Political Forecast

If you’re interested at all in the behind the scenes action in the caucuses and knowing the names behind the candidates, then you better start keeping track now. Beyond the simple visits and events with candidates, the staffs work hard to get things going and to make these things work. Building off of Geraldine’s post, as well as this one at TPM Cafe, and the list provided over at GW’s Democracy in Action Iowa Caucus page, I’ll try and give you the names of the people you’re going to need to know who are working for particular candidates, both official and unofficial campaigns.

Iowa Democratic Party
• Scott Brennan — IDP Chairman (will remain neutral)
• Mike Milligan — Executive Director of the IDP, with past experience for years in Iowa politics and managed the 2006 Trifecta victory for Iowa Democrats.
• Norm Sturzenbach — Political and Caucus Director, past deputy campaign manager and political director of Chet Culver’s gubernatorial campaign, as well as past work with Bill Bradley’s 2000 Iowa campaign and AARP in 2004.

John Edwards

• No Iowa-specific staff that I know of, yet. However, having Ed Fallon as a volunteer/early endorsement, he might be able to offer a bit of Iowa insight that might be helpful for the caucuses. Rob Tully, past IDP Chairman, also offers a wealth of experience and strategy.

Barack Obama

• Jordan Oster — Director of Iowa DraftObama.org, previously worked for Chet Culver’s gubernatorial campaign and is currently a Drake University student.
• Steve Hildebrand — unofficial campaign manager/pusher for Obama. He has been reaching out to potential staff behind the scenes, was Sen. Tom Daschle’s campaign manager in 2004 and Sen. Tim Johnson’s in 2002. He ran the Iowa caucuses for Gore in ‘00 and knows Iowa quite well.

Tom Vilsack
**Note: His campaign will be based in Des Moines, but I’ll just be listing the Iowa-specific people who’ll be working the caucuses.**

• Dusky Terry — Iowa State Director, former Secretary of Agriculture candidate for Iowa, former staffer for Vilsack’s Heartland PAC, and former policy advisor for Vilsack.
• Jesse Harris — Iowa Field Director, previously was the IDP Coordinated Campaign Field Director and Field Director for Chet Culver’s gubernatorial campaign. Previously was a field staffer for John Edwards in 2004.
• Jeff Link — Communications Strategist. Link is an Iowa boy through and through, just like Dusky and Jesse, and he’ll likely be contributing to the caucus communication strategy with experience from his previous work for Senator Harkin and Gore-Lieberman 2000 in Iowa.
• Gordon Fischer — activist/strategist/consultant? Gordon is a past IDP Chairman and knows the caucuses like the back of his hand, so his experience will be very helpful.

Hillary Clinton

• Again, no Iowa-specific staff since there is no official campaign yet, but her early support from Bonnie Campbell is likely to help her in Iowa and help her with caucus strategy.

I know it is still very early to be talking about stuff like this, but this just gives you an idea of who is going where this early on, at least in regards to staff. Tracking endorsements and activist support will be something to definitely keep track of as time goes on. I think by the end of January or February, we’ll start to have a clearer picture of who will be where when it comes to staff and stuff. Part of that is because the whole season has started so early. When it comes to endorsements and big activist support, I’d expect to start seeing emails/releases with names around the start of the summer or the middle of it.