Political Frenzy on Ice

The Democratic presidential race in Iowa spun Saturday toward a frenzied finish, with four contestants racing across the ice-slick landscape in search of victory, or at least the momentum needed to keep their White House hopes alive.

Prodding and pleading, the candidates lent their hoarse voices to a contest unlike any the state has seen: a fight closer, nastier, more costly and more pervasive than previous caucuses. . A casual TV viewer in Des Moines, Iowa’s biggest city, was seeing up to 10 campaign ads a day; true couch potatoes faced an onslaught of 25 or more.

In a sense, the Democratic race was coming full circle in the final hours before Monday’s caucuses, which kick off the nomination process. A contest that started as a muddle, then saw the anger-fueled rise of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, was again seemingly up for grabs.

“Anybody who tells you with certainty what happens here Monday is either a liar or a fool,” said David Axelrod, a strategist for Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, whose candidacy has surged in just the last week.

A new Iowa Poll, conducted for the Des Moines Register, showed a neck-and-neck race. The survey, published in Sunday’s editions, showed Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts with 26% support, Edwards with 23%, Dean with 20%, and Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri with 18%.

Other Democrats -- including retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark and Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who are skipping Iowa -- received minimal support, while 5% were undecided.

The poll of 600 likely caucus-goers, conducted Tuesday through Friday, had an error margin of plus or minus 4%.

Polling can be unreliable in predicting the outcome of a caucus contest -- especially one that is close -- because the gatherings require a commitment of hours. Still, the Register’s numbers will likely shape the contest’s dynamic in the final 48 hours.

Iowa makes the first selections in the chase for delegates to the Democratic National Convention, which will nominate the party’s presidential candidate in July. But given the odd math of the caucuses -- and the political expectations brewed during months of campaigning -- a first-place finish Monday night is neither a guarantee of ultimate success nor the only prize to be had.

Edwards and Kerry, for instance, could get a boost by finishing better than pundits expected at the start of January, when Dean and Gephardt were well ahead of them in polls.

Asked about the possibility of Kerry finishing first, his spokesman demurred. “I wouldn’t even ponder it at this point,” said David Wade.

Gephardt, campaigning in Ottumwa Saturday night, said of the new poll: “It all looks tight to me. The point I want to make is, we’re going to win.”

The candidates scrambled across the state on a gray Saturday with temperatures in the 20s and 30s, urging their faithful to come out for the caucuses, nearly 2,000 precinct meetings from the Missouri to the Mississippi rivers.

Thousands of volunteers poured into Iowa to knock on doors, pass out fliers and serve as surrogate speakers. A relative handful of bodies, the candidates know, could mean the difference Monday between a showing that could ignite their campaigns or put them on life support.

“It’s going to come down to the ground war,” a buoyant Kerry told his field staff and precinct captains in a Saturday morning telephone call to campaign headquarters in Des Moines. “You are the troops.”

Edwards was even more direct: “I wish I could reach out and grab you and take you” to a caucus, he told a crowd of more than 100 people that spilled from the Maquoketa Public Library in eastern Iowa.

Gephardt, with perhaps the most at stake because he won the caucus during his failed 1988 presidential bid and comes from a neighboring state, used a sports analogy to explain the importance of Iowa, which traditionally winnows the presidential field by a candidate or more.

“It’s kind of like the Super Bowl,” he said in Cedar Rapids, in the state’s vote-heavy eastern half. “You can all talk your theory of how you’re going to do this, but you’ve got to get out on the field and do it.”

A record turnout, possibly exceeding 125,000, was expected. Still, that would represent far fewer than half of Iowa’s registered Democrats.

With turnout so crucial, no detail was too small to consider. Gephardt volunteers were offering child care so parents could attend a caucus. The Dean campaign was providing Spanish-language translators for Iowa’s small Latino population.

Ideologically, there are not huge divides separating the major Democratic contenders. They split over the initial decision to go to war in Iraq, with Dean vehemently opposing the move.

Kerry, Gephardt and Edwards all backed the 2002 congressional resolution supporting the use of force. But they have since harshly criticized President Bush for not winning broader international support for the war and for the handling of Iraq’s reconstruction.

The Democrats have also differed over taxes, with Gephardt and Dean favoring a full rollback of Bush’s tax cuts, and others calling for repealing just those benefiting the wealthiest Americans.

But the candidates agree far more than they disagree, assailing Bush on everything from his environmental positions to his education, health-care and foreign policies -- sometimes using almost exactly the same words.

Electability, that intangible sense of who stands the best chance of beating Bush in November, appeared uppermost in the minds of many Iowa Democrats.

“That’s imperative,” said 70-year-old Donna Casey of Massena, who was trying to decide between Gephardt and Kerry. “Another four years and we’ll be in deep trouble.”

The candidates differed substantially in their styles, with the fiery Dean leveling the harshest attacks on Bush and assailing his opponents as captives of a Washington establishment he vows to turn upside down.

That served him well for months, striking a chord among Democrats who felt others in the field were too conciliatory, and fueling a rise that established him as the clear-cut frontrunner.

Lately, however, Dean opponents have vigorously challenged his electability. That, coupled with Dean missteps and a series of unflattering media reports, seems to have dragged him back into the pack of candidates.

Handicappers still considered Dean a favorite to win Monday night, thanks to his strong organization in the state, numbering more than 2,000 volunteers by his campaign’s count -- including singer Joan Jett, comedian Janeane Garofolo and three Americans who traveled from Japan. The volunteer army had a goal of knocking on 200,000 doors by Monday night.

Gephardt, who almost certainly must finish first to carry on, was trusting in the muscle of more than 1,000 labor organizers, representing 21 unions, who swarmed the state on Saturday. “They’re all really putting the shoulder to the wheel to make this happen,” the congressman told a crowd in Solon.

Kerry, who served in Vietnam, was relying on a built-in advantage among the state’s veterans, working off research showing that as many as 90,000 of them expressed interest in the Democratic race. Saturday, he held an emotional reunion in Des Moines with a man he had saved under fire in Vietnam. The two had not spoken in 35 years.

His campaign appeared to be connecting in a way it had not previously, helped by TV ads focused on health care and a newfound passion on the candidate’s part. He largely abandoned his windy speaking style for a more direct and empathetic appeal.

Edwards, with probably the weakest ground operation in the state, was counting on momentum from his strong home-stretch finish, reflected in crowds 10 times bigger than those he was seeing a few weeks ago. His campaign said 500 out-of-state volunteers had come to Iowa for the weekend, buttressing a paid staff of about 100.

Jeri Powell, 26, oversees about 30 precinct captains for Edwards in the Des Moines area. “They’re using handwritten notes, door-knocking,” said Powell, who moved from Asheville, N.C., to join Edwards’ campaign. “It’s a personal connection.”

The upshot was a campaign too close to call.

“One way or another, all four are connecting with an element of the electorate,” said Stuart Rothenberg, a Washington campaign analyst. “At the moment, each of those slices of the electorate are roughly the same size.”

Thousands of volunteers, from inside and outside Iowa, were working the state for Gephardt, trying to coax supporters to the caucuses. Among them was Sue Dvorsky, his captain in Precinct One in Coralville, in eastern Iowa, who helped organize the Solon town meeting.

“We’ve got a list,” said Dvorsky, 48, the wife of an Iowa state senator. “We’re making calls; we’re getting to doors.”

But Dvorsky acknowledged the ferocity of the competition. Her best friend, she said, was doing the same thing for Kerry.

Among the senator’s surrogates traveling the state on Saturday were Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, and Iowa’s first lady, Christie Vilsack, who is set to appear in a new TV ad for Kerry. Former Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) -- who lost three limbs in the Vietnam War -- was rallying veterans.

After Iowa, the candidates will square off in New Hampshire, which conducts its primary Jan. 27.

Clark and Lieberman have been campaigning extensively there while the others have focused on Iowa.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

The Iowa caucuses

The Iowa caucuses -- the first test in the presidential nomination process -- require voters to invest a few hours of their time on a winter’s night. Dating back to the 19th century, the caucuses were not nationally significant until the 1970s, when Iowa’s Republican and Democratic parties moved their contests to January, securing ‘first in the nation’ status. Here’s how Iowans elect delegates at the caucuses:

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Caucus

When: Monday, starting at 6:30 p.m. CST (4:30 p.m. PST)

Who: Any registered voter can participate, with proof of residency. A voter may register as a Democrat at the door.

Where: The caucuses are divided into 1,993 voting precincts across the state. They are held in schools, public buildings and occasionally private homes.

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The procedure

Getting support

Caucus-goers discuss their chosen candidates, giving speeches and sharing opinions in an effort to convert undecided voters to their side. Campaign representatives can attend but may not speak unless they are elected from that precinct.

Voting

Democrats show their support for a candidate with a show of hands, a sign-in sheet or by dividing themselves into groups. Voters cannot divide into their preference groups until 7 p.m. CST.

Shifting votes

A candidate must garner at least 15% of the number of people atttending that night to remain in contention. If a candidate can’t muster 15% support, the caucus-goers supporting that individual must shift their preference to a different candidate or leave the caucus.

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How delegates are awarded

Each precinct has a set number of delegates to award to the candidates. A total of 13,400 are chosen at the caucuses to attend the county conventions. Here’s how the number of delegates to the candidate is determined:

The number of precinct voters supporting candidate, multiplied by the total number of delegates assigned to the precinct, divided by total number of eligible caucus attendees, equals the total number of delegates awarded to candidate.

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The next steps

After the precinct caucuses, there are several events to further winnow the number of delegates to the 56 that represent Iowa at the Democratic National Convention July 26-29:

County convention-- March 13

District convention -- April 24

State convention -- June 12

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Mixed record

Third-place finishers in the caucuses sometimes do well later. Here’s a sampling of how major candidates fared since 1976.

*--* Party’s Candidate Iowa nomination Presidency 1976 Jimmy Carter (D) Won Won Won Gerald Ford (R)** Won Won Lost 1980 Carter Won Won Lost George Bush (R) Won Lost NA R. Reagan (R) 2nd place Won Won 1984 W. Mondale (D) Won Won Lost

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Reagan ran unopposed

*--* 1988 M. Dukakis (D) 3rd place Won Lost R. Gephardt (D) Won Lost NA Bush 3rd place Won Won Bob Dole (R) Won Lost NA 1992 Bill Clinton (D) 3rd place Won Won Tom Harkin (D) Won Lost NA

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Bush ran unopposed

*--* 1996 Dole Won Won Lost

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Clinton ran unopposed

*--* 2000 Al Gore (D) Won Won Lost Bill Bradley (D) 2nd place Lost NA George Bush (R) Won Won Won Steve Forbes (R) 2nd place Lost NA

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** GOP conducted a straw poll, not a formal caucus.

Sources: Iowa Democratic Party, www.iowacaucus.org, Iowa Secretary of State, George Washington University

Researched by Times researcher Susannah Rosenblatt

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Times staff writers Nick Anderson, Matea Gold, Maria L. La Ganga, James Gerstenzang and Scott Martelle contributed to this report.