Supporter cards served multiple purposes. They were used as sign-in forms for people who attended campaign events （a way to collect hard data）。 There was also a place on each card to sign a small pledge saying that you commit to caucusing for Barack Obama. Signing this at one of our events wasn’t binding, but the information gathered was key to building the campaign database and helping organizers persuade undecided potential voters to caucus for Obama. Interestingly, there is behavioral science behind supporter card utilization. It shows that when people sign something, the act of doing so—with their actual signature—makes them feel more committed, and therefore more likely to fulfill their pledge.3 This was one of the ways Obama’s innovative tactics were a departure from campaigns of the past.
On this trip, I saw that Team Obama didn’t take anyone’s vote for granted; if you filled out a supporter card, volunteers followed up with you multiple times. （“You’re going to caucus for Obama on January third, right?”… “You’re going to caucus for Barack Obama on January third, RIGHT?”… “Hey, ON JANUARY THIRD DON’T FORGET TO CAUCUS FOR BARACK OBAMA, ALL RIGHT?!”）
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Iowa is a weird state in that it has a caucus rather than a primary. （It’s also weird because a highlight of their state fair is a life-size butter cow sculpture, which is exactly what it sounds like—and they don’t even eat it at the end.） So, what is a caucus? Instead of going to a polling place and privately casting your ballot behind a curtain in a booth, Iowans meet up at designated locations to discuss, debate, and then publicly vote on candidates. They do this across the entire state. If this sounds insane to you, that’s because it is, in fact, insane. If you tried to have a caucus in a place like New Jersey, it would quickly devolve into fistfights.
I think we need universal health care.
Oh yeah? I think ya mom needs universal health care.
Wuddid you say? Say it again to my face.
Uh-right. Ya mom. Needs. Universal health care. To fix her ugly face!
For Iowans, who live in a real-life version of a wholesome black-and-white movie, a caucus actually works. People bring homemade potluck food to the meeting site—often a church basement, school gymnasium, or cafeteria—and stand underneath the sign or banner that indicates their preferred candidate. This is Hillary Clinton’s sign! Come over here, eat one of these cookies I baked, and let me tell you why Hillary is better than the other candidates! No, come over here and stand under Bill Richardson’s banner! If you have never heard of Bill Richardson, let me feed you some chili I made and tell you about him. Since I am the only one under this banner, you can eat as much chili as you want. Mmmmmm. Bill Richardson.
If a candidate doesn’t have enough support to be viable at a caucus site （to oversimplify, let’s say there is no clear majority）， the caucus-goers who supported that candidate will need to pick a backup. That’s when people try to convince one another to join their groups for a second time. The people who get convinced walk from one side of the room to the other, to signal their support for their second-choice candidate. It’s like a middle school dance, but instead of dancing, the middle schoolers are passionately debating whether Dennis Kucinich or John Edwards has the better energy policy. It’s a uniquely public way to vote and requires a lot of commitment on the part of caucus-goers to turn out—the process can take a few hours. Once everyone’s under the right signs, they raise their hands and are counted for the final time.
In general, people who have voted in past elections tend to support establishment candidates （Clinton, John Edwards, George Bush）。 First-time voters tend to vote for the newer outside candidates who motivated them to participate （Ron Paul, Obama, Obama’s successor）。 That’s why in 2007, the Obama campaign focused on what’s called “expanding the electorate”： encouraging people who had never voted before to caucus. A huge part of ensuring Obama’s victory was making sure these new voters showed up on January 3.
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Each morning of the All-Actor, All-Iowa, All-Star Voter Education Tour began with a briefing from Teal Baker over a continental breakfast （included in the price of the room） before piling into Colby’s college band van. We’d first make an appearance at a local field office to talk to supporters and give a special shout-out to the volunteers who had collected the most supporter cards that week. Next, we’d hit three or four colleges to make speeches and help collect new supporter cards, using the drive time to do interviews with local reporters. We’d wrap up each evening with a quick dinner at a local eatery, where we’d also shake hands and campaign, then stop at another field office before getting some sleep.
The short speech I wrote for these events opened with the Hummer story from the $2,500 fundraiser in Malibu （I left the Eddie Murphy part out）。 I then talked about Obama’s opposition to the Iraq War and how that related to an acquaintance named Brady in Texas. Brady was the friend of a coworker, and really wanted to go to college. He was working a minimum-wage job in the office of a trucking company hoping to eventually save up enough for tuition. One afternoon, Brady got a call from a huge corporation called Halliburton and was offered a salary of $90,000 if he agreed to move to Iraq to drive a truck. （Shout-out to the military-industrial complex!）
I was so bothered by the fact that this was Brady’s choice.4 In the richest, most powerful country in the world, you can go to college if you work for years in a minimum-wage job or earn $90,000 a year driving a truck in a war zone （presuming you made it back alive to enroll in school）。 What if we hadn’t started this bipartisan war in Iraq and instead allocated that money toward making higher education more affordable? What if we elected someone like Obama, who proposed a doubling of the Pell Grant?
My speech was always well received, and it opened up a lot of great conversations about other people’s experiences. The most common questions we and the staff got were about Obama’s plans for health care, the economy, equality, and climate change. Marijuana and Harold & Kumar rarely came up. Turns out, when given the opportunity to talk with representatives of a presidential campaign, young voters will overwhelmingly ask about real issues that affect them. This is not to say there weren’t disruptions. One speech at a high school event was interrupted by some kid who aggressively shouted, “Hey Kal! Will you suck my caucus?” His classmates shut him down quickly with boos and reprimands, and I ignored the whole thing and went on with the rest of my remarks. But as soon as that event ended and our van door shut, I burst out laughing. “That heckler was hilarious. He was so embarrassed after his buddies booed him. Get me his phone number, I want to make sure he signs a supporter card.”5
Each time we delivered our stump speeches to crowds of enthusiastic young people, a thought crept into the back of my mind: Yo, what if Obama actually becomes the first African American candidate to win the Iowa caucus? Could we really make history here? Everyone on his team was so positive about the work they were doing, and the energy was contagious. “We’re in this to win. And if we don’t, we’ll have registered so many new voters that they’ll be more likely to participate in future elections. That’s ultimately a really good thing.”