SPENCER, Iowa — Some of the 140 people who filed into the Spencer Public Library to hear Sen. John Edwards speak the other day might not have known it, but they were a test for Mark Becker, an 18-year-old high school senior here in rural northwestern Iowa.
Becker, a precinct captain for the North Carolina senator, began knocking on undecided voters' doors two weeks ago, urging them to attend Wednesday's midday talk, a dry run of his efforts to get at least eight Edwards supporters out for Monday's caucuses. Becker recognized "five or six" of those undecided voters in the audience, a harbinger, he hoped, of the future.
"I actually talked them into coming," said Becker, who skipped part of the school day to listen to Edwards -- and to monitor the turnout.
Becker is a foot soldier in Edwards' strategy for finishing well in next week's caucuses. While other leading candidates are focusing on urban areas, where unions and established political organizations are primed to pack the caucuses, Edwards -- running as an outsider -- is looking to the countryside.
From the beginning, he has played the rural card, skipping over the part of his life story where he became a millionaire and spent five years in the U.S. Senate, to present himself as the local boy-done-good, the millworker's son who knows what it's like to unload trucks in the North Carolina summer, and who can be the champion of the common man.
So the campaign has mounted something of an agrarian insurrection. When Edwards comes to Iowa, he holds an event in whatever city he flies into, then makes a beeline for the countryside. Before the new year, he talked to voters by the dozens in living rooms and diners. Now he speaks to hundreds in American Legion halls, local libraries and schools.
It's a strategy that hinges as much on math as on message.
Each of Iowa's 1,993 precincts will select some of the state Democratic delegates up for grabs. The allotment for each precinct is based on a numerical average of the Democrats who voted in the 2000 presidential and 2002 gubernatorial elections. Urban areas will select more delegates than those in rural, Republican-heavy areas. However, because fewer Democrats live in rural precincts, a candidate can scoop up delegates more easily.
Edwards hopes to harvest enough delegates in precincts like Becker's to offset expected strong showings by Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt and John F. Kerry in urban areas, where the game is played on a larger and more complex scale, and where union support -- Edwards has virtually none -- can steer the course of a caucus.
