MASON CITY, IOWA - Late Saturday morning a caravan of Barack Obama supporters from the Twin Cities pulled in for a gas station pit stop a few miles north of town -- right ahead of a caravan of John Edwards supporters, also driving down from Minnesota.
"It was absolutely hilarious -- they were having their own little pep rally in the lobby," said Laura Nevitt, a DFL activist who organized the Edwards caravan. "It's almost like everyone from Minnesota's down here today."
A slight exaggeration, maybe, but upward of 100 supporters of Obama, Edwards and Hillary Clinton poured south across the border this weekend to pound pavement, knock on doors and work their way through phone lists on behalf of their candidates.
With Minnesota a long-time bridesmaid in presidential nominating contests, it's been a quadrennial exercise for the past few presidential cycles.
With their own precinct caucuses coming too late to be significant in the nominating process, the Minnesotans get a chance to contribute something tangible to their candidates in the run-up to Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses, now just 17 days away.
And the campaigns, inevitably scrambling for warm bodies, are immensely grateful.
"We're so glad you all are here helping us, on such a cold day," Lacey Connelly, Edwards' senior field organizer for north central Iowa told a couple of dozen Minnesotans jammed into the campaign's downtown office. "This office needs to talk to 1,800 people between now and Jan. 3. I know it's cold, but we've got scripts for you so this will be easy."
So it also went at Obama's local office a few blocks away, where more than 50 Minnesotans had gathered, and 88 miles to the east at Clinton's storefront office in Decorah, where three dozen had showed up.
While high-profile Minnesota politicians have stumped Iowa for presidential candidates (Walter Mondale for Clinton last week, Gov. Tim Pawlenty for John McCain in March), the grass-roots work is almost exclusively a Democratic phenomenon.
The Minnesota Republican presidential campaigns haven't sent troops to Iowa, either this time or in earlier election cycles.
The Republican inactivity can be traced to cultural differences between the parties, said longtime GOP operative Sarah Janecek. "There haven't been any real Republican [presidential] contests in awhile, so the Republican mindset is just not programmed to think that volunteering to go down to Iowa's going to help," she said.
"Democrats think more about trained bodies than Republicans do and Republicans think more about money than bodies."
At Edwards' Mason City office, Connelly gave each volunteer a set of talking points and a computerized printout listing each targeted resident's demographics, candidate preferences and likelihood of attending the caucus. They also got street maps and enough campaign literature to hand out to as many as 60 people.
All of the campaigns have the same basic drill down pat and all three were trying to stress the same message in a race where Clinton, Obama and Edwards appear to be neck and neck and neck.
"Obviously we want you to deliver John's message, but the most important thing to talk about today is his electability," Connelly said.
In Decorah, after Minnetonka resident Marti Cermak had gotten her marching orders, she worked her way along both sides of a residential street east of downtown, encountering the canvasser's prime occupational hazard: Nobody home.
"I've had a lot of that today," she said, echoing the complaint of volunteers for all three campaigns. "People are shopping, or at Christmas parties. Or you get people who've made up their mind for somebody else. But they'll still talk to you. And they're nice. I'm not going to twist anyone's arm."
There was the woman who won't caucus because her husband just died, down the street from the Republican husband who answered the door and said his wife was downtown shopping. Then Cermak hit a kind of paydirt when Brita Nelson came to the door.
"Right now, I'm kind of between Clinton and Obama, so I'm not really sure yet," Nelson said. "I'm kind of concerned about health care."
"Well, Hillary's plan would cover everyone," Cermak said, "so please consider her. Educate yourself with this literature. Read all you can."
Nelson said she definitely planned to caucus on Jan. 3. "I did it four years ago and liked it," she said. "Thanks for the work you're doing."
On her way to the next potential caucus-goer, Cermak was satisfied. "I'm 65 and have worked for the party for many, many years and this is where it's at," she said. "I can't save the world but I can take one or two hours and work the grassroots. If by the end of the day, I get three people to commit to caucus, I'll have made a difference. Only 150,000 people go to the caucus, so work like this is a no-brainer for me."
Back in Mason City after a long day of snow covered-pavement pounding, more than 50 Obama supporters jammed the campaign office and furiously worked the phones until dinnertime.
One of the organizers, Minneapolis DFL activist Matthea Smith, said she was recruited by all three campaigns for an Iowa trip when her Facebook profile described her as a "strong Democrat."
"All three campaigns have been very respectful of each other so far," she said. "Even when I talk to someone supporting someone else, they're not critical. That's good because it hasn't been very helpful in the past when all Democrats do is criticize each other."
The volunteers for Obama and Edwards got the ultimate payoff Saturday night in the form of a rally with their guys, as both candidates continue to crisscross the state.
While waiting for Edwards to take the stage at the packed Mason City civic center, St. Paul DFL activist Ron Halvorson explained why he's moving to Fort Dodge for the rest of the race.
"I'll take vacation time -- I did the same thing for [Howard] Dean four years ago," he said. "Spent 20 years living here, so I've been active in Iowa politics my entire adult life. There's absolutely nothing like it."
Edwards hit the stage to recycle his stump speech, but made a direct sales pitch: "There's so much at stake in what you do here in Iowa -- you're going to decide what kind of president we have."
A dozen blocks away (on Pennsylvania Avenue, no less) Obama briefly veered from his stump speech, too: "Jan. 3 is important. You have a chance to stand up so I hope you decide to stand up with me and caucus."
At both venues, Minnesotans and Iowans went equally crazy.
Bob von Sternberg • 612-673-7184
