GOP:
Romney 29%
McCain 28%
Huckabee 20%
Thompson 12%
Rudy 5%
Paul 3%

dems
who cares…they are going to lose in November anyway!

SWAMP-Imagine a pair of Ron Paul supporters and it’s doubtful that Carl and Leslie Bockenstedt come to mind: The couple is married, middle-aged and Mormon, and neither knows much about MySpace.

Yet here they are, recent rural additions to Paul’s big tent of fresh-faced libertarians, Internet idolaters and dispirited small-government Republicans. It’s a group that has rallied behind the Texas congressman for months, raising record amounts of money and inventing new campaign methods.

As Iowans prepare to caucus on Jan. 3, a great unknown looms: Can Paul’s crusade expand beyond Internet-savvy enthusiasts to more traditional voters who can be counted on to turn out for Paul on caucus night?

“It is a good question, and this is one of those odd situations you hesitate to make predictions,” said David Redlawsk, a political scientist at the University of Iowa. “It might be the one thing that will make the Republican caucuses interesting.”

Statistically, the chance of Ron Paul becoming an ’08 spoiler remains unlikely. If you believe the polls, the Bockenstedts will find themselves rather lonely come caucus night, when Paul is expected to wrangle about 6 percent of the vote.

Not so fast, say Paul’s campaign staffers. They’ve recently gone from four employees in Iowa to 30, and with the help of hundreds of volunteers they’ve begun an 11th-hour dash to organize across the state. Plus, they’ve only just started spending those millions in campaign donations Paul raised in the past month—money they’ll use to reach the large bloc of Republicans still undecided or unhappy with the front-runners.

This raises the question: could Paul end up in the top three? It’s widely expected that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will be the top two vote-getters, but could Paul ace out better-known candidates like former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain?

“Odder things have happened,” Redlawsk said, noting that in 1988 televangelist Pat Robertson startled observers by finishing second in Iowa, ahead of Vice President George Bush.

From the Paul campaign’s first days, the long-shot bid has been best known for its hundreds of thousands of online adherents who have donated $27 million to Paul’s coffers—nearly $19 million this quarter alone, a haul no other Republican candidate can match. And Ron Paul supporters—Paulites, as they’re called—have accomplished much of this through innovative online fundraising techniques.

But now the campaign is trying to make a major transition, courting traditional Republican voters like the Bockenstedts, veteran caucusgoers unreachable through Web ads or online Meetup groups. Instead, staff and volunteers are going after them with get-out-the-vote tactics as old as campaigning itself, like knocking on doors.

Nowhere is this transformation more evident than at Paul’s Des Moines headquarters, which for all the talk of the Ron Paul Revolution, now resembles the outposts of the other major candidates. From dawn to dusk, young volunteers telephone Iowa voters—at least 100,000 calls are planned by caucus day—and dispense and mail literature as fast as it can be printed, nearly 1.25 million pieces so far.

“We’ve got an army marching on the ground, and with our money we’ve also got an air war,” said John Zambenini, Paul’s Iowa spokesman, referring to Paul advertisements on 83 Iowa radio stations and television spots in every market in the state.

The campaign has also set up a “war room” filled with nearly 30 paid staffers, most of them hired within the past two weeks. Their goal is to make sure Paul has regional representatives and campaign coordinators in each of Iowa’s 99 counties, and they’re about two-thirds of the way there.

The Paul campaign still faces long odds. Most other campaigns organized statewide months ago and now have carpools and buses ready to ferry people to the caucuses. The Paul campaign has no such plan.

Also, while the new staff is now paid, many are newbies. Spokesman Zambenini, for example, graduated from college in May.

As for the handful who do have substantive political experience, mostly it’s not from major campaigns. Craig Bergman, the campaign’s political director, previously ran Chicagoan John Cox’s fringe White House bid. Paul’s state chairman, Drew Ivers, held that post for Robertson in ’88 and for Pat Buchanan twice.

Still, all three men insisted Paul can win Iowa.
The Bockenstedts agree. More people just have to hear Ron Paul, they said, and anything can happen. It worked with them—and they’re not wide-eyed college activists, but middle-of-the-road Republicans who voted twice for President Bush.

“Here we are, a model family in Iowa, and the people who are supposed to work for us don’t,” said Carl, a veterinarian. “I think if more people know about Ron Paul, they’ll see he’s going to change that.”

For the next seven days, Carl will hand out campaign literature at area farms when he does his rounds around Dyersville, a small town best known as the location for the movie “Field of Dreams.”

That film’s most memorable line was “If you build it, they will come.”

It’s a quotation and outcome that Paul and his organizers hope still rings true.

BC-Campaign hopes for a third-place finish in caucusesWhen John McCain cruised through Iowa in early November, reporters were looking for clues that he might be altogether abandoning his efforts in the state to focus on New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Yesterday, he returned to the state for two days of campaigning, evidence that the campaign sees renewed possibilities for a surprise result in Thursday’s caucuses.

“Iowans are giving us a second look, but I don’t want to oversell it,” said Jon Seaton, McCain’s director in Iowa. “We’re not on TV here, we’re on a tiny radio buy, we’re not in the mail.”

McCain is hoping that it might not take a major push to pull off a third-place finish in Iowa behind Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, a showing likely to offer a significant boost going into the New Hampshire primary five days later. A Globe poll published Sunday suggested McCain running nearly even with Romney in New Hampshire.

McCain aides estimate that as few as 2,000 votes could separate fifth place from third in Iowa, given uncertainty in the Republican field and indications of disinterest among the party’s voters, who in polls say they are less than enthusiastic about the available candidates.

“Turnout at the Republican caucus could be very, very low in Iowa,” McCain said in a recent interview.

There has never been much love between McCain and Iowa. In 1999, during his first presidential campaign, McCain wrote off the state entirely. This year, he made plans to compete, but received a cool reception from the state’s conservative, rural Republican electorate because of his opposition to ethanol and agriculture subsidies and his support for comprehensive immigration reform.

But with one week before the caucuses, he is back with a sheath of fresh newspaper endorsements, including from the Des Moines Register, the state’s largest daily. McCain is dropping in on six of the state’s media markets on a brisk fly-around - in several stops, not even leaving the airport before moving onto the next city - and plans to return briefly next week.

At a time when other candidates are flamboyantly unveiling new stump speeches featuring their “closing arguments” to voters, McCain is relying on the same language and themes that have carried him through the fall. In addition to reflecting on the crisis in Pakistan in the aftermath of yesterday’s assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, he lamented the failure of fellow Republicans to combat corruption and overspending and trumpeted ongoing military successes in Iraq.

“I’ve got the knowledge, experience, and judgment to lead,” McCain said in Des Moines.

The one man who stood up in Des Moines to talk about immigration praised the Arizona senator’s efforts at bipartisan reform that languished in Congress earlier this year.

“I’m not sure you will find a lot of people who agree with that guy,” Seaton said afterwards. “But it was nice to hear.”

HP-Mike Huckabee’s campaign has the only one. The Rev. John Brewer, a Baptist minister from Louisville, Ky., and his four young friends showed up driving it Dec. 27 at the Des Moines headquarters. Their contribution: a 40-foot, 20-ton bus.

That’s right. It’s the Huckabeast. Painted purple and festooned with a “Huckabee for President” banner across the windows, the Huckabeast gets five to seven miles to the gallon and costs $168 to fill its tank.

“Let’s just say it’s not a hybrid,” said Brewer.

Brewer says he was inspired to drive the 600 miles from Louisville to Des Moines by some combination of God and Mike Huckabee; the former called him to service, the latter spoke to his views on immigration, gay marriage, and the IRS. By driving around rural towns and occasionally stopping to ask people in mall parking lots whether they’re planning to caucus, Brewer and Co. say they hope not only to promote Huckabee to caucus-goers, but to demonstrate that the former governor’s grassroots support extends beyond Iowa.

If this sounds like it’s fitting into your stereotypes of Baptist preachers/Huckabee supporters, you’re half-right. Brewer and his traveling companions–Carl, a 33-year-old student in a Baptist seminary; David, an 18-year-old community college freshman; Jonathan, an 18-year-old IT professional and Brewer’s son; and James, a 16-year-old high school junior–certainly look the part. They’re white, a little scruffy. David was wearing a Metallica sweatshirt with holes in the cuffs for his thumbs. Carl says he was tracked into special-needs classes most of his life. James and Jonathan are clean cut, in neat sweatshirts and scarves, and, despite their tender age, are quick to denounce taxes in their southern accents.

Brewer himself looks far younger than 46, with round, wire-rimmed glasses and a pale, smooth face. Articulate and warm, he does most of the talking, hewing to Huckabee’s message of compassionate Christianity and religious tolerance. When the younger men have their say, Brewer takes a step back, puts his hands in the pockets of his slacks, and listens. He calls each one “my friend,” they call him “Mr. Brewer.” His stocking cap had a verse from Psalms stitched into the side.

The temptation might be to write them off as yokels, the political version of the Beverly Hillbillies. Certainly this week in Des Moines, where campaign staffers and national journalists have upped the ante on winter fashion–tall boots, fur-trimmed coats, ironic farmer hats pulled over the eyes–the Huckabeast looks quaint and the Brewer clan out of place. Yet Brewer and his bus are both sidestepping mainstream tactics and using them to their advantage. This morning, they get a mention on the front page of the Des Moines Register, and, in addition to our two hours together, they had an interview with the New York Times and an appearance on a radio show.

They also make their own media. David films everything for YouTube. (When I first saw him, he was lying on his stomach on the floor of campaign headquarters, presumably shooting something.) So far, the Huckabeast videos are gaining in popularity, with the latest getting over 2,500 hits. When the men arrived in Uttomwa, some of Huckabee’s body guards recognized them from the Internet and ushered them into the front row of a rally–”spittin’ distance” from the candidate, David said.

Brewer also runs a Meet-up out of Louisville, Bluegrass Warriors, where more than 100 people have found each other on the Internet and meet regularly in person to organize their support for Huckabee. Jonathan, who has experience in Web design, manages their MySpace page.

“This is the first year that the Internet has really taken off as a phenomenon in politics,” said Brewer. “The grassroots is growing up alongside traditional campaign operations.”

James added, “We’re doing all the same stuff they’re doing on Fox News and CNN. They’re just not as enjoying it as much as we do, because they have to do it every day.”

Brewer’s clan is also politically experienced. The whole thing began when Brewer campaigned for a 2004 traditional marriage amendment in Kentucky. He purchased the bus for $5,000–most of it coming out of his own pocket–and spent another $7,000 removing the seats and getting it painted to take around the state. The bus, which is legally registered as an RV because it has fewer than five places to sit, served as both an advertisement for the cause and a practical way to carry signs and paraphernalia.

It also provided a built-in platform from which to speak (Brewer would like to add a short-distance radio to the bus) and, Brewer said, winking at me, “attracts media.”

Energized by his policy campaign, Brewer also decided to run for state legislature. Carl, who saw somewhat of a mentor in Brewer, and James, who’s president of the high school debate team and Future Business Leaders of America, volunteered to help. David, a political science major, found them through Meet-Up.

In the end, the amendment passed but Brewer lost. (Said Brewer, “It wasn’t a good year for Republicans.”) He did, however, still have the bus, and when Huckabee appeared to be the only candidate that represented Brewer’s combination of traditional Christian faith and conservative GOP policies, Brewer simply dedicated his vehicle to a new purpose.

It’s unclear what immediate impact Brewer and his bus have on Iowa caucus-goers. We spent about an hour in two mall parking lots, attracting a good deal of attention first by passersby, and then by mall security, who asked us to leave. Although a few people approached the bus asking for buttons or yard signs, and the boys intercepted some shoppers, one-on-one conversion doesn’t seem to be what Brewer and the Huckabeast are about.

They simply want their presence known.

“This campaign season, I feel economic conservatives tried to push candidates onto social conservatives that just weren’t acceptable,” said Brewer. Huckabee, he believes, is the only candidate that is “truly a solid Christian.”

“I don’t know anybody else who’d be driving a bus for Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani,” he said. “In a race like this, where a few percentage points matter, all the money won’t help–you have to have an army on the ground. You have to turn the people out.”

Brewer believes he’s doing his part to broadcast support for Huckabee, trying to accomplish with five men, a bus, prayer, and the Internet what full-blown campaigns and hundreds of thousands of dollars have historically done. He also has no qualms about mixing politics, religion, and diesel fuel–and with Huckabee holding his own in Iowa, Brewer’s attitude may very well be more mainstream than much of the political class is prepared for.

As we headed back downtown, Brewer slowed in front of the capitol building so James could get a picture. A trail of cars stacked up behind them, then came to a stop as Brewer opened the door of the bus with a little wheeze and let James stick his head out.

Someone honked behind us.

“They’ll just have to wait,” said Brewer. “There are some advantages to being big.”

HP-Dennis Kucinich advised his supporters Tuesday that if he failed to garner enough backers in the first round of the Iowa caucuses, they should throw their support behind Sen. Barack Obama.

The surprise move is a setback for John Edwards, who benefited from a similar caucus pact with Kucinich on the eve of voting in 2004.

“I hope Iowans will caucus for me as their first choice this Thursday, Kucinich said in a statement to the press. “But in those caucus locations where my support doesn’t reach the necessary threshold, I strongly encourage all of my supporters to make Barack Obama their second choice. Sen. Obama and I have one thing in common: Change.”

Second choices can be crucial in Iowa where candidates who do not receive the backing of 15 percent of the caucus voters at any particular precinct are deemed not “viable.” Their supporters can then throw their support behind another candidate.

In a race as tight as the Democratic contest in Iowa, the support from former backers of second-tier candidates can be crucial on caucus Night.

In a statement emailed out to reporters, Obama thanked the veteran Ohio Congressman for his support.

“I have a lot of respect for Congressman Kucinich, and I’m honored that he has done this because we both believe deeply in the need for fundamental change,” said Senator Obama.

Romney
Huckabee
McCain
(Huckabee loses because of the lame “press release I’m not releasing” stunt)

Obama
Clinton
Edwards
(Obama’s win will be larger than expected, it will be very tight between Clinton and Edwards)

Democrats:
Edwards
Clinton
Obama

You have to take into account “momentum” as well as “shady shenanigans”.