The Political Chase

Edwards’ strategy in Iowa

Former Sen. John Edwards

While Barack Obama has a nine-point lead in Iowa, and conventional wisdom puts the focus on Obama and Clinton, I see it as anything but a two-person race. John Edwards is still very much in the game in Iowa, especially if you consider what the majority of the media doesn’t tell you.

First, the current poll: Barack Obama is at 33, and Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are tied at 24. Ok, I’ll go along with that, but there is an element not reflected in those numbers that should be considered — campaign strategies. Strategy is why Newsweek featured John Edwards as “The Sleeper” in its current edition.

In a five-page feature article, Newsweek points out that a major element of Edwards’ campaign strategy in Iowa is not just the more populated areas, but includes every one-stop-light town in Iowa. Other candidates have not, at least not as long or with as much intensity. The salient point is a small town with a population of 2,800 can deliver as many votes in the caucuses as a city with 100,000 people. They both get to send 25 people to the caucuses.

For months, Edwards has been rounding up support in the state’s rural precincts where the front runners have paid less attention. While Obama and Clinton have drawn crowds in the thousands in places like Des Moines and Ames, Edwards has been winning over people in tiny towns like Sac City (population: 2,189). That’s important, the strategists say, because under Iowa’s arcane caucus rules, a precinct where 25 people show up to vote gets the same number of delegates as a place that packs in 2,500. In other words, even if he loses to Obama and Clinton in the state’s bigger cities, he can still win by wrapping up smaller, far-flung precincts that other candidates have ignored. “The bulk of our support is in small and medium counties,” says Jennifer O’Malley, Edwards’s Iowa state director. O’Malley says Edwards has visited all 99 counties in the state; the campaign has so far trained captains covering 90 percent of all 1,781 precincts. Rural voters are sometimes reluctant to caucus, so the campaign has been enlisting respected community leaders to encourage first-timers to get past their apathy or fear.

MSNBC and CNN provide little, if any, coverage in places like Sac City, therefore few outside of Iowa see the wheels in motion. If Edwards’ strategy is right and the residents of the small towns commit to Edwards, it could be a substantial factor.