Iowa's delegate selection adds zing to race
The process of selecting Iowa's delegates to the Democratic National Convention resumes Saturday at the state's county conventions.
With Barack Obama narrowly ahead of Hillary Clinton in an all-out scrap for national delegates, these typically pro-forma events now have historic interest and new meaning.
The 99 conventions could put one candidate on course for a greater share of Iowa's 57 delegates than was projected on caucus night.
These conventions are not expected to produce seismic shifts in the presidential nominating race or put either Clinton or Obama on course to win the 2,025 delegates required to secure the nomination.
But in a race that has shifted in the past 10 weeks from a battle for early momentum to a state-by-state war for delegates, the conventions give Iowans another chance to affect the race.
"It's like we're running the caucuses again, just with a smaller number of people," said Tom Henderson, chairman of the Polk County Democratic Party.
For the first time, candidates have hired staff to whip up turnout to county conventions.
Teams of paid and volunteer workers have spent weeks contacting the 13,485 delegates elected on caucus night. In some cases, they are trying to sway those who supported former Sen. John Edwards, who quit the race Jan. 30.
Running Obama's convention outreach is Jackie Norris, who was a senior adviser to his Iowa campaign. Veteran Iowa Democratic organizer Teresa Vilmain, who was Clinton's caucus campaign director, is leading Clinton's convention effort.
Party leaders are expecting a big turnout and have, in more than one county, had to move the convention to a larger venue.
Polk County Democrats are expecting more than 1,200 delegates to show up in West Des Moines' Valley High School gymnasium, where they will choose 358 delegates to the state's district and state conventions.
Monona County in western Iowa had to move its convention from the courthouse to the Onawa Community Center because of intense interest from the 80 delegates planning to attend.
Obama, an Illinois senator, won the caucuses on Jan. 3, capturing the equivalent of 38 percent of Iowa's national Democratic delegates, ahead of former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards with 30 percent and Clinton, a New York senator, with 29 percent.
The Iowa Democratic caucuses stamped Obama as a national contender. The caucuses also forced Clinton to campaign for the first time as a challenger and weakened Edwards, who had been an early favorite in the caucuses and quit the race in late January.
But the delegate score in Iowa is much closer than the immediate analysis of the caucuses suggested.
Currently, Obama has 20 Iowa delegates while Clinton has 18. Those numbers account for the percentage of pledged delegates they earned on caucus night and the number of superdelegates who have endorsed them. Iowa has 11 Democratic superdelegates, a select group of elected officials and party leaders who will be seated at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August.
Saturday marks a step in the process of determining Iowa's final delegate count, which will be decided this summer.
Until then, delegates who advance in the process are unbound by the decisions they make along the way.
Of the roughly 240,000 who turned out to the 1,781 Democrat caucuses - nearly double the previous record - a relative few stuck around to vote for delegates to the county conventions.
Those 13,485 delegates will elect 2,500 delegates Saturday. Those 2,500 will elect some of the national convention delegates during Iowa's district conventions on April 26 and the rest at the state convention on June 14.
That makes it a priority for the campaigns to fill as many slots with supporters as possible.
Only Nevada Democrats have held their county conventions so far this year. Iowa's are significant in part because Edwards has more delegates here than anywhere else.
Edwards has 14 delegates coming from Iowa, of the 26 he had collected. Of the three superdelegates he had in Iowa, one has endorsed Obama while the others are uncommitted.
David Redlawsk, Edwards' Johnson County coordinator, said he has encouraged Edwards' Johnson County delegates to remain uncommitted so that they can make a statement en masse at the district and state conventions.
Edwards has not declared a preference for either of his former opponents since getting out of the race. But Edwards' Iowa supporters received an e-mail from his state campaign leaders, Roxanne Conlin and Rob Tully, asking them to "stand up for John."
"The Obama campaign has been clearly more active in trying to reach Edwards' delegates," said Redlawsk, who said he and other Edwards delegates had been contacted by Obama's team. "Contrast all this with Clinton. I have received no local calls on behalf of Clinton."
Clinton's effort is more aimed at maintaining her supporters, although she has a staff in Iowa reaching out to Edwards' delegates.
One former Edwards supporter, Iowa's first lady Mari Culver, has been heard on automated telephone calls asking Edwards' supporters to back Obama.
Gov. Chet Culver, who was neutral during the Iowa campaign, endorsed Obama last month.
Obama leads Clinton in the national delegate count with 1,611 to 1,480, which include the 207 superdelegates publicly for Obama and the 237 for Clinton.
A dramatic shift in Iowa on Saturday in support of Obama or Clinton would alter the count only by a couple of national delegates at most.
But they are fighting for them as if the nomination depended upon it, said Jean Hessburg, the former state Democratic Party director.
"In a normal year, it wouldn't alter the landscape, but this year nuances alter the landscape," Hessburg said. "This is a pinpoint accuracy game now so no one wants to lose anybody."
