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Candidates Make Last-Minute Appeals

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By LIZ SIDOTI T, he Associated Press

Published: January 2, 2008

DES MOINES, Iowa - Uplifting appeals largely replaced stinging insults Tuesday as Democratic and Republican candidates did the only thing left to do in Iowa races that are too close to call: encourage supporters to vote for them.

"The polls look good, but understand this: The polls are not enough. The only thing that counts is whether or not you show up to caucus," Democrat Barack Obama told a crowd at a high school gymnasium.

Amid murmurs of "Amen!" at a pizza parlor in Sergeant Bluff, Republican Mike Huckabee urged hundreds: "Don't go alone. Take people with you. Fill up your car. Rent a van. Hijack your church's bus, whatever you've got to do to get people to the caucus who are going to vote for me."

Candidates made the pitch repeatedly as they canvassed the state for Thursday's caucuses, the first votes of the presidential nominating process. At least 130,000 Democrats and 80,000 Republicans are expected to participate in 1,781 neighborhood meetings.

New polls show both races competitive, the outcomes extraordinarily unpredictable.

Among Democrats, Obama, an Illinois senator, is fighting with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York for the lead as former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina gives them strong chase. Two former governors, Huckabee of Arkansas and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, are vying for first on the Republican side.

Given the tightness, turning out voters will be critical.

Thus, hoards of volunteers made thousands of get-out-the-vote phone calls Tuesday, the campaigns rolled out uplifting television ads and the candidates made their pitches on the first day of 2008. The efforts were intended to maximize media exposure and voter outreach.

All but one candidate, Romney, shunned the negativity that spiked in recent weeks.

Obama, Clinton and Edwards played nice. Huckabee made good on a promise to clean up his act.

With two days left in the campaign, Romney continued his ads against Huckabee. He also assailed Huckabee's defense of his own failure to read the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran last month.

For the most part, candidates spent New Year's Day trying to energize supporters.

In the Des Moines area, Romney combined football and politics at a series of "House Party Huddles."

At an Elks Lodge in Cedar Rapids, Huckabee pulled out a bass guitar and played "Blue Suede Shoes" and "Mustang Sally" with a singer and drummer.

Obama's family was enthusiastic, buoyed by a Des Moines Register poll that showed him in the lead. His wife, Michelle, talked about "when Barack is the next president of the United States" and he referred to her "the next first lady of the United States."

His chief rival, Clinton, campaigned with her 88-year old mother, Dorothy Rodham, and daughter, Chelsea, in tow as she worked to solidify her already strong support among female voters. Her husband, former President Clinton, campaigned separately.

Clinton's campaign seized on a CNN poll that had her in the lead as aides picked apart the methodology of the Register survey.

Edwards also brought his wife and two children along for the final push, a "marathon for the middle class" during which he will continue to hammer away at pocketbook issues on an overnight drive to energize backers.

All three also turned to the airwaves to urge voters to attend caucuses.

Clinton and Obama were to air longer-than-usual, two-minute ads during Wednesday's evening news programs. Edwards bought a full-page ad in the Des Moines Register featuring a testimonial from a worker who lost his job when the Newton, Iowa, Maytag plant closed. The worker also will appear in a TV ad.

In a sign of the battles beyond Iowa, Republican John McCain opened a new line of criticism against Romney in a new Web video that could end up on TV. "Mitt Romney says the next president doesn't need foreign policy experience," it says.

Conversely, Romney began airing an ad in New Hampshire that shifts away from his criticism of his rivals and urges people to "vote for tomorrow."

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