Politics

Candidates count on field marshals

GOP hopefuls work to get voters out for their guy on Jan. 29.

By JENNIFER LIBERTO, DAVID DeCAMP and JOHN FRANK, Times Staff Writers
Published December 2, 2007

Nick Hansen, 25, the Tampa Bay field director for Mitt Romney, reads a message on his portable electronic device while he cleans out his trunk of Mitt Romney election materials at his home in St. Petersburg. "It's been a long week," said Hansen.
	[Scott Keeler | Times]

Meet a front-line political warrior who may help determine whether Florida delivers the White House to Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani:

Nick Hansen, Romney's 25-year-old Tampa Bay field organizer, is a rapid-talking former camp counselor who really likes to use the word "really," but sounds like he has never heard the word "decaf."

"We really, really, really want people to see us walking out there and talking with supporters," Hansen told a group of volunteers setting out to spread the Gospel of Mitt to a select group of Republican households in northeast St. Petersburg recently. "It's a big deal. This is a big, big thing for us to see if we can get out the vote early. So, I really, really appreciate you guys being here so early."

With 10 major TV markets, two time zones and 10-million registered voters, statewide campaigns in Florida rely heavily on TV ads rather than the sort of person-to-person, grass roots politicking and organizing for which states such as Iowa and New Hampshire are famous.

But TV isn't everything in Florida politics.

For most of the past year, the Giuliani and Romney campaigns have been waging aggressive, mostly unseen campaigns to identify and mobilize voters and key opinion leaders to build excitement, momentum and infrastructure to win Florida's Jan. 29 primary.

In the end, all elections come down to the largely mechanical endeavor of persuading the voters to actually show up at the polls. Especially in a primary. That's why field operations are so important.

The Democratic campaigns are doing nothing to organize the state, as the candidates boycott Florida's Jan. 29 primary because it violates the national party's primary schedule. That has many Democratic strategists worried the Republicans' head start could have repercussion in the general election.

Volunteer, grass roots supporters from both parties are doing their part to fill in where the campaigns lack paid staff - witness the Ron Paul signs popping up across the state, and the big show of support he got at last week's debate in St. Petersburg.

But the formal, coordinated approach is limited at this point to Republicans with the bank accounts and wherewithal to target the first megastate scheduled to weigh in on the nomination.

So what are the field marshals up to? Take a peek.

- - -

In a cramped office in Miami on a recent afternoon, J.C. Flores battled for the attention of Jack Cohen, a tile and ceramic maker. Cohen is perpetually busy: His desk is overloaded with papers, the phone on his desk was ringing and he had a Bluetooth phone piece in his ear.

Flores wanted Cohen to help recruit fellow business owners to support Rudy Giuliani. Cohen was sympathetic, but worried that if the economy doesn't improve no Republican can win the White House.

"I wish him good luck," Cohen said, "because I believe in him, but you have got to get change."

"That's why we need your help," Flores said, before inviting him to a campaign "house party." Before he left, Flores got Cohen to promise to take four supporter signup forms to pass out to others. He'll check back to make sure they go out.

At 26, Flores, is already a veteran of seven campaigns, and the Giuliani campaign is relying on the Miami native's knowledge of the area in this Giuliani stronghold crucial to his Florida strategy. Flores, whose family has roots in Cuba, had been an aide to Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, too.

Giuliani has 15 full-time staffers assigned to Florida, and the campaign's southeast region spokesman is based in the Florida headquarters in Winter Park. Flores is the highest-paid field rep, earning $1,564 every two weeks.

He averages 12 hours a day, six days a week, but the hours are ramping up with his Red Bull consumption.

Campaign officials say they are reaching 11,000 to 12,000 Miami-Dade voters a week, part of the 100,000 reached statewide. Miami area volunteers also call voters in counties surrounding Miami-Dade and Central Florida.

Flores mixes well with the young people who populate the volunteer crew he supervises. He treats them to Miami Heat games to reward their hard work. Five interns work 20 hours a week for college credit.

An additional 64 volunteers make hundreds of calls seeking more volunteers, getting through about 20 percent of the time, Flores said. The campaign has tailored messages for seniors and Hispanics, but the central point in an English-language script was simple: Giuliani would be the best at "cutting taxes, reducing crime and keeping us safe."

Volunteers chart the responses to their calls by coloring in bubbles on a sheet, which has a barcode at the top. It's scanned and entered into a database for tracking votes.

"Just showing somebody a television ad, it will inform them of Rudy Giuliani," Flores said. "But it might not get them motivated to go to the polls."

- - -

On Wednesday afternoon, hours before St. Petersburg played host to a CNN/YouTube debate among the Republican candidates, the skies opened and poured rain on Vinoy Park.

Nick Hansen huddled under a shared umbrella with Republican Party of Pinellas vice chairman Neil Brickfield.

This was Hansen's shining moment. He had spent the month preparing for this straw poll, $20-a-vote, completely meaningless sampling of voter sentiment that coincided with the televised debate. In the past two weeks, Hansen made hundreds of calls to Romney volunteers and supporters.

It worked. Drawing supporters from as far away as Lakeland, Dade City, Crystal River and Spring Hill, Romney won. He got (paid for) 893 votes, followed by 534 for Ron Paul, and 39 for Giuliani. (It should be noted, too, that some who participated in the poll weren't shy about voting more than once.)

"Elections, and primaries especially, are all about organization. And straw polls are about seeing where people are on the ground and can you get your people to show up," said Hansen. "The lifeblood of this campaign is volunteers, and the straw poll is a great warmup for the election."

Hansen is one 11 full-time field staffers in Florida for Romney. He's in charge of turning out Romney voters in six west-central Florida counties.

Phone calls or "phone banking" is where the real action is, and organizing these phone banks consumes most of Hansen's time.

At least three times a week, as many volunteers as Hansen can muster gather in the evenings in any empty room at a banquet hall or conference center that happens to be managed by a Romney supporter. They've got pages of names and numbers, and a script.

Hansen often pulls crazy, long hours, much of it at home or at the Blind & Shutter Gallery run by a Romney supporter in St. Petersburg. He gets paid $1,182 every two weeks.

What counts for success in his business can be pretty modest.

"Ahh, yes. I've heard of Romney," said a St. Petersburg Republican who answered the door in his pajamas. "Good-looking guy."

"I hope that'll be enough to get you to vote for him on Jan. 29," said Hansen with a chuckle as the man quickly shut his door.

- - -

Behind a navy blue curtain inside a building at the Pensacola fairgrounds, 75 people - mostly gun-owning men wearing boots and camouflage - sat in plastic chairs for a two-hour mandatory session about gun safety. This class is the first step toward a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

But first, a message: "Ladies and gentleman, support Fred Thompson," said firearms instructor Charlie Berrane. "It's a vote that won't be wasted."

Whether or not they cared, the students could do nothing but listen as Thompson campaign staffers went on to tout the Republican candidate's gun record.

This scene in Escambia County - a Panhandle territory where conservative thinking is as constant as the gentle waves on the nearby gulf beaches - played out at five gun shows across Florida one recent Saturday. Gun shows are at the heart of the Thompson campaign's grass roots effort.

Campaign field directors like 23-year-old Jon Menendez, a former intern for Jeb Bush and one of the campaign's six Florida field organizers, know as much about gun laws as his boss' stance on abortion. Along with bumper stickers, Menendez passed out business cards that list the 13 states that accept Florida permits.

As the Thompson announcements and pickup truck politics continued, a handful of volunteers manned a phone bank at a Re/Max real estate office across town.

Four young volunteers dialed area residents who voted in the past two Republican primaries. The message is simple - strong national defense, support the troops, 100 percent pro-life and no citizenship for illegal immigrants. Mostly, they tell answering machines. It's Saturday, after all, and the crew calls it quits after 500 calls.

Soon the door-to-door campaign begins. Turning out these rural, conservative voters is key for the campaign to win Florida, an important state in Thompson's strategy, said Todd Thompson, the campaign's state director of no relation to the candidate.

"It's a natural constituency for us," he said.

Times political editor Adam C. Smith contributed to this report.

[Last modified December 1, 2007, 22:54:18]