what venerable political observer Ron Brownstein calls the "wine track" candidate of the Democratic field. That is, both men hold special appeal among the affluent, educated, Betlway-based wing of the party. As Brownstein cautions, wine track candidates -- Gary Hart, Bill Bradley, Dean -- soar for a while at 30,000 feet before inevitably crashing at the feet of a more working-class, "beer track" opponent. Thanks to his field operation, however, Obama may be able to avoid the vinegary fate of wine track candidates past.
Indeed, the proper 2004 field team analog for Obama is not Dean's operation but the team that engineered John Kerry's Iowa four years ago, and the parallels begin with staffing. Though legendary field guru Michael Whouley is missing, key persons from the Kerry '04 team now work for Obama, notably targeting consultant Ken Strasma and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack chief of staff John Norris. Behind the scenes is the Washington-based consulting firm Hildebrand Tewes: Steve Hildebrand serves as Obama's deputy national campaign director, and business partner Paul Tewes is knee-deep in Des Moines as the Iowa state director. Beneath these top-level advisers is a slate of experienced field operatives, including several with connections to Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine or former Sen. Tom Daschle, such as Hildebrand Tewes alum and Daschle disciple Anne Filipic, Obama's Iowa statewide field director.
Aside from confirming that they have 37 field offices, Team Obama is so tight-lipped about its field operation that repeated attempts to get anyone to say anything were uniformly rebuked. "We're just not participating in stories about our operation," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. "We're keeping our heads down and doing the hard work but we're not telling our opponents about what that work is." Allowing the New York Times to follow west Iowa field director Rory Steele around for a front-page feature story last month is about as close as the Obama campaign comes to giving outsiders a look at their operations.
Though publicly quiet, Obama advisers are happy to tout the fact that their campaign is directing resources to states other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. By late September, they had already hired staff in Colorado and California. Theirs was the first campaign to open an office in Utah, the state that gave George W. Bush his widest electoral margins in 2000 and 2004. The campaign is also looking ahead to February 5. "Super Tuesday" states have been bolstered by "Camp Obama" trainings around the country. At Camp Obama, volunteers are trained for organizing and field contacting work.
"Our 258,000+ donors not only provide us the most muscular fundraising base in the field, it also is the bedrock of an unprecedented grassroots movement that will show its' [sic] strength in additional ways on the ground in January and February," campaign manager David Plouffe boasted on a campaign blog a few months ago. "No longer can the quasi-incumbent candidate survive a stumble or two early and rely on an institutional financial and organizational advantage to recover."
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A few weeks ago a thirty-something friend told me his real ambition was to work in the next Democratic administration. Presuming the White House is poised to change partisan hands next year, he decided to pick a candidate and then signal to key advisers that he wanted to contribute in some way.
After surveying the 2008 field and settling on Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, he phoned a friend working for the Obama campaign to inquire about flying down to Iowa for a few weekends to demonstrate his commitment and maybe turn some heads. The response he got floored him. "We don't need any more help here," he was told. "Go to New Hampshire."
Four years ago, out-of-state "Deaniacs" poured into Iowa. The campaign took all comers, gave them orange hats and issued blue-and-yellow T-shirts to its precinct captains. But on caucus night, as I wrote here four years ago, all that garb was no match for the experience the Kerry and Edwards teams brought to the real organizing and mobilizing of native Iowans. From all indications, Barack Obama's campaign will not repeat Dean's mistakes by attempting to pour new wine in old bottles.
