In Iowa, Paul's Presidential Ground Game Only One Not in Ditch

In Iowa, professional campaign watchers and a snapshot-audit of organizational efforts conducted by Patch indicate that Texas Congressman Ron Paul has the strongest political ground game in the state.

This is not a scientific investigation: The effectiveness of candidates’ ground games -- organizational efforts that are not typically detected on the political media radar -- are difficult to fully quantify, and often purposefully masked.

As an example: Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whose fifth-place finish in August’s was deemed strong because he had not yet announced his candidacy when voting took place, had campaign workers tucked in a campaign office in the state weeks before the event.

So, in addition to checking in with influential Republicans in the state who have experience herding campaign volunteers, Patch reporters and editors paid visits to candidate offices and made phone calls to their communication offices Wednesday and Thursday to ask about volunteer efforts.

Then, we tracked their response time and the quality of the information they were capable of offering. Most of the state campaign headquarters were slow to respond, and getting anybody on the phone who knew anything was a lot like calling the cable company.

The ground games in Iowa haven’t heated up more, GOP political insiders here say, because so many people have yet to decide which candidate to support.

That’s making it difficult for candidates to assemble large volunteer armies.

WHAT IOWA POLITICAL INSIDERS SAY

Paul has the ground game -- the combo of paid staff, volunteers, the network of supporters in precincts and counties around the state and some money. But the thinking has been that his support, while deep, is narrow.

In second place, according to these insiders: None of the above.

“It’s not a very good day for organizational efforts,” said Des Moines lawyer and former Iowa GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Gross.

This may come as surprising news to supporters of Michele Bachmann. The Minnesota rep proved she can draw followers by winning the Ames Straw Poll, but experts say that momentum stalled in part because of her campaign’s lack of organization.

Mitt Romney could tap into the Iowa network he built for the 2008 election if he starts spending more time in the Hawkeye state, and Rick Perry has benefited from an infusion of Iowa staffers from former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s abandoned campaign.

“Retail politics still makes a difference, but this is an interesting year,” said Mike Mahaffey, a lawyer from Montezuma who was state GOP chairman, a congressional candidate and has held several local and state posts. “A lot of people are still figuring out who they will support. There is a lot of fluidity this year.”

Pawlenty had the organization and diligently worked on his ground game, but still failed.

 “As we saw with the Pawlenty campaign, you can do all of the right things and it still doesn’t work out. People liked him, but he just wasn’t connecting,” said Tim Hagle, an associate political science professor at the University of Iowa, who has been involved in numerous GOP campaigns over the years, including Fred Thompson’s bid for the presidency in 2008.

David Yepsen, a long time political columnist for the Des Moines Register who now is director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at the University of Southern Illinois Carbondale, said more paid media has made meaningful ground games less important, though they can still turn an election.

"We have so much paid media involved in a presidential campaign now, when it comes to crunch time you need to have organization to turn people out on caucus night," Yepsen said. "It's not like turning out voters to the polls. You’re asking voters to go out at night, for a couple hours, possibly into people's homes."

Some say Rick Santorum is building his ground game the right way. He lacks the money of other candidates, but his fourth-place finish at the straw poll proves his appeal.

"If Santorum continues to put one foot in front of the other and gets hot at the end, he could win," said Jerry Crawford, a Des Moines lawyer who was state chairman for Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign.

WHAT PATCH FOUND

Patch sent a team of reporters to check out offices of the five candidates who have opened doors to the public.

Then, Wednesday afternoon, eight Patch reporters and editors called the campaigns of each of the eight candidates at approximately the same time, 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

We wanted to know about their ground games: What are they doing to attract voters? How many full-time campaign staff are in Iowa? How many volunteers? What are they doing?

Only five of the candidates have offices open to the public in Iowa: Bachmann, , , Santorum, and Perry. Newt Gingrich plans to open one in the middle of October; other campaigns had no planned office openings they would discuss.

Perry’s campaign claims to have the most full-time, paid staff in Iowa, with nine; Herman Cain’s campaign said he had four full-timers, and Santorum’s three. The other campaigns reached either would not divulge the number of workers or – as in the case of , and – calls and emails went from one staffer to another to another.

A response from the Bachmann campaign was typical: reaching someone took more than 24 hours, and then the answers were vague.

Eric Woolson, Bachmann’s Iowa campaign manager, was left three voicemails and sent one email before he called back to offer comment about the number of full-time campaign staffers, said: “Those sorts of things I cannot share but suffice to say we have a good core of professionals and volunteer Iowans that know the caucus process and are committed to seeing succeed.”

Paul’s campaign chairman, by contrast, responded immediately.

Drew Ivers, Paul’s Iowa campaign chairman, took a call from Patch at his Webster City home. 

"Our approach is a grassroots approach, at the neighbor-to-neighbor level," he said.  

The Iowa campaign team is led by a state chairman and a chairperson for each of Iowa’s four congressional districts. They also have office support and recently hired someone to lead volunteer efforts. Ivers wouldn’t disclose how many full-time staff people they have though.

Santorum’s senior political advisor, Hogan Gidley, who responded to Patch the morning after calls and emails to the campaign, said the candidate is working the ground game with a “hundreds” of volunteers and by spending real time with real people.

“In fact, that's what makes such a strong candidate in Iowa –  a strong grassroots organization full of true believers.” Gidley said in an email. “Everyone who has signed up to volunteer should have been contacted by our field staff but admittedly, with the growing list of grassroots volunteers, it's sometimes tough to keep up.”

Maybe. Of the candidates who supplied any meaningful information, appears to have the most rigid organizational structure.

Robert Haus, a campaign state co-chairman of Perry’s Iowa campaign, said he is working with seven regional field directors whose responsibilities are to identify supporters and organize their regions.

"There may be a couple more added later on," he said. “Hundreds” of volunteers have been signed up, he said, and all of them are being mobilized.

"As many as we can physically get into the office and put to work," he said. "We never will turn anyone away for lack of work to do, I can tell you that much."

This story was reported by Patch's Deb Belt, Anne Carothers-Kay, Jody Gifford, Jessica Miller, Brian Morelli, Todd Richissin, Stephen Schmidt and Megan VerHelst and written by Morelli and Richissin.