This down to the wire report was filed at 9:58 p.m. on Wednesday by Carolyn Schmidt, our ace citizen journalist in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, an election hot spot.
By Carolyn Schmidt
Cedar Rapids, Iowa–Obama is leading in the Register poll by a slight margin, but Huckabee and Romney are tied. It’s going to be down to the wire. Weather’s supposed to be calm–no more snow–with highs in the 20s, but people shouldn’t have any problems getting to the caucuses. Crowding and parking might be problems, but people will figure it out.
We had two campaign volunteers knock on our door New Years Day in the near-zero cold–supporters for Ron Paul and for Barak Obama. The Obama volunteer was a Coe student back early (classes don’t start for another week). Clinton, Edwards, Obama, Dodd, Romney, McCain, and Richardson all had rallies today in the Cedar Rapids area.
Although many of the candidates have had out-of-state volunteers come in for this final week or two, Hillary’s campaign seems to have amassed the largest number. According to yesterday’s Register, an army of Clinton volunteers–many of whom have flown in from Washington–logged 10,000 house calls and 8,500 phone conversations on Saturday alone.