No more chanting, no more campaign commercials, no more phone calls. The caucus campaign is history. For many Iowa Democrats, it’ll be safe to answer the phone again. Pollsters trying to track the latest developments in the race for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination found it difficult in the last few days to find Iowans who’d pick up when the phone rang. Some campaign workers will be picking up today and moving on to New Hampshire, Oklahoma or other states which host elections in the next few weeks. Others will catch up on sleep and start thinking about nailing down that next job. All but one of the Iowa campaign managers sat down recently at a forum I moderated. Kerry campaign manager John Norris said at some point, he’d like to be a candidate again. Norris lost a race for Congress in 2002. John Lapp, Gephardt’s Iowa campaign manager, said he may run for office some time. Rob Berntsen, the manager of the Edwards campaign in Iowa, said he’ll probably remain a behind-the-scenes person. No word from Jeani Murray, Dean’s Iowa campaign manager. Murray didn’t attend the forum — she said she was swamped with planning what their campaign called “The Perfect Storm” for Caucus Night 2004.
