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As you read this, the January 3 Iowa caucus is likely just weeks away. Or maybe, if you're logging on after a holiday binge subsides, the votes have been cast and the candidates—those remaining—have jetted off to New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, and points beyond. Later still: It's after February 5—"Super-Duper Tuesday"—and, as some predict, the nominations are all but secured. The winning campaigns are busy plotting vice presidential selections, convention plans, and general election strategies. And what of their advance teams? Look hard and spot those profiled in "Rules of the Road" planning events in other states, finding new horses to ride if their candidate stumbled, or already archiving memories from the summer of 2007 and moving on with life.
But let's not crown a nominee yet. Right now every campaign is still swirling cyclonically through every corner of Iowa. Strategists are plotting their candidates' schedules, events days away guided by new polling. Field operatives are identifying all solid or leaning votes, then figuring how to chauffeur them to their caucus. Legions of advance people are working feverishly to turn out momentum-building crowds or eye-catching backdrops for newspaper front pages or slices of video for the evening news.
Many of the advance people are new to presidential campaigns, having started their training in June, July, and August, just as coverage of the campaign heated up. And that's when I caught up with them, watching the (relatively) early efforts in Iowa of Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton to earn exposure in the heartland during one of the hottest weeks of the year, August 9 to August 16. Two events drew them to Iowa like a magnet: the state fair in Des Moines and the Republican straw poll in Ames.
I drove into Iowa on Thursday evening, August 9, and spent part of Friday and Saturday with Romney, Monday with Edwards, Tuesday with Clinton, Wednesday with Giuliani, and Thursday with Obama. In all, I logged about 1,300 miles over Iowa byways, centered in Des Moines and heading off in spokes from the state's capital city each day. With my gear in tow, I rolled out onto the road in the predawn hours, much like the advance teams themselves. At points, the journey brought me back 20 years, reliving my days as a 22-year-old doing advance work for the late Senator Paul Simon on his ill-fated campaign during the summer of 1987. And now it was 2007 and I was served a full helping of classic retail politics: small (sometimes very small) and medium-size crowds in towns like Ogden, Nevada, Perry, Jefferson, Carroll, Council Bluffs, Waukee, Greenfield, and Atlantic. It was a time for the candidates to hone their Iowa messages and for the advance people to learn the craft that, for many, they'll practice nonstop through Election Day, November 4, 2008, when a select few will earn the opportunity to advance the next president of the United States.
