Reply #64: Update: Hillaryworld is very very worried that they'll lose Iowa to Obama and Edwards

[ClarkUSA]

DES MOINES, Nov. 17 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has nearly doubled the size of her staff in Iowa and has
substantially increased her advertising here as her campaign reinforces its effort to prevent Democrats from coalescing around
a single alternative to her candidacy...The Clinton campaign has been flying in operatives from across the country to bolster
the Iowa effort.

Complicating the matter even more, the campaigns of Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr. of
Delaware and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut also have the potential to sway the race. If candidates do not reach a 15
percent threshold in each of the 1,784 precinct caucuses on Jan. 3, their supporters make a second choice, a procedure that
Mrs. Clinton’s aides fear could favor Mr. Edwards or Mr. Obama.

<snip>

More than 60 percent of those who have identified themselves as Clinton supporters, senior strategists say, have never
participated in the Iowa caucuses. It is a far higher share than the campaign had been anticipating, which suggests that
many of the reliable rank-and-file Democrats have chosen another candidate... By this week, the Clinton campaign had
completed opening 34 offices across the state, arriving in many cities more than two months behind the local operatives
for Mr. Obama or Mr. Edwards. Last week, the Clinton campaign’s national headquarters sent a top communications
operative to Iowa and hired eight deputies charged solely with drumming up media coverage in smaller cities across
the state... At the same time, Mr. Clinton is playing an increasingly larger role in Iowa.

<snip>

With new anxieties about Iowa and a sense of heightened importance in the vote’s outcome, the Clinton campaign sent
several senior strategists here, including Karen Hicks, who is known as one of the party’s top get-out-the-vote specialists.
To compete with the strong organizations of Mr. Edwards and Mr. Obama, the Clinton campaign held a job fair in
Washington to recruit many of the 100 new workers, but it remains an open question whether the late influx of young
aides will be able to build the relationships with Iowa voters that other campaigns have been working on for months.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/us/politics/18dems.html