[D]ES MOINES, Iowa — At his fourth campaign stop of the day on a recent Friday, presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders’ voice was hoarse from hours of talking.
His energy level, however, was hardly flagging.
Eight more forums, speeches and rallies were scheduled over the weekend. On top of that, Sanders had added a few more unscheduled stops.
Bernie zoomed from event to event, his longtime aide and wheelman Phil Fiermonte in command. Just like in Vermont, Sanders was perpetually behind schedule, these days because he carved out long blocks of time at the end of events to answer questions.
By Sunday, Sanders voice was at peak growl. In a packed auditorium in Perry, the Vermont senator coughed frequently. He drained two bottles of water to keep his vocal cords lubricated. He didn’t seem to care. He just kept going. Income inequality. Break up the big banks. Corporate greed. His voice rising, at times, almost painful to hear.
“The guy is a workhorse. He’s always been a workhorse,” said campaign manager Jeff Weaver. “When I worked for him in the Congress he was there — often before people got there — and was certainly there long after everybody else left.”
“It’s what he does,” Weaver added.
And in Iowa, a candidate has to.
Voter outreach is critical in any campaign, but particularly in the two earliest challenges in any political campaign — Iowa and New Hampshire — where voters expect to see the candidate up close. And often.
Any candidate who doesn’t commit to Iowa will hear about it.
At a forum last weekend in Des Moines, attended by Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, protesters unfurled a banner reading “Where is Hillary?”
Clinton was in California, fundraising. She tried to cover by enlisting several high-profile surrogates, including Lena Dunham, the creator of the HBO show “Girls.”
A recent New York Times headline described a similar plea to play being directed by voters to the Republicans too, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
Sanders, meanwhile, has reached deep into the cornfields.
The campaign estimates that more than 50,000 Iowans will have seen Bernie by caucus day on Feb. 1. (A Clinton adviser declined to tell The New York Times roughly how many people she had spoken to.)
Weaver described what it’s like working for the 74-year-old workaholic.
“We will give him a proposed schedule and he will say, ‘Why am I not going to more places? There’s a 15-minute block, why is something not going on there?’” Weaver said.
The Iowa Democratic Party chairwoman, Dr. Andrea “Andy” McGuire, said she was impressed by how often Sanders has been to Iowa and the effectiveness and organizational skills of his staff.
“Candidates have to say how they are going to lead the country forward,” McGuire said. “It’s that look-them-in-the-eye vision of a progressive agenda that is most important in the last couple of days.”
How to Win Iowa
Pete D’Allesandro is Sanders’ Iowa state director (though he says he doesn’t like officials titles, as they are oligarchic). He has helped shape Sanders’ strategy here and said the senator’s crammed schedule is key to a win.
Each Sanders event allows voters to hear Sanders and ask questions, which is crucial. But each appearance also offers huge opportunities from an organizational point of view, because key data can be collected.
“We want to keep talking to them, to keep them engaged,” D’Allesandro said, noting that caucus cards, in particular, facilitate that process.
Before a recent Sanders event on the east side of Des Moines, a dozen staffers reached out to the more than 1,500 Iowans in line, asking them to sign a card committing to caucus for Sanders.
A pitch to sign caucus cards was reiterated before Sanders spoke in Des Moines by staffer Simon Bracey-Lane. Similar pitches from staffers preceded virtually every Iowa event Sanders held over the weekend.
“I see Iowans every day who are just full to the brim with their desire to see Bernie president,” said Bracey-Lane, an Englishman who moved to Iowa to work on the campaign. “But what we need before the caucus is for us to translate that support into people going to their caucus to get Bernie elected.”
If they sign a card, Iowans are contacted within 48 hours by the campaign, to volunteer or work on a phone bank. Follow-ups continue incessantly, to ensure Sanders supporters show up on caucus day.
“It’s not like Trump, we let you into a speech even if you don’t commit,” D’Allesandro said, referring to the political loyalty test recently imposed at the Republican front-runner’s event in Burlington at the Flynn Theater. “But they often come in neutral and leave wanting to sign the caucus card.”
Only the most engaged Iowans show up to caucus, people willing to spend hours deliberating over a candidate. A primary, on the other hand, simply requires a checkmark on a ballot.
Team Sanders is expecting a healthy turnout from supporters at precinct stations on caucus day, as supporters of the Vermont senator are seen as fervent, and therefore more likely to caucus than the Clinton crowd.
The types of people supporting Sanders also matter.
A recent Des Moines Register poll showed that Sanders scored well with the voting blocs crucial to Barack Obama’s Iowa upset in 2008: political independents and those under 45.
A separate Quinnipiac Poll showed that Sanders also has a hefty lead over Clinton among Iowans planning to attend their first caucus, 66 percent to 26 percent.
The key is not only to draw Iowans for Bernie to the 1,681 precincts throughout the state’s 99 counties, but also to make sure they know the ins and outs of the democratic socialist’s policies.
While primaries require simple votes, caucuses are an intense exercise in civics, with caucus members debating and discussing for hours. Think town meeting goes Midwest.
The Caucus Process
As the caucus starts, delegates for each candidate gather in designated candidate areas.
Then, a Sanders representative — called a precinct captain — works to persuade neighbors in the O’Malley and Clinton corners to Feel the Bern. Clinton and O’Malley precinct captains also sound off, as do other supporters in the room.
After initial debate for about a half an hour, supporters can realign before further discussion occurs.
D’Allesandro said voter education is key in this process, as unaffiliated surrogates must explain and defend Sanders for hours.
“There is constant training on the message” before caucus day, D’Allesandro said.
After hours of debate, delegates in each precinct are counted, and, eventually, a candidate is given a certain number of Iowa’s 56 delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
Sanders can gain delegates in a precinct without winning a majority vote. He simply must meet an initial threshold of supporters in the room, usually 15 percent.
Realizing this, Sanders has been appearing in conservative parts of the state where he is not the front-runner, but may win enough support to build to a win.
The campaign said it has recruited at least five Republicans to act as precinct captains to help Sanders nab a few delegates in precincts he likely won’t win the most number of votes.
In another geographic tactic, the campaign has been campaigning heavily in some of the Iowa counties won by Obama in 2008. On the trail last weekend, the Vermont senator spoke in a number of Obama strongholds, including Carroll, Dallas and Polk counties.
The deliberative, grass-roots caucus process in Iowa is one Sanders greatly respects.
As a policy wonk who has crisscrossed Vermont, engaging people in substantive on-the-spot policy debates, and who shuns discussion of personalities, Sanders seems to enjoy the long question and answer sessions on the presidential campaign. To Sanders, direct exchange with voters is also a way to avoid the filter of the media, which he believes focus too much on the trivial.
“You guys are asking me all of the right questions,” he said to some attendees at a Monday in Perry, a smile stretching across his face.
The campaign believes that the vigorous debates on caucus day will help Sanders, as supporters are energetic, and anxious to note Clinton’s establishment ties and highlight Sanders’ more ambitious proposals.
Advisers also think they have a good chance of grabbing a good chunk of O’Malley delegates in precincts where he cannot meet the 15 percent threshold and is therefore ruled “unviable.”
Sanders has compared the caucuses to Vermont’s Town Meeting Day and spoke about why he prefers deliberative forms of democracy at a news conference at a Best Western hotel in Marshalltown.
“I am a supporter of the Iowa caucus very much. I am a supporter of grass-roots democracy. I believe in raising the public’s political consciousness in this country,” he said. “And I have to tell you, I’ve been very impressed with how serious the people of Iowa accept their responsibility.”
