The Enthusiasm Gap

DES MOINES -- One key difference between the way Iowa Democrats and their GOP counterparts conduct their caucuses is that the Republicans cast paper ballots while Democratic caucus-goers must publicly stand for their preferred candidate. This time around, another big difference was a quite noticeable enthusiasm gap.

As Republican candidates struggled to build respectable crowds, Democratic voters seemed to be coming out of the woodwork to size up their party's field. Joseph Biden packed almost 350 people into a noontime town meeting at the Ames public library on December 31. And that was a mere fraction of the crowds that Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton were drawing across the state.

The Biden campaign didn't appear to have done anything special to pad the audience at the library function. The turnout was in keeping with what I've seen all year: Democratic voters are itching for a fight, desperately hoping to win back the White House after eight years. Rank-and-file Republicans, meanwhile, are just going through the motions, having a hard time working up much enthusiasm for anyone or anything.

The number of Republicans who participated in the August straw poll in Ames was a startling drop from the past: Same party, same state, same city, same room, and same time of year, but nowhere near the excitement and sense of purpose that Republicans showed back in 1999 when they were desperate to reclaim the White House after their eight-year hiatus.

Looking at crowd sizes and at polls showing that Democrats are more contented with their field of aspirants than Republicans are with theirs, it's evident that Democratic voters are motivated this year and Republicans are lethargic -- disappointed that this campaign has not produced a reincarnation of Ronald Reagan. Democratic voters seem like kids at an ice cream store, having difficulty choosing among so many tantalizing flavors. Republicans, by contrast, are looking disconsolately at the menu and feeling that none of the offerings is what they are hungering for.

Together, the Iowa caucuses and this coming Tuesday's New Hampshire primary could produce a myriad of outcomes. It's highly unlikely, though, that the two contests will decide the Republican nomination fight but extend the Democratic battle for another month or two. The scenario that Republicans should dread is the opposite one: The Democrats effectively choose their nominee after the first couple of contests and the GOP fight drags on. Bloomberg's Al Hunt noted in a recent column that eight of the last 10 presidential elections have gone to the party that settled on its nominee first.

Several months ago, when Clinton's road to the nomination looked considerably easier than it did in December, strategists at the Republican National Committee began to worry. Remembering how Bill Clinton and the Democratic National Committee pioneered the use of soft-money advertising to get -- and keep -- the jump on GOP nominee Bob Dole in 1996, the RNC began planning ways to prevent the Democrats from getting into position to maul their party's eventual 2008 standard-bearer.

The Democratic nominee might find it difficult or impossible to gain that kind of upper hand this year, but Republicans will surely suffer if their side remains badly divided long after Democrats unite. Since its 2006 midterm election losses, the GOP has struggled to raise money, persuade incumbents to seek re-election, and build enthusiasm among voters.

The Republican Party will face an immense challenge if Democrats are able to negatively define the presumptive GOP nominee before he can recover from the final contested primaries. The party has enough hurdles this year without having to play that kind of catch-up.