Front-runners' families fanning out across Iowa
CAUCUSES | Others also joining in closing blitz for support
PELLA, Iowa -- With turning out supporters for the Iowa vote crucial, Michelle Obama pleaded with voters on Wednesday to caucus for her husband, Barack, as former President Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea stumped for Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Elizabeth Edwards and daughter Cate will blitz for John Edwards.
Michelle Obama launched a marathon week of stumping for her husband in smaller, more-intimate gatherings such as one at the Des Moines Area Community College, next to a shuttered Maytag factory that has served as a symbol in this campaign of U.S. policies that send manufacturing jobs overseas.
(AP)
Surrogates for the three Democratic front-runners -- Obama, Clinton and Edwards -- will be flooding Iowa in the coming days, either campaigning with the candidates or fanning out through Iowa's 99 counties.
"We need you working with us to do this. We need you standing with us. We need you to be our precinct captains. We need you knocking on doors. We need you going to caucus. There are many people in this room, as you know, who have never been to caucus. We need you there, and bringing four more people," Michelle Obama said.
The Clintons and their surrogates started Wednesday afternoon at Mount Pleasant Community High School in former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack's hometown.
First Vilsack, then Bill Clinton spoke for Hillary Clinton. Then Vilsack and Bill Clinton set off to do their tour for Hillary Clinton, while Hillary Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, and Christie Vilsack went off to campaign on their own.
The Clinton campaign even has a name for their surrogates: They are calling them "Hill's Angels."
"I hope all of you, like the governor and I, will caucus for Hillary Clinton," Christie Vilsack told a crowd of about 300 people at Pella High School.
Edwards surrogates will also include actors Danny Glover, James Denton, Madeline Stowe and Ben "Cooter" Jones, as well as his parents, Bobbie and Wallace Edwards.
Today, Eric Holder, who was top deputy in the Clinton Justice Department, will campaign for Obama.
On Saturday, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick -- a Chicago South Side native -- will be with Obama and then will break off on his own Sunday.
On Wednesday, Obama was introduced at events by Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.).
On Saturday, Michelle Obama's mom, Marion Robinson, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) will be in Iowa, and Schakowsky will be deployed through the state through the night of the Jan. 3 caucuses.
Sweet reported from central and western Iowa.