Candidates gone, locals work on

By Jim Brunner, Beth Kaiman and J. Patrick Coolican
Seattle Times staff reporters

	JOHN LOK / THE SEATTLE TIMES Volunteers Nick Kowalski, left, and Bob Skylstad work the phones Wednesday at Sen. John Kerry's campaign office in Seattle, trying to persuade voters to show up and support Kerry in the state's caucuses tomorrow morning.
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The glamorous part of Washington's caucus run-up is over. The candidates have made their speeches, posed for photos and flown away.

But a key chore remains for their local volunteers before tomorrow morning's caucuses: thousands of telephone calls to make sure supporters show up.

It's the political equivalent of telemarketing, but party activists say it can tilt the odds of winning caucuses, which typically have much lower turnout than primary elections.

"The level of organization makes or breaks," said Bill Phillips, chairman of the 21st District Democrats.

But telemarketing for a front-runner is a lot easier than having to change people's minds for a lagging campaign. Here's a peek inside the boiler rooms of the four Democratic presidential campaigns with a significant presence in Washington.

John Kerry

Alex Gutsche, 28, is slouched into his phone receiver at Sen. Kerry's Seattle headquarters as he zips through a list of Democrats on Wednesday night.

"If your goal is to get Bush out, Kerry's the one with the strong record," he says. His target doesn't take much convincing. "We can depend on you guys? Great. Great!"

As the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in Boston this July, Kerry has the bandwagon effect on his side. Gutsche himself was backing retired Gen. Wesley Clark until recently.

Tonight, Gutsche is among two dozen or so volunteers who have commandeered every phone line on two floors of a Pioneer Square office building. Some are using their own cellphones. Pictures of Kerry as a dashing young Vietnam veteran adorn the walls, along with a sign proclaiming "Only he can beat Bush."

The volunteers are mostly preaching to the converted, working from a list of people who have said they want to support the Massachusetts senator.

At a table in the middle of the office, Amy Mello, 25, gently cajoles a Kerry supporter to show up tomorrow despite a recent leg injury that has put her temporarily in a wheelchair.

"You'll just have to take up more space when you get there. And you'll be sure and get a space up front," Mello says.

Mello's roommate, Danielle Bosko, 25, says Kerry's resurgence has made people friendlier when they receive a call at home.

"They were nasty before Iowa," she says.

Wesley Clark

"But ... but ... but ... "

Like the best salesman you ever heard, Alex Morgan is on the phone, for the fifth or sixth time this hour, juggling, twisting, pouncing, responding.

"That's funny. I'm a former Dean supporter. Can I tell you about why I'm supporting Gen. Clark?"

One call later: "I admire John Kerry as a senator, but myself? We can't go four more years with George Bush."

Two calls later: "Wes Clark is from the South. He can bring in the moderates. You know, it's been 116 years since a senator has defeated an incumbent president. ... John Kerry is a great senator, but the Democrats haven't won the White House without a Southerner at the top of the ticket in 30 years."

So it goes at Clark's small Seattle campaign headquarters, in the back of the Marina Mart on Westlake Avenue North. The aroma of take-out food fills the air and empty soda bottles fill the trash.

Even after being on the phone on and off for four hours, Morgan isn't frustrated by the Kerry-leaners, or Dean-to-the-end loyalists, or even those who don't know the caucuses are tomorrow.

He'll make the case again and again, hoping for a moment like the one he got at 8:10 Wednesday night. A woman who started the call saying she was "leaning Kerry," but with Clark as her second choice, ended the call by saying she'd maybe support Clark.

"Yes!" Morgan said after he hung up, putting his head down on the table. "We got her."

Dennis Kucinich

For three decades, Jim Mullins, a professor of microbiology at the University of Washington, has buried his head in his research on diseases such as AIDS. He hasn't volunteered for a presidential campaign since George McGovern's in 1972.

But Mullins is making cold calls to voters in his Laurelhurst precinct, trying to persuade them to attend tomorrow's caucuses in support of Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

Mullins and a handful of other volunteers work out of the campaign's small office above a movie theater in Seattle's University District. A banner on the wall reads "Imagine." Origami cranes hang from the ceiling.

Kucinich isn't an easy sell. Mullins gets hung up on a lot. Other times, he gets an answering machine and tries to leave a lengthy message, only to get cut off because he talked too long.

"Do you think the country is going in the right direction?" he asks one man. "Oh. OK." The fellow turns out to be a Republican.

While some of the other campaigns are focusing on lists of known supporters, the Kucinich folks are still cold-calling lists of voters, trying to win converts.

"Nothing has gotten me out of my laboratory for the last 30 years. This is important," Mullins said.

Howard Dean

The interior of the Dean office, which neighbors the Jones Soda headquarters about a mile from Lake Union, looks like the morning after a big college party, but with soda cans and coffee cups instead of beer bottles. Backpacks and pizza boxes litter the floors.

A wall is adorned with Polaroids of Dean volunteers posing with a life-size cutout of the former Vermont governor and one-time front-runner. A sign reads, "Dean's not angry. I am."

As a hearing on C-SPAN drones in the background, Caleb Lauritsen, 22, makes his pitch. Lauritsen, a recent college grad from Minnesota who's here visiting friends, is selling Dean's electability.

"Unfortunately, Democrats in the past, like Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis, didn't get people excited about politics who don't usually vote. We need to get those people to vote Democratic, and Howard Dean can bring them out," he says.

Volunteers are in a conference room getting caucus training, learning how to persuade Kucinich voters, for instance, to switch their support after the first round of voting.

Nearby, others are sitting with cellphones at their ears, going through lists of potential allies.

Chris Tyler, in town from Sultan to volunteer, has just connected. "That's awesome. Great. So you know where your caucus is? Great. Any friends or family you can bring with you?"

Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com

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