CNN: With caucuses near, candidates hunt for undecided Iowa voters
Barack Obama appears with daughters Malia, left, and Sasha during a campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa.
DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) -- The presidential candidates began the new year making their pitches to undecided voters and working hard to motivate their supporters to get out and participate in Thursday's Iowa caucuses. It is crunch time as campaigns offer everything from babysitting services to snow shovels to help supporters get to the caucuses. The candidates were crisscrossing Iowa, appearing at rallies, house parties, restaurants -- wherever voters can be found. Also the campaigns and independent groups working here are making aggressive outreach efforts through phone banks and canvassing.
A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll out Tuesday shows both the Democratic and Republican races to be tight, with Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama essentially tied for the lead in the Democratic race in Iowa and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee neck-and-neck in the Republican race in the Hawkeye State. But even with the hundreds of campaign appearances, phone calls to voters and a barrage of television ads in the last few months there are still a large number of undecided voters.
In the new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, 17 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers said they are still trying to decide who to support, and 11 percent said they were leaning but not definitely decided. More than a quarter of Republican caucus-goers said they were still trying to decide, and 21 percent said they were leaning....
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The Clinton campaign was distributing hundreds of shovels to help clear the sidewalks of supporters which may be key to getting the first-time caucus goers to the polls. The Obama camp is organizing baby-sitting services for its supporters....
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/01/iowa.2008/index.html