Eric Woolson (Huckabee state coordinator):
Question: Give our readers some perspective on where we are in the campaign?  It seems fairly early--nine months until the caucuses.  From your perspective where are we?

WOOLSON:  Well it seems early for people who typically aren't involved in it, but nine months really doesn't give us a lot of time to get the organizational work done that we need to get done.  Really if you were looking at it being February in a standard election cycle and you had nine months to go you'd be working full tilt day and night, and that's really where we are right now, but you've got to even step it up before that because the caucuses are one component but the straw poll is another and Iowa has really, the way the state party has set things up now, it's the straw poll that counts the most.  You look at the number of candidates that dropped out in 1999 after that straw poll there were four or five of them I think.  I know Quayle definitely, Dole, Alexander, Senator Smith, and there was somebody else that dropped out I think too.  So the straw poll is now the first big test.

Question: So we're not nine months out.

WOOLSON:  We're not nine months out; we're less than four months out--we're three months and three weeks essentially because April 16th to August 11th is less than four months.

Question: So are you guys already a bit behind?  Gov. Huckabee addressed this in his remarks, at the very beginning of his remarks.

WOOLSON:  Romney's campaign has had people on the ground for months and months, McCain's had an organization here, top flight people, again just top flight people.  It is not too late and that's the thing that we've certainly been heartened by.  As you talk to people, a lot of people will remain undecided, a lot of those people at the dinner on Saturday night are still undecided.  It's not too late but people are starting to make up their minds and so now is really the time for candidates to be making their move and that's our job here, that's what we've got to do.

Question:  Give our readers a sense what do you do day to day?

WOOLSON:  It's a lot of grassroots work.  Wes and I do the same thing.  We're looking for people that say that they will support Gov.Huckabee at the straw poll and that they'll support him in the caucuses as well.  Again the first priority is the straw poll.  But we're looking to people that say I like what I hear and I'll sign up with him, or tell me more about him so we can close the deal.  And we're really doing that on a statewide basis.  Getting in touch with as many people as we can and winning them over to Gov. Huckabee.  So it's really much more of a retail, one on one personal kind of campaigning than it is what a lot of other states are used to--is just the candidate goes on the air, he runs a lot of ads and maybe you see him in some big events here and there.  Well it's just day to day making sure that we're getting in touch with as many people as we can and asking them to support the governor.

Question:  Give us a sense of how you do that.  You don't go to the Mason City phone book--

WOOLSON:  Well you do a lot of--you go to your central committee meetings all around the state.  We've got 99 counties and so you're going to different central committee meetings all around the state.  Our state chair, Bob Vander Plaats, is out meeting with folks.  Danny Carroll, who's our co-chair, he's out doing the same thing.  And so you're working your networks.  They have their networks, I have mine, Wes has his.  Your working the networks, you're getting leads from other people.  Maybe you're supporting another candidate but have you heard of somebody who's interested in Gov. Huckabee?  Or, okay you're undecided; what do we need to do to win you over.  A lot of it's e-mail.  There's phone, there's e-mail, there's face to face.  There's a lot of heavy lifting that way.  But what really helps in Iowa, as you know, is have they seen your candidate and have they met your candidate.  Because they're not going to typically sign on just because one of us says will you support the candidate.  They have to meet him first and put him through the paces.
 
 

At this point the campaign, Huckabee's Iowa team, consisting of Eric Woolson and Political Director Wes Enos, were working out of Woolson's firm The Concept Works.
 
 

Copyright © 2007  Eric M. Appleman/Democracy in Action