Obama's surge of Iowa offices boosts visibility

But huge crowds at his rallies may leave voters feeling cut off

Barack Obama has one of the funkiest campaign headquarters in Iowa.

It's in downtown Des Moines, in an emerging trendy area called the East Village, the Iowa version of Bucktown, small, neat and without the nasty history of gun violence. "There is a good neighborhood feel here," says Josh Earnest, Obama's Iowa communications director.

The one-story building once housed a mortgage title company, and before that it was a place to play hockey. The spectral remains of the rink and the scoreboard lie in the back of the building, ready for the drop of a puck if someone was willing to spend a few hours tidying up the debris and carting out the old bathtub propped against a wall.

The front entry has been freshly painted with red, white and blue murals, including a takeoff on Grant Wood's American Gothic. The offices behind are filled with dozens of twentysomethings sitting at computers, lists of campaign contacts lighting their screens. At age 32, Earnest is the elder statesman.

The low, red-brick building on Locust Street is the nerve center for Obama's Iowa campaign; there are 13 other offices around the state, with plans to open more. (Hillary Clinton has nine; John Edwards has seven.) Indeed, Obama has become the most visible candidate in this first nominating state by dint of the number of his offices in communities such as Dubuque, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids. And his workers are handing out as many "Join Obama For Iowa" cards as possible.

The point in Iowa, where loyalties can shift swiftly as the caucus meetings get under way next January, is to lasso potential supporters early. As University of Iowa political scientist David Redlawsk has determined from studies, encouraging people to sign a card in support of a candidate "adds a level of psychological commitment," and "once people have made a commitment, they say to themselves, 'I like candidate X,' and they become immune to negative information about candidate X."

In fact, his research has shown "a little bit of negative information about someone you like makes you like them more. It becomes a sort of 'get your back up' effect."

Redlawsk says the Obama people have been the most aggressive in trying to get Iowans to sign a support card. So there is method in their office-opening madness, even though among Iowa's Democratic caucus activists, Edwards is polling first, and Clinton is the No. 1 choice for registered Democratic voters.

Iowa is going to be busy during the Memorial Day weekend, as Obama, Clinton and Edwards all plan to visit. Obama is touring New Hampshire with his family over the weekend before scooting to Iowa on Monday evening.

Iowans like to get up close to candidates, something that has been hard for Obama to achieve as hundreds of people turn up at his meetings. He has tried to mitigate this by connecting with smaller groups before larger rallies. On Earth Day (April 22), he met with three groups of about 50 people each, including one of students and another of party activists and local politicians, before heading to a rally of 10,000.

But Iowa activists, says Redlawsk, are concerned the huge crowds are diminishing the historic processes in this tradition-bound state "where candidates get to meet real people in small venues and learn from them." He adds: "The big crowds are isolating the candidates from the voters and putting them in a bubble." But the trend -- with so many celebrity candidates -- may now be impossible to change.