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IOWA: THE NEW-NEW THING [Brian Kennedy 10/20 02:55 PM]

This year in Iowa I am serving as Chairman of a Campaign of One, a Republican committee working to bring the "personal democracy movement" to the GOP. No longer should peer-to-peer personal persuasion be solely the province of Howard Dean and MoveOn.org. When the other side has a good idea we can either criticize or co-opt. I announced the mission of Campaign of One in a speech last March. (Read it here.)

This year, Campaign of One is conducting a pilot demonstration project in Eastern Iowa. We are recruiting hundreds of Republican volunteers — or as we like to refer to them, “political entrepreneurs” — and asking that they send a personal endorsement letter to the voters on their holiday card lists. We have developed an Internet-based letter desk where the letter sender drafts his or her letter and upload the mailing list. Campaign of One then converts that to an actual mailing letter and returns to the author with preaddressed and stamped envelopes.

All across Eastern Iowa we’re demonstrating that a personal endorsement letter from someone the voter knows is far more likely to be opened, read, and the message considered than yet one more bulk mailing from campaign headquarters. Our goal is to inspire enough of these letters that Republicans find the 4,000 votes we need to tip Iowa from Gore in 2000 to Bush in 2004. In Iowa, Campaign of One is proving that little things make a big difference.