A canvasser in an icy land far away
A young Tampa native scours Iowa to find voters to caucus for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
By ALEX LEARY, Times Staff Writer
Published December 31, 2007
DAVENPORT, IOWA - Gripping a sign in wind-chapped hands, a 22-year-old from Tampa confronted the challenge of 2337 Rusholme St.
A neighbor told Adam Hoyer that the old woman who lived there did not like to go out at night, when Iowa holds its presidential caucuses. A lifelong Iowan, she had never even been to a caucus. Probably not worth the time.
But if Hoyer could eat clay to win a vote for Barack Obama - which he has done - he could spend 10 minutes in the fading sunlight Saturday trying to win another.
"Would you be willing to caucus for the senator? There's no better time to start," he said, urging gently with a smile. He asked about her grandson, giving a knowing nod when she said he's "from over in Muscatine."
Elinor Cloe, 85, was soon signing a card saying she would caucus Thursday for Obama. Her daughter did, too. Victorious, Hoyer walked to the yard and plunged the sign into the tundra. Above Obama's name in big letters, it read, "Hope."
"I really believe in that," Hoyer said, walking back to his Jeep Grand Cherokee. "I can't imagine going through all this if I didn't believe. It would be crazy."
For the past seven months - three of them unpaid - Hoyer has sown Obama's message as organizer for Scott County, a 465-square-mile part of eastern Iowa.
Never involved in politics before, the Jesuit High School graduate is suddenly at the forefront of a tense ground game in one of the closest and most congested presidential races in years.
The caucus structure is nothing like a voting booth. In it, Iowans gather in precincts and clump in groups for candidates, making the energy to get out the supporters on Thursday so important.
As the caucus grows near, Hoyer has logged 16-hour days, fueled by Subway and Starbucks. "This drive-through is great," he said, handing over his debit card for a $3.75 grande vanilla latte, a cell phone at his ear.
Hoyer agreed to give a visitor a glimpse of his world, which revolves around a hectic campaign office between a Napa Auto Parts and a RadioShack. His desk - a folding table at the end of the room - was awash in sticky notes, campaign literature and call sheets, the lists of Scott County residents who may caucus.
Hoyer grabbed a pile and headed for his blue SUV, driving to a nearby law office that doubles as a phone bank. He exchanged it for a list of people who had already been contacted. The campaign assigns a code to each: 1 is a signed supporter, 2 means verbal supporter, 3L means leaning Obama, 4 means leaning other, and so on.
"The problem is not support," Hoyer said, noting how close Davenport, the county seat, is to Obama's home state of Illinois. "We have that. The challenge is getting people to go out on a cold night and do something a lot have not done."
Indeed, of the 1.8-million registered voters, only about 220,000 are expected to caucus. That is why support cards, like the one Hoyer got Cloe to sign, are so important. Campaigns claim a person who signs one is 90 percent likely to caucus - if the weather holds up, that is.
'Make a difference'
Hoyer carries cards wherever he goes. Last summer he ran a 5-kilometer race while wearing a campaign T-shirt. When someone called out "Obama," he stopped and handed out a card. He still won his age group.
When a waitress at Panchero's Mexican Grill noticed the Obama sticker on his puffy black Patagonia jacket recently, they started talking politics. She signed a card.
"That's how I know I can make a difference," Hoyer said.
He never cared much about politics until this year, when Obama officially declared he was running. Mildly interested, Hoyer read Obama's book The Audacity of Hope and was hooked. "After two terms of Bush and Cheney and anxiety over where this country was headed, I thought it would be great to try to get this man elected."
He graduated in May from Notre Dame with a degree in economics and history (he played golf there, too), then he signed up for Camp Obama in Chicago, a crash course on campaigning.
Then he was off to Iowa. Like many young campaign workers, Hoyer started off as an unpaid intern. He now earns less than $2,000 a month. An Obama supporter gave him a place to stay in her basement. She does his laundry and, in the rare times he is home, cooks him food.
"I've gotten used to waking up a half hour early to dig out the car," Hoyer joked while on the road Saturday afternoon. National Public Radio played softly in the background. "It's the only way I can tell what's going on," he said.
Along the way to his next stop, Hoyer explained how he fractured his hand in November. He was helping plant a large campaign sign - part of the "sign wars" at a campaign dinner - when another worker accidentally slammed a pole onto his hand.
"They took me to the hospital and gave me Vicodin, and I went back to the dinner and worked some more," Hoyer said.
Going door to door
He arrived at his destination Saturday, a staging house for volunteers who go door to door. Carrying a box of pamphlets and stickers, he was greeted by Frank Heiser, 63, a retired plant worker.
"You want a bowl of chili?" Heiser asked. Hoyer had a cell phone - he carries three - to his ear, checking on a potential caucus attendee. Before leaving, Hoyer got Heiser and his wife to agree to stop by the office Sunday and make phone calls.
From there it was time for canvassing. Hoyer pulled the Jeep up to the curb on Pleasant Street and grabbed a stack of Obama fliers. A list told him which homes to skip: people not registered to vote and Republicans.
Trudging up the street, through piles of snow and ice on sidewalks, Hoyer worked through the list. Home after home was empty. Or the people weren't coming to the door.
"People are starting to get bombarded by campaigns," Hoyer said wearily after a woman turned him away.
On the way back to the Jeep, he told a bizarre story about eating clay. He was fresh on the job when he met a World War II vet who liked Obama. Hoyer wanted to cultivate the relationship and stopped by the man's house. The man seemed more interested in talking about the nutritional qualities of clay and offered Hoyer some.
"I got a good handful," Hoyer said, squinting his face in disgust. "Then he went in his back yard and dug up a radish. I ate that, too. I spent most of the afternoon in the bathroom." But he got the man's support.
Hoyer pulled the Jeep up to the home of Marcia Teshak, one of the precinct captains whom Hoyer oversees, to drop off more yard signs. He asked about the chocolate-chip cookies she would make for caucus night, one of the tactics that campaigns use to keep caucus attendees from wandering away.
So went the afternoon. Hoyer stopped again to replace a yard sign, made at least a dozen calls in an hour, dropped by the phone bank again. Then it was back to the office to update a database of potential supporters.
"Great speech," a volunteer in a blue sweat shirt told Hoyer as he walked in the door. The office was still buzzing about Hoyer's impromptu address the night before. Obama had been running an hour late due to bad weather, and the crowd of 1,100 at the Riverfront Center was restless.
Walking on stage and remembering the grumbling crowd from another canceled event a week earlier, Hoyer felt sick. He searched the crowd and saw a campaign sign bearing Obama's slogan, "Fired up."
"Are you fired up?" he shouted. "Fired up!" they yelled back. He did it again. The crowd was his.