Iowa's 20-something foot soldiers: for former student-council geeks, the caucuses on January 19 are the place to be.

• Author: Lee, Jennifer 8.
• Position: National - Cover Story

When Allison Stuntz traveled to Des Moines, Iowa, to spend a weekend knocking on doors for Howard Dean, she was surprised to find that the campaign felt more like a student-government election than a presidential one.

"It was inspiring to see that it was people my age who were running the show," says Stuntz, 23, who had been working as a waitress and freelance writer in Austin, Texas. After volunteering, she applied for and was offered a job on the Dean campaign.

Campaign workers for the presidential candidates actively contesting the Iowa caucuses are bonded by common denominators like nights on air mattresses, meals of cold pizza, and long hours selling their candidates door-to-door. Overwhelmingly young, they are the frontline troops in the first major test of the 2004 presidential election.

Iowa Democrats will meet at the local precinct level on January 19 to decide whom to support. With a small number of people determining the winner, the caucuses require grassroots organizing and face time with candidates. That makes Iowa one of the hottest places to be for ambitious young Democrats hoping for a rule in a real-life version of The West Wing.

"Iowa tells the rest of the nation who could and who should be President," says Jeffery Winmill, 25, a field organizer for Senator John Kerry.

That may overstate the case slightly. The actual number of delegates the state will send to the Democratic National Convention in Boston in July is small (56 out of about 4,300). More rural than many other states, Iowa is hardly representative of the nation at large.

SMALL STATE, BIG IMPACT

Yet the caucuses remain important. This year's seven candidates (Senator Joe Lieberman and Wesley Clark are skipping Iowa) are the most since 1988, when seven Democrats and six Republicans competed.

So fresh college graduates show up to volunteer, and national campaign workers request transfers to Des Moines. "Iowa is a state that launches people's careers," says Brad Anderson, 28, a researcher for Senator John Edwards.

After Iowa, some campaign workers may find themselves jobless, if their candidates fare poorly. Or maybe they'll just sign on with another candidate.

LESSON PLANS

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

* Why do you think the results of early political contests like that in Iowa have so much influence on the campaign?

* Could you see yourself as a presidential campaign staffer in a few years?

* What about this article most surprised you about presidential campaigns?

TEACHING...