Democratic
presidential candidate former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley leads
attendees in a song after holding a town hall at Grinnell College in
Grinnell, Iowa, Wednesday. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)DES
MOINES, Iowa — On Monday night, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s
tiny band of supporters will be the center of attention in Iowa
precincts across the state.O’Malley
had only 3 percent support in the final Des Moines Register-Bloomberg
Politics poll, but because of the Byzantine rules of the Democratic
caucusing process, his supporters could end up deciding the incredibly
close race between Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders.In
each of the state’s 1,681 caucusing locations, a candidate must get 15
percent of voters to be considered viable during an initial count that’s
taken at the beginning of the evening. O’Malley isn’t expected to reach
that threshold in the vast majority of precincts, which means his
supporters will be up for grabs — they must either choose another
candidate, or their vote will not count.Wooing
voters who back candidates that fail to meet the threshold has made a
big difference in elections in the state in the past: John Edwards
finished a surprise second in 2004 thanks in part to Dennis Kucinich’s
supporters defecting to him. And Bill Richardson’s backers joined Barack
Obama’s camp in 2008.The
Clinton campaign is arming its precinct captains with special software
to help them figure out how to keep O’Malley supporters from defecting
to Sanders’ camp, BuzzFeed News reported Saturday. Meanwhile, Sanders’
precinct captains are being told to beef up on their O’Malley knowledge
so they can entice his fans over to their side and to offer them
delegates for the county convention as inducement.“You
might have to cut a deal,” said Mitch Henry, a Democratic activist who
was leading a small training for Sanders precinct captains Saturday
afternoon in a coffee shop in Des Moines. “Let’s say in this case you
have 10 O’Malley supporters. You would maybe offer them a delegate. You
could say to them, ‘OK, you 10 come over, we give you a delegate.’”This
is a largely symbolic concession — the O’Malley supporters’ votes would
go to Sanders in the caucus, but in the county conventions later on,
their delegate could switch back to supporting O’Malley.If horse-trading fails, there’s always the power of persuasion.“I
would definitely beef up on the O’Malley top 5 issues, see what they
are,” Henry told the precinct captains. Henry, who supported Sanders
until a little more than a month ago, added that he believes most
O’Malley supporters’ second choice is Sanders.“Talking
to a lot of O’Malley supporters, there are a lot of ways Bernie lines
up on the issues. A lot of them will say the environment [is their top
concern], and Bernie is clearly superior to Hillary on the environment,”
said Bri Steirer, a precinct captain for the Drake University area.But
the Sanders plan to convince O’Malley fans with delegates and issues
may not be able to compete with Clinton’s scheme. The Clinton campaign
has trained its precinct captains to use software that calculates when
it benefits Clinton to give O’Malley supporters a few of their votes in
order to block them from defecting to Sanders. That means Clinton
supporters would help O’Malley become a viable candidate in precincts
where she would still carry the day.A
Sanders precinct captain, Darlene Lawler, asked Henry about whether
Bernie supporters should be trying to do the same thing — helping
O’Malley become viable in cases where it would help Bernie.“I
would not give them three or four people to be viable because you just
don’t know what could happen,” Henry said, adding that the “math” can
get complicated as the night goes on, and it’s easy to make a mistake.
Clinton’s
campaign has an app that will help caucus leaders calculate the risks,
however, which means they don’t have to worry about mistakes.
