Getting People to Caucus

Forget the polls, the big thing on Jan. 3 will be the candidate able to get supporters out to their caucus meetings.

A lot of different factors come into play here including the weather and the demographic breakdown of the candidate's supporters in terms of age, voting frequency, etc.

For someone like Barack Obama with many young people as supporters, the last days of the campaign are very important. A young college student often wonders how to fill up their gas tank if they have a car at all. Someone who has had a hard day at work might think that their single vote doesn't matter than much anyway and decide to skip the meeting and go straight home.

There are some creative ways to get people out to caucus. They include student carpools, free volunteer taxi services, after-parties for young voters, etc.

College students are always looking for free munchies and the chance to meet other young people so parties are a good strategy in college towns.

Many people, especially first-time and infrequent voters, may simply forget the date or time of the caucus. This is where the campaign ground effort comes in, especially the phone banks. They need to remind supporters to show up at the caucus meeting on time.

In the end, it is often the campaign with the best ground organization that ends up winning the Iowa caucus.