Message, Method Are Behind Obama's Iowa Climb

WP: Message, Method Are Behind Obama's Climb
By Shailagh Murray and Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 22, 2007; Page A06

....It was scarcely 15 months ago that the young senator from neighboring Illinois, billed as "a rising star in Democratic politics," appeared as the guest speaker at the annual steak fry sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democratic Party's highest-profile event of the year. Today Obama is drawing among the largest crowds in Iowa caucus history and is among the front-runners. His bid for the 2008 Democratic nomination seems less improbable by the day.

Obama's strategy is one part message, one part elbow grease, following the Iowa maxim "organize, organize, organize, and get hot at the end." Obama will spend the campaign's final days rallying Democrats in gymnasiums and auditoriums. But behind the scenes, the onetime Chicago community organizer has dispatched an army of paid staff and volunteers occupying a record 37 offices across the state to wage a more personal battle for support, one wavering teacher at a time.

Obama has bounced relentlessly between the East Coast and the Midwest over the past months, seeking to bring some of the momentum he has built in Iowa to New Hampshire, which will vote five days after the first-in-the nation caucuses. After a brief trip home to Chicago for Christmas, Obama will return to Iowa on Dec. 26 with reinforcements: his wife, Michelle, his two daughters, Malia and Sasha, his mother-in-law, his sister and brother-in-law from Hawaii, plus assorted friends and other family members. That's in addition to hundreds, if not thousands, of Obama workers that the campaign intends to dispatch.

"Basically, starting on the 26th, it's all Iowa all the time," Obama said in an interview.

Even at this late stage, while his top aides are working to win over potential supporters one by one, Obama is visiting far-flung counties where Democratic caucusgoers are harder to find. The slightest edge could make all the difference in the tight finish that all the campaigns are predicting between Obama, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and former senator John Edwards (N.C.). On a five-day tour that ended Tuesday, Obama stopped in several western rural counties for the first time. He hopes to break more new ground when he returns for a swing through eastern Iowa this weekend....

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