By A. G. SULZBERGER and MICHAEL BARBARO

Published: December 31, 2011


Workers like Jim Wilson of Buckingham, Va., a Romney supporter at a rally in Iowa on Friday, are the campaign's ground troops.

DES MOINES — A few days before the Iowa caucuses, Newt Gingrich’s campaign headquarters just outside the city is a spectacle of pre-computer-age disorder, with volunteers rushing voter updates across the room on yellow Post-it notes.

At the offices of Mitt Romney, who has built a ground organization aimed at matching the intensity of his television advertising barrage, aides are methodically analyzing data on each voter to create the perfect pitch: those worried about illegal immigration, for example, are invited to join a conference call with a border county sheriff in Arizona.


At Rick Santorum’s offices, two of his college-age children, urgently aware that their father’s presidential ambitions could end here, are offering potential voters a homespun message of family values. “What can I tell you about my father?” their calls begin.


And at the Michele Bachmann operation, lofty aspirations are rapidly fading into a dispiriting reality: the bells that campaign workers are supposed to sound with every new recruit rarely chime.


Far from the spotlight of their candidates’ events, hundreds of staff members and volunteers are scrambling for an edge in a fierce final effort to tilt the outcome of a contest that has been shifting almost by the day.


Beyond the speeches and television commercials, this unglamorous ground war is unfolding with hidden intensity inside forlorn office parks, under pale fluorescent lights and amid grease-stained pizza boxes.


Yet in the closing hours, it is the tedious and time-consuming work of identifying voters and persuading them to show up at Tuesday night’s caucuses, the first contest of the 2012 primary race, that could make the difference among Republicans who cannot seem to make up their minds.


As the days dwindle and the pressure rises, these behind-the-scenes deliberations and strategies offer telling insights about the state of the race, the strength of the campaigns and the personality of the candidates.
There is the quirky insularity of Ron Paul supporters, skittish in their bow ties and fleece jackets, content to keep opponents guessing as to whether they should be feared or ignored.


There is the triple-checked orderliness of the Romney campaign and the good-humored chaos of the Gingrich operation. Though the onetime front-runner Rick Perry flaunts his deep pockets on the airwaves here, perhaps a more revealing assessment of his status can be found written on the walls at Gingrich headquarters, where Mr. Perry is the only one of six candidates reduced to a humbling shorthand: “Other.”


And while the lights were off and the doors locked at the Bachmann headquarters the other night, there was a renewed sense of possibility at Mr. Santorum’s office, up and running past midnight, where staff members have been dismissing the once pervasive questions about electability with increasing confidence.


“I don’t know if you saw the poll that came out tonight?” one Santorum worker said to a voter.


In a big, sparsely populated state, where knocking on doors is impractical, the crucial tool of campaigning is the trusty telephone. Every evening, campaigns are following the time-tested method of packing volunteers into their headquarters to place as many phone calls as possible.


The energy level in these rooms, however, varies considerably.


Inside Mrs. Bachmann’s office near Des Moines, a political adviser laid out an ambitious plan for the final week. The campaign would tap an army of supporters to call 25,000 undecided Iowa voters who could make the difference between a respectable or an embarrassing finish.


On this night, it was off to a rocky start.


There were only three volunteers working the phones. One struggled with her computer, then took an hourlong dinner break. Another dialed a Bachmann donor, who promptly told her he was no longer interested in the candidate.


“He’s been watching her the entire time, but just thinks that Gingrich will make a better president,” she explained to her fellow volunteers. “I am not going to argue with people.”


During nearly an hour of technological troubles and busy signals, the reception bells placed on every desk to provide an audible record of progress rang just once.

Over at Mr. Santorum’s office, volunteers targeting many of the same religious voters as Mrs. Bachmann routinely reach 200 people a day each using a high-tech phone system that automatically dialed calls, classified responses and displayed a script for volunteers to read: “Would you be interested in helping Rick Santorum in Iowa?”


At the nearby Gingrich headquarters, it was not energy that was lacking so much as time. The new office’s staff swelled visibly over the final week as the revived campaign tried to catch up. On Wednesday night, the volunteers were told that the number of calls placed had jumped from 300 on Monday to 3,000 on Wednesday.


The case for Mr. Gingrich mostly came from out-of-towners who had flown in from Washington, Virginia and Florida. One woman from Georgia, Sharon Cooper, began each conversation with an unmistakable drawl: “I was his state representative.”


Some committed instantly; more hung up. One woman advised that her husband had died and would not be voting. Another lamented that the race had no “old-fashioned Republican.” And after a few minutes of arm-twisting, an undecided voter requested a Gingrich lawn sign because, he told the volunteer, “you’re a nice guy and you’re a human being, not a robot.”


An elderly man said he was a longtime supporter of Mr. Gingrich but hedged when asked if he planned to take part in a caucus. “It probably depends a lot on the weather,” he said.


The practiced response was swift: “What would it take to get you out if the weather is bad?”


“If someone comes to get us,” the man responded.


“Well, we’ll definitely send someone to pick you up and drive you to the caucus.”


The weather forecast for Tuesday: partly cloudy with a high of 35 degrees.


Caution


Every candidate for the Republican nomination has campaigned at Pizza Ranch, a beloved restaurant chain in Iowa with strong ties to the Christian right.


Every candidate except Mr. Romney. His campaign prides itself on a vigilance and meticulousness bordering on the obsessive. So before Mr. Romney appears at a campaign stop or accepts an endorsement, his staff conducts sometimes painstaking vetting to avoid potentially embarrassing disclosures.


A founder of Pizza Ranch, it turned out, spent time in prison on charges of sexually abusing male employees. “There is not a lot of room for mistakes,” said David Kochel, Mr. Romney’s top strategist in Iowa.


While Mr. Romney has been caricatured for his cautious style, Mr. Paul — and his devoted supporters — have been known for dispensing with convention.


But as Mr. Paul’s recent poll numbers have raised the once unthinkable prospect of an impressive showing in Iowa, his campaign has suddenly taken on a defensive posture.


At his campaign rallies, supporters and staff members, who once complained about being ignored by the news media, now declare that they are prohibited from talking to the press, muttering about “operationally sensitive” campaign work. “I can’t talk to you,” one of them said over his shoulder, after a group of Paul volunteers scattered at the sight of a journalist the other night.


Poll numbers capture the attention of the public. But among political staff members here a single metric is prized above all else: the number of people recruited to deliver the candidate’s impassioned final arguments to voters on caucus night.


The wide gap between the figures for Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Santorum say much about their organizations in Iowa, which has more than 1,700 precincts.


As of midweek, Mr. Santorum, who traipsed to even the most rural of Iowa’s 99 counties over many months, had secured speakers in 1,000 of the precincts. Mr. Gingrich, who opened an office here only a few weeks ago, had nailed down about only 200.

Continued Below...