Will first-time caucus-goers show up?
Five hundred cheering Obama fans — half or more of them raising their hands as first-time caucus-goers — promised Wednesday morning they would turn out.
Referring to pundits who predict that these first-time voters won’t actually materialize, Obama asked the crowd, “Are we going to prove ‘em wrong?”
“Yaaaa!” the crowd shouted.
“Are we going to prove ‘em wrong?”
“Yaaaa!” the crowd shouted again.
Watching from the back of the room, Obama chief strategist David Axelrod pointed to all the upraised hands when Obama asked who would be first-timers and noted, “We get that at every event.”
Edwards’ and Clinton’s camps point to polls showing the race still a three-way tie and to statistics from years past showing only about 20 percent of caucus-goers are first-timers. A turnout of more experienced caucus veterans would be presumed to favor Edwards or Clinton.
It can be intimidating to stand up in front of neighbors and proclaim allegiances at a caucus. And people who arrive late are not admitted. But Axelrod noted the unusual interest, length of the campaign and the $80 million spent on advertising that he thinks will lead to record turnout this year.
A Des Moines Register poll published Tuesday showed Obama with 32 percent support, Clinton with 25 percent and Edwards with 24 percent. About 60 percent of those who said they would be caucusing for Obama would be first-timers, Edwards and Clinton supporters noted, adding their own candidates also expect considerable support from first-timers.
Asked why she is caucusing for the first time, Sara Sullivan, 26, a math teacher from Iowa City, pointed to her 3-year-old son, Will. “I was pregnant with my son when I found out George Bush was going to be president again and I cried. Barack Obama is the one who can bring all the change and the best change.”
After Obama’s speech, college student Hannah Rogul, 20, said she thought Obama gave a good speech, but she would be caucusing for Edwards, saying she likes his background and his stand on health care.
Obama and most of the canddates are crisscrossing the state, firing up the troops, filling the airwaves with commercials, stuffing mailboxes with literature and hoping the organizations they have built in Iowa over the last several months will get out supporters. About 200 of those at Obama’s event Wednesday morning were headed off to knock on doors Wednesday in the just-above-zero Iowa chill.
Obama stood on an improvised wood crate and masking tape platform today after the truck that was carrying his riser hit a deer.
“We feel bad for the deer. We feel bad for the truck,” Obama said. “We’ve had to improvize. That’s why I’m on a soapbox here.”
But Edwards had to contend with an even worse metaphor than a soap box today: His campaign bus broke down, according to published reports.