Every elec­tion year, as cau­cus day approaches, the focus on Iowa inten­si­fies. Eyes around the nation pop at every blip in the poll num­bers as ana­lysts vie to be the first to declare the rise or fall of each can­di­date. Every­one is now gaga over Newt Gin­grich, who has an appar­ent double-​​digit lead in the polls. Nate Sil­ver at The New York Times has posted an analy­sis of how often Iowa polling pre­dicts a cau­cus vic­tory, but I’m not so sure that Gingrich’s lead will hold through Jan­u­ary 3rd. As a res­i­dent of Iowa, I don’t think Gin­grich has done enough to moti­vate vot­ers to go to the cau­cuses for him.

Gin­grich has barely vis­ited the state beyond the almost manda­tory debates and forums that bring all of the can­di­dates to the corn fields. I haven’t seen any Gin­grich ads yet. I haven’t got­ten any phone calls or mail­ers from his cam­paign. I’m not even sure he has an Iowa office, and cer­tainly not here in one of the most polit­i­cally active coun­ties in the state.

So, who will win in Iowa? Let’s break these cam­paign activ­i­ties down to see where we stand:

Adver­tis­ing

The undis­puted king of adver­tis­ing this fall has been Rick Perry. His cam­paign has flooded the Iowa air­waves on radio and TV with a smug Texas accent, and the “Make Us Great Again” PAC has been run­ning nearly non­stop adver­tis­ing in sup­port of Perry’s cam­paign. Sec­ond place in the adver­tis­ing blitz goes to Ron Paul, with Mitt Rom­ney a nar­row third. I have seen a cou­ple of Michele Bach­mann ads, but no ads from Rick San­to­rum.  Accord­ing to NPR, Newt Gin­grich has begun run­ning ads in Iowa, but I have yet to see even one (and I’ve got the TV on most of the day). I’ve heard more about Newt Gin­grich from Ron Paul’s adver­tis­ing than I’ve heard from the Newt him­self. I’ve even seen more Her­man Cain ads since he with­drew from the cam­paign than I’ve seen of Newt Gingrich.

It may be obvi­ous, but it should be noted that adver­tis­ing alone won’t win the hearts and minds of Iowans, as I’m sure Rick Perry will dis­cover. How­ever, if a can­di­date doesn’t adver­tise, then one must ask how the cam­paign plans to moti­vate vot­ers. Newt Gin­grich hasn’t been run­ning ads, so if he’s going to win Iowa, then we should expect to see accel­er­ated voter out­reach in some other form.

Win Place Show

Rick Perry
Ron Paul
Mitt Romney

Phone Out­reach

With­out vis­it­ing each voter’s home, phone calls are the most direct way that can­di­dates have of reach­ing out to poten­tial sup­port­ers. For a price, a can­di­date could use the phone to dis­trib­ute cam­paign infor­ma­tion to every reg­is­tered voter in the state. Cam­paigns can orga­nize phone-​​based fundrais­ers, recruit vol­un­teers, test cam­paign talk­ing points, and hold statewide “town hall” calls to engage the vot­ing pub­lic. A well-​​run phone cam­paign can help over­come an orga­ni­za­tional short­fall by con­nect­ing with vot­ers on a seem­ingly per­sonal level. When we look at phone out­reach in Iowa this fall, each candidate’s approach reveals a dif­fer­ent level of sophistication.

Tra­di­tional politi­cian, Mitt Rom­ney, is the mas­ter of the robo­call and the vir­tual town hall. Two or three times a week, I get calls from the Rom­ney cam­paign either announc­ing another endorse­ment and ask­ing for my sup­port or invit­ing me to par­tic­i­pate in a vir­tual town hall meet­ing where I can ask Rom­ney ques­tions. Even if my ques­tion doesn’t make it past the fil­ters dur­ing the town hall seg­ment, I can leave a mes­sage and get a return response from Rom­ney later. Some vot­ers might get annoyed by the Rom­ney campaign’s per­sis­tence, but I think it makes most vot­ers feel val­ued to have a can­di­date try­ing so hard to get their attention.

Ron Paul has also used phone out­reach this fall, but with a more per­sonal approach. I get direct calls from Ron Paul vol­un­teers every few days ask­ing if I want to get involved in mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in Wash­ing­ton. These vol­un­teers will engage me in infor­ma­tive pol­icy dis­cus­sions and direct attempts to per­suade me to sup­port their cho­sen can­di­date. While the Paul campaign’s direct calls won’t have the uni­ver­sal con­tact of Romney’s robo­calls, this more per­sonal approach is likely to have greater per-​​call per­sua­sive impact.

I’ve also got­ten the occa­sional call from the San­to­rum and Bach­mann cam­paigns, but not as much as from Rom­ney and Paul, prob­a­bly because I live in the “lib­eral” cor­ner of the state and am not read­ily iden­ti­fi­able as being in the Evan­gel­i­cal or Tea Party demo­graphic. I take the fact that I’ve got­ten calls at all as indica­tive that these two can­di­dates are actively reach­ing out to vot­ers, just per­haps not so much in my region.

Notably miss­ing from the phone blitz are Rick Perry and Newt Gin­grich. Given Rick Perry’s adver­tis­ing bonanza, I’m a lit­tle sur­prised that he’s not also using robo­calls. Con­sid­er­ing the polit­i­cal expe­ri­ence of both Perry and Gin­grich, their neglect of the phone line sug­gests that they aren’t really seri­ous about reach­ing vot­ers here in Iowa, and the con­ver­sa­tions that I’ve had with local vot­ers tend to sup­port that impression.

Win Place Show

Mitt Romney
Ron Paul
Michele Bachmann

Mail Cam­paigns

Another tra­di­tional way to reach vot­ers is via the mail. Unsur­pris­ingly, my mail­box is over­flow­ing with Ron Paul mail­ers, plus a few Rom­ney and Bach­mann brochures crammed in the cor­ners. Dr. Paul reg­u­larly solic­its dona­tions and dis­trib­utes infor­ma­tion about cam­paign events. His cam­paign sends single-​​issue brochures high­light­ing spe­cific planks on the Ron Paul plat­form, lay­ing out the case for why we need change in Wash­ing­ton. Rom­ney and Bachmann’s brochures are typ­i­cally the tra­di­tional can­di­date plac­ards cov­ered with talk­ing points and direct­ing inter­ested vot­ers to the can­di­dates’ web­sites. Not par­tic­u­larly engag­ing or inspi­ra­tional, but at least they’re mak­ing the effort.

Since Sep­tem­ber, I haven’t got­ten any­thing in the mail from Perry, San­to­rum, or Gin­grich. In lieu of mail cam­paigns, Perry seems sat­is­fied to focus on tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing, and San­to­rum has con­cen­trated on a door-​​to-​​door tour of all 99 coun­ties. What has Newt done?

Win Place Show

Ron Paul
Mitt Romney
Michele Bachmann

Online Pres­ence

All of the can­di­dates have stepped up their online out­reach in com­par­i­son to prior years, how­ever Ron Paul’s cam­paign has most thor­oughly embraced the Obama For Amer­ica model. Ron Paul has been copy­ing many of the strate­gies that made Obama’s online cam­paign so suc­cess­ful in 2008: email out­reach, online meet-​​ups, fundrais­ing “bombs” and other oppor­tu­ni­ties for vot­ers to feel involved and con­nected to the Lib­er­tar­ian move­ment. Hon­estly, no other Repub­li­can comes close to Ron Paul’s online orga­ni­za­tion, which is why he’s dom­i­nat­ing in the youth demographic.

Win Place Show

Ron Paul

No one else makes it out of the start­ing gate.

Direct Voter Contact

Iowans noto­ri­ously like to meet a can­di­date face to face before giv­ing their sup­port. Rarely does a can­di­date do well here with­out slog­ging through corn fields and pig farms on the way to ral­lies at fac­to­ries and Sun­day socials. We want town halls where the can­di­date answers direct ques­tions with con­vic­tion, prag­ma­tism, and sin­cer­ity. In Iowa, vot­ers have to show up at cau­cuses and stand before neigh­bors and peers with their endorse­ment, so if the can­di­date can’t han­dle the direct scrutiny of ordi­nary Iowans, then it’s unlikely those Iowans will stand up for them either.

This year, the one can­di­date who has most com­pletely embraced the door-​​to-​​door approach is Rick San­to­rum. He has held mul­ti­ple events in all 99 coun­ties in the state, hold­ing more cam­paign events and ral­lies than the next two can­di­dates com­bined. He boldly meets face-​​to-​​face with vot­ers and isn’t afraid to field ad-​​hoc, unscripted ques­tions. In stereo­typ­i­cal Iowa fash­ion, I’ve shaken hands with him and even got to ask a ques­tion or two. If we relied exclu­sively on retail cam­paign­ing, he would be win­ning, because he’s artic­u­late, knowl­edge­able and per­son­able when talk­ing with vot­ers in small groups. He’s ham­pered by his retro-​​90s reliance on “fam­ily val­ues” and his whiny debate style.

Bach­mann has also blan­keted the state with cam­paign events, but not quite with the ded­i­ca­tion of San­to­rum. She’s been through town more than once, and I’ve bumped into her cam­paign orga­niz­ers at hotels and other gath­er­ing places. I missed her most recent rally here in town, but I under­stand she drew a decent-​​sized crowd. Accord­ing to her cam­paign, she’s got more sup­port­ers signed up than Huck­abee had when he won the state, but it remains to be seen whether those vot­ers will actu­ally show up at the cau­cuses. Blow-​​out wins in the west­ern part of the state could be can­celed by poor show­ings in the east.

The other can­di­date who has tra­versed Iowa this sea­son is Ron Paul. He’s held fewer ral­lies than Bach­mann, but with con­sis­tently larger draws. I’ve per­son­ally heard Ron Paul address­ing a crowd of over two thou­sand sup­port­ers (in a town of less than 70,000…70% of whom are Democ­rats). He uses his online out­reach to ensure turnout of enthu­si­as­tic, young vot­ers who lend energy to a can­di­date who’s even older than McCain.

Prior to Thanks­giv­ing, Rom­ney hadn’t been here much, but he has since begun hold­ing local town halls and other ral­lies. He has con­cen­trated his appear­ances in the north­east and cen­tral parts of the state, where he’s more likely to find estab­lish­ment con­ser­v­a­tives rather than evan­gel­i­cal or move­ment con­ser­v­a­tives. While can­di­dates like San­to­rum and Bach­mann go it alone, Rom­ney also has sur­ro­gates such as New Jer­sey Gov­er­nor Chris Christie and Sen­a­tor John Thune (R-​​SD) hold­ing meet-​​n-​​greet ses­sions with vot­ers across the state. Those sur­ro­gate meet-​​ups don’t often appear on the can­di­date cal­en­dars, but they do help vot­ers feel con­nected to the campaign.

Not so much from any­one else. You can check Politico’s Can­di­date Tracker to see what I mean. As an exam­ple of how far behind Gin­grich is, his big event last week was the open­ing of his Iowa cam­paign office on Saturday…

Win Place Show

Rick Santorum
Michele Bachmann
Ron Paul

Mitt Rom­ney takes fourth in the Superfecta.

Vol­un­teers & Activism

This is the area where a lack of action from Rom­ney is most trou­bling for the inevitabil­ity cam­paign. If activism alone decided the win­ner, then Ron Paul will be the Iowa pick. Bachmann’s cam­paign is the next most active, with gath­er­ings and meet-​​ups across the state. Rom­ney has struc­ture in place, but lit­tle actual activ­ity going on, as his cam­paign seems to rely on a more top-​​down approach. No one else’s cam­paign gen­er­ates enough heat to move the ther­mome­ter above zero.

Win Place Show

Ron Paul
Michele Bachmann
Mitt Romney

Sum­mary

If you told me that Ron Paul was lead­ing the Iowa polls, I would give him good odds of win­ning the cau­cuses, because he’s got the most com­plete cam­paign pres­ence in terms of adver­tis­ing, mail­ings, phone con­tact, ral­lies, online pres­ence, and vol­un­teer activism. In get­ting vot­ers to show up on a cold day in Jan­u­ary, moti­va­tion and orga­ni­za­tion often mat­ter more than numbers.

Although Mitt Rom­ney has been play­ing it low-​​key in Iowa, his cam­paign is the next most orga­nized after Ron Paul’s. He hasn’t held nearly as many cam­paign stops as San­to­rum or Bach­mann, but he’s got the estab­lished infra­struc­ture and has made active use of the avail­able tech­nol­ogy to reach vot­ers. His sup­port isn’t as enthu­si­as­tic, but it’s more grounded with the folks who never miss a vote. I wouldn’t count Rom­ney out in Iowa, no mat­ter how he looked in the polls. Fur­ther­more, for­mer Cain sup­port­ers who want a can­di­date with solid busi­ness acu­men will prob­a­bly end up with Rom­ney by default.

Newt Gin­grich is the nom­i­nal leader in the cur­rent Iowa polls, but I don’t see any depth of trac­tion. He has made so lit­tle effort to reach vot­ers in the state, that I have a very hard time imag­in­ing that his polling lead will trans­late to a cau­cus vic­tory. You need some chains on those tires to reach the polls on Jan­u­ary 3rd.

Given their ground games, if you told me that Michele Bach­mann or Rick San­to­rum was the favorite in Iowa, I would be more inclined to believe that either of them had a chance to win than Newt Gingrich.

Rick Perry has tried to use adver­tis­ing to over­come his obvi­ous flaws in other areas, but Iowans don’t like to buy with­out a test-​​drive. If he were the only evan­gel­i­cal can­di­date on the slate, I’d give him a chance regard­less, but Christian-​​centric vot­ers have other options in Bach­mann or Santorum.

Oh, and Jon who? Huntsman’s not even trying.

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