Clinton’s Plan to Win Iowa: Do the Opposite of 2008

Last spring, as he was just beginning to develop a plan for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in Iowa, Michael Halle asked for help from some of the people who had the clearest view of her defeat there last time. He invited Clinton’s seven Iowa regional field directors, all of whom had moved on from her political orbit, on a conference call for what amounted to a highly delayed postmortem of her 2008 organization in the state. During the call, what stuck most vividly with Halle was the question he learned that Clinton organizers had put to Iowans when they had their first interactions with them over the phone or at doorsteps in 2007. Will you support Hillary? they had asked.

When volunteers went back to the voters shortly before the caucus to provide them with information on their precinct locations, those who had earlier identified as Clinton supporters were flaking at an unexpectedly high rate. Now they were not ready to declare themselves caucus-goers. When they were forced to think through the specific demands that entailed—to declare their support in public, at a scheduled time, before all their neighbors—many backed off, or responded with a flat “no.”