Lawrence.com

Barack Obama's presidential campaign had a novel idea: How about we run a truly national campaign and not treat smaller states-say, like Kansas-as the electoral equivalent of an inbred cousin who no one speaks of and is only brought out of the basement once every four years.

It's with this ecumenical approach that Obama's is now the only campaign, Democrat or Republican, to have opened a full-time headquarters in Kansas. On top of their war room here in Lawrence, they've also hired veteran Democratic mover and/or shaker Dan Watkins to be their senior advisor in the state. Watkins is a long-time fundraiser and advisor for the Kansas Democratic Party, having helped to elect everyone from Congressman Dennis Moore to Governor Kathleen Sebelius.

He invited us into his Lawrence law office to talk about Obama's strategy for the Feb. 5 caucus, why Hillary Clinton should be nervous, and how Kansas could play a surprisingly crucial role in the Illinois Senator's quest to capture the Democratic nomination.

lawrence.com: What does Barack Obama offer to Kansas voters that, say, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards do not?

Watkins: I think he reaches much further into the middle, in terms of attracting both Republican and independent votes, than any other candidate on the Democratic side by far. He also motivates more people to get involved with the electoral process than any other candidate. And his mother is from Wichita.

So you think he's not as polarizing a figure as Hillary Clinton?

No, he's not. All the public opinion research shows that he has much broader appeal and much less polarization:

Any fears that, since this is his first presidential run, he may be a bit untested for this gauntlet?

You know, experience has been overrated if you look at Cheney and some of the crowd that Bush brought with him. He's not bereft of experience-I think he's got better experience than Senator Clinton. She gets a lot of credit for whatever osmosis she picked up in the White House. He's got nearly as much experience in the Senate as she does, and he was in the state senate in Illinois before that. He looked at Iraq as he was running for the U.S. Senate and said it's a dumb war and we shouldn't be in it. I'd rather have somebody who has that kind of judgment and doesn't tell me, "Well, I wish I had known then what I do now," or somebody who is voting to condemn the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, saying "Oh, I don't think George Bush is going to go too far with that." He's got the judgment and the values that I think we need. That's why I'm obviously enthusiastic about him.

Won't the candidate already be decided by mid-January? Do you think the Feb. 5 caucus in Kansas is going to matter by that point?

Absolutely. I look for him to do well in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Kansas will elect one percent of the delegates-you need 2,200 delegates for the nomination, and we'll elect 22 here. It all adds up. If you can get 22 delegates, which is one percent of what you need, that's moving you along. Among those 22 states going to the polls on Feb. 5, he's going to win Illinois. New York and California are that day as well, so he's going to have to win others, because I don't think he'll win New York. I see Feb. 5 as very important, and Kansas could be a big player in deciding it. Feb. 5 could have a lot more to do with it than the first four primary states.

Unlike 2004, when Kerry was the nominee almost as soon as he won Iowa, will this be a protracted campaign leading up to the convention?

It has that potential. There are only two candidates with the money to do this-it's Obama and Clinton. If he's competitive in those first four states-which he will be-and you go to the next round, then it becomes a money and organizational situation. Caucuses are won by organized, motivated individuals and not won by media and money. You can win caucus states and you can win states where you're known, like Illinois, and some Southern states because of the African American vote. You add those things up and you could come out of Feb. 5 fighting state by state. There are a lot of people out there who think that if you're not with Hillary now, you're not going to be with Hillary later. Let's say you've got 100 people in a room caucusing, and 35 of them are for Clinton and 31 of them are for Barack-there's 34 left and they're divided up among Edwards, Biden, Richardson and Dodd. None of them have 15, and now they have to make a choice-they can either remain undecided or they can make a second choice. I think it's a pretty well-grounded assumption that Obama is going to be more people's second choice than Hillary:there are certainly polls that say 50 percent of the people aren't going to vote for Hillary. I don't think you'll find any polls that say the same about Obama.

Bottom line, though, is if he doesn't finish first or a strong second in Iowa, isn't he finished?

Oh yeah, but he's got 44 offices and 200 people on the ground in Iowa. In Iowa it comes down to a ground war. He's probably got the best organization in Iowa, he's becoming known, and there's 60 days left. He's still got time. He's come from a nowhere, standing start to even money and even standing in Iowa with Sen. Clinton. Let's put it this way-in this race he certainly has much more momentum and room for growth on the upside.

What's the strategy for Kansas? How are you going to get voters motivated for Barack Obama?

That's not that hard. If you look at the fundraising in Kansas so far, Obama is well more than two-to-one ahead of the next person on the Democratic side. We've got a good list of people who are invested, not in big donations, but who have been making small contributions. We've got the only office in the state, and we're the only one who has staff on the ground, and we're identifying people every day. It's one-on-one organizing. You identify your people, you talk to them, you move out with them to others and you keep track of it. You keep in communication with them and you aim towards that date and you turn it out.

I gather you feel more confident about where Obama stands than what the national polls are reflecting?

Absolutely. The national polls don't reflect anything. They reflect name recognition, but they don't reflect the rules of the game state-by-state, which is how this ends up playing out. Now, I'm not going to say that Sen. Clinton isn't formidable and that she hasn't run a smart campaign up to this point, but she hasn't shaken Obama off her trail. I think he's trying to draw those distinctions between where he stands and where Sen. Clinton stands in a responsible way and a respectful way, so that he's not turning this into politics as usual.

But isn't that the trap the Clinton campaign has set for him, with her spokesman Howard Wolfson saying 500 times in the last few months, "Whatever:

":happened to the politics of hope?" Yeah, that's Sen. Clinton's willingness-through Wolfson-to engage in what I call "Bushisms." That is, if you say it over and over again, and if you play to the lowest common denominator of an audience, you push things forward somehow. I don't think people are buying that. I have a lot of confidence that he can make these arguments and make the distinctions that, over time, will register with people. When you drill down and you get into Obama and what he's saying and what he's thinking and how he arrives there, you come away impressed as hell. The fact is, Obama appeals to a lot of the people that Dean probably did because of the war and they perceive him to be more progressive, but he's got to do better with:middle-class, blue-collar people that Clinton traditionally does better with. Boy, she gets a lot of credit for being married to Bill, I'll tell you that. As one person said to me, "I suppose it'll be Hillary, then it'll be Jeb, then it'll Chelsea, and then it'll be one of the twins!" I'm ready for something different.

Is there any talk of an Obama/Sebelius ticket in '08?

I think that's probably premature. He may be thinking of that in the back of his mind, but you've got to get the nomination first. That would definitely be some hope from the heartland-Kansas and Illinois. I've heard that she'd be on a short list. Her star is definitely rising nationally, and they like each other-it'll be interesting to see what happens. It would be unconventional.

It's the standard question this election-are the American people ready for an African-American president?

Yeah. If only because they're so damn tired about what we've had.

Which Republican would Barack Obama like to face in 2008?

I don't know who he would rather face, but I'd just as soon face Giuliani. I think Romney is slicker, better looking, more telegenic and more of a salesman. With Rudy, it would be hope versus fear. Giving people the clear choice, which would you choose? Do you want more of the same of Bush, basically saying, "Vote for me or you're going to die"? I think that would be a good choice for America to have to make that pick.

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