Democrats still in "persuasion mode"

by Christi Parsons and Jason George

DES MOINES - With just two days until the Iowa caucuses, presidential candidates are coming across a surprising number of voters who -- despite months of mail, ads and personal visits -- can't seem to make up their minds.

When candidates ask undecideds to identify themselves at campaign events, usually a few hands fly into the air, and sometimes there are many. In conversations after the events, Iowans often say they're leaning strongly toward one candidate but aren't sure how they'll stand on Thursday night, when the caucuses are held.

One trailing campaign sees a "gold mine" in the last-minute shoppers. Another candidate jokes that, if he can't win them over, he hopes his undecided audience members will go to the bowling alley instead of the caucus room.

In any case, it's put some of the campaigns in an unusual homestretch strategy for the first vote of the presidential cycle, especially among the unusually competitive field of Democrats.

More time and money have been poured into the promotion of these candidates than at any time since the Iowa caucuses first led off the national party selection in 1972, but some voters nevertheless continue their research into the final 48 hours of the campaign.

John Norris has played a prominent role in every Democratic caucus since 1988, but the former state party chairman and manager of John Kerry's 2004 Iowa campaign says he didn't see this coming.

Instead of working to mobilize their solid supporters, campaigns like the one he's now advising are still in the business of trying to win over undecided caucusgoers.

"We thought a week ago we'd be in mobilization mode, but we're also in persuasion mode," said Norris, who this time around is an adviser to Democrat Barack Obama. "We're just trying to cover as much ground as possible to get to those undecideds."