Obama,Clinton laying groundwork for Minnesota caucus

Twelve days before precinct caucuses bring the presidential sweepstakes to Minnesota, two of the campaigns began visibly stirring Thursday.

Barack Obama's Minnesota campaign began airing TV and radio ads from now until the Feb. 5 caucuses, the first campaign in either party to do so.

Other campaigns that could be reached Thursday -- those of Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Ron Paul -- said they had no immediate plans to take to the airwaves.

But the Clinton campaign also turned up the heat in Minnesota on Thursday, holding rallies at the State Capitol and in Rochester and Duluth designed to tout its "momentum" in the state.

Campaign officials unveiled the names of 50 prominent public officials, union members and DFL activists, who were backing Clinton, underscoring the fact that the campaign has corralled much of the state party establishment, as it has nationwide.

"We're focusing on letting people know Senator Clinton has wide, deep and broad support," said Hubert (Buck) Humphrey, the campaign's state director. "This campaign is really going."

Helping unveil Obama's ads was Rep. Betty McCollum, who said, "We've known all along that Minnesota would be an important state on February 5 and the Obama campaign is investing in this state."

Until now both campaigns operated quietly behind the scenes, running phone banks and caucus training sessions, but Humphrey said it was strictly a coincidence that Clinton's organization held big public events on the same day Obama's was making a media splash. "We've been planning this for a week, to show her depth of support," Humphrey said. "We saw they made a relatively small ad buy and figured they made it to see how we'd respond. We may yet go up."

Although Obama campaign officials declined to discuss the size and frequency of the ad buys, Minnesota Public Radio reported Wednesday that Obama had spent $93,000 to buy about 200 spots on six Twin Cities TV stations.

The ads will air on shows such as "American Idol," "Late Night with David Letterman," "Dance Wars" and "American Gladiator" instead of the local news programs where such ads usually appear.

Obama spokesman Nick Kimball said the MPR report was accurate.

The Obama ads, emphasizing the candidate's opposition to the Iraq war, his commitment to the environment and his desire to create fundamental political change, are considerably more hard-edged than gauzier biographical ads that began airing Wednesday in other Feb. 5 primary states.

Both of the Minnesota ads feature bass-and-drum-heavy soundtracks and are sprinkled with young faces and voices, a segment of the electorate Obama has avidly pursued. Kimball said a version of the TV ad was aired in Iowa, where Obama did extremely well among young caucus-goers.

Less at stake for GOP

McCollum, one of Obama's high-profile Minnesota supporters, said she believes the ads "are going to capture some of the younger college students and high school students. But I think they'll reach out to everybody."

In comparison to the visible activity on the part of the Clinton and Obama forces, the Minnesota campaign of John Edwards has been far quieter. Although the campaign retains a mailing list of about 10,000 supporters and the backing of some union activists, campaign spokesman Ted Mondale said it is waiting on the results from South Carolina, which is widely considered Edwards' last chance to break out of third place in the race.

Similarly, there has been little on-the-ground action from the Minnesota campaigns of the Republican candidates, largely because the state's caucuses are less important to the GOP. Unlike the voting at DFL caucuses, which will pledge delegates to candidates, the Republican vote won't be binding.