By Sean J. Miller, NBC News/National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007

With the Iowa caucus only weeks away, John Edwards' stump speeches are no longer laced with personal attacks against his Democratic rivals. His emphasis now is on a "positive agenda," but that wasn't borne of a Christmas epiphany. Edwards' above-the-fray message exploits a unique feature of the Iowa caucus process that improves his chances of winning on Jan. 3: the second-choice candidate.

	In 2004, Edwards was able to pick up support by becoming the second choice of Gephardt and Dean supporters, who refused to gravitate to the rival campaign.

Iowa caucus voters have the option of picking a second candidate if their first vote doesn't pan out. The 1,781 precinct caucuses start with what's called a "first alignment period," when caucus-goers cluster into their candidate preference groups. "After that, there is the opportunity to realign," said Carrie Giddins, spokeswoman for the Iowa Democratic Party. In other words, a chance to go with your second choice.

If a candidate's supporters don't make up 15 percent of a precinct's caucus-goers, they're considered non-viable. They must attract more supporters, go home or join another group. "That's' why we don't put a lot of weight in polling. On caucus night, 1,781 outcomes are going to play out across the state," Giddins said.

In the weeks before the 2004 caucus, Democratic front-runners Gov. Howard Dean and Rep. Dick Gephardt engaged in what became known as a political murder-suicide. Gephardt attacked Dean for cutting Medicare for seniors; Dean made a point of linking Gephardt to President Bush and the war in Iraq.

"You had these campaigns that were imploding -- dropping below viability in some places. Their supporters wanted to go somewhere and they had the choice to go to the establishment candidate, which was Sen. [John] Kerry, or the hope/optimistic message candidate that was Sen. Edwards," said Rob Berntsen, Edwards' Iowa director in 2004.

Edwards was able to pick up support, much of it in rural areas, by becoming the second choice of Gephardt and Dean supporters, who refused to gravitate to the rival campaign, Berntsen said. "It had a definite impact," he said, and helped propel Edwards to a second place finish in Iowa.

"You definitely have to have a strategy" for attracting supporters during a caucus' realignment period, added Berntsen, who isn't working for a candidate this cycle.

In 2008, the candidates' second-choice strategy will be more crucial. Of the seven major candidates in the race, four -- Sens. Joseph Biden and Christopher Dodd, Gov. Bill Richardson and Rep. Dennis Kucinich -- are registering less than 15 percent in recent Iowa polls.

In many precincts, these candidates' supporters won't be able to form viable preference groups and will have to pick another candidate.

One way to recruit these caucus-goers, Iowa experts say, is to arm a campaign's precinct captains, your strongest supporters, with a positive message. After all, Iowa caucus-goers still have to be neighbors on Jan. 4.

A precinct caucus is like "hand-to-hand combat," said Jesse Harris, who was a 2004 field organizer for Edwards in Warren County, Iowa, and is now the field director for Sen. Tom Harkin's re-election campaign. "If your candidate has a negative message, it will be more difficult for you to persuade undecideds to support your campaign."

On the other hand, a candidate with positive words for his or her rivals might be able to sway their supporters.

Harris pointed to Sen. Barack Obama jumping to Biden's defense during the Dec. 13 Des Moines Register debate as an example of how a candidate can make him or herself an appealing second choice to a rival's supporters. When Register editor and debate moderator Carolyn Washburn asked Biden about his sensitivity to racial issues Obama jumped in during the conversation: "I have absolutely no doubt about what is in his heart and the commitment that he has made with respect to racial equality in this country."

Biden supporters watching that would likely respond favorably to Obama, Harris said. "It opened an avenue for his supporters to target Biden supporters on caucus night. If I'm a Biden supporter and I'm going into caucus night and my candidate isn't viable, I might remember that and choose Barack Obama."

"Occasionally, being nice is good, not just for the sake of being nice but it's also a strategy," he said.

For Edwards, who has stopped attacking Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton by name on the campaign trail, being nice appears to be working.

In a mid-December Washington Post/ABC News poll, Richardson, Biden, Dodd and Kucinich supporters were asked to name their second choices, if their candidates weren't viable in their precincts. Forty-one percent named Edwards as their second choice, 29 percent chose Obama and 16 percent picked Clinton. Among supporters of the top three candidates, Edwards was again the leading second choice with 27 percent.

But some experienced Iowa campaigners suggest it's not a sure bet that nonviable groups will have the opportunity to gravitate to their second choice.

Teri Goodmann, Biden's Iowa campaign co-chair, said that "one of the scenarios the campaign envisions is where there are groups of Biden supporters without viability, the Obama campaign might shed off some of its supporters to make the Biden group viable" so that Biden supporters won't gravitate toward, say, Clinton. "Wouldn't they rather make Joe Biden viable than make their rival a delegate richer?"

Campaigns can sometimes join forces in a caucus. In 2004, Kucinich agreed to instruct his supporters to caucus for Edwards in precincts where he wasn't viable. Now, Goodmann said, it's too early to talk about deal-making.

"Our numbers are growing -- we're not at the point where we're discussing deal-cutting yet," she said. "If there are instructions or communications with other campaigns, they will take place after the holidays."

In the meantime, running a negative campaign has big risks. By attacking a Democratic opponent by name in a caucus campaign, said John Norris, Kerry's Iowa campaign director in 2004 and now a volunteer adviser to Obama, "you may knock someone's numbers down, but that support doesn't necessarily accrue to you."

The bitter exchanges between the Obama and Clinton campaigns are reminiscent of the 2004 race, Norris said. "The Clinton campaign decided it was worth it to take some negative shots at Obama recognizing they might lose supporters for themselves, but willing to let them go to Edwards because they could withstand an Edwards victory in Iowa but not an Obama victory in Iowa," he said.

Still, some Clinton supporters have switched not to Edwards but to Obama. Take the recent example of former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack's next-door neighbor in Mount Pleasant, Susan Klopfer. She was a strong Clinton supporter, a precinct captain, who recently appeared in an Obama YouTube video. She's seen pulling her Clinton sign out of her snowy front yard and putting up one for Obama because, as she says in the video, "the negative stuff... it's not going to work here in Iowa."

Norris agrees.

"A generally positive message right here at the end is the best thing you can do to influence the vulnerable candidates' supporters to divert to [your campaign]," he said.