Democratic and Liberal political analysis and commentary

I'm on the media list for the Edwards campaign and received a piece of news today that is very significant.

Not only is Edwards polling way up in Iowa, he already has all 99 county chairs lined up here. This is a huge deal when if state holds caucuses instead of a primary election.

County chairs play a crucial role in organizing turn out for caucuses. You not only have to get people out to support their candidate and vote, but they have to sit through a sometimes two-hour-long meeting and discussion before the votes are cast. It is an event. Voting in a primary takes much less time.

To give you some perspective, when Al Gore was running in 1999 for the 2000 caucuses, we hadn't even opened our headquarters building yet at this stage of the game. We had good institutional support (elected officials and the like), but not many county chairs.

In 2004, none of my friends was organizing for Howard Dean. All of his supporters were from Vermont. Problem is, people from Vermont can't caucus in Iowa. I predicted he would come in third or fourth just based on his lack of organization.

Edwards will be a formidable opponent in Iowa this time.