Dems invest heavily in Iowa

— -- Democratic candidates for president have wagered vastly more on Iowa than their Republican counterparts, a sign the state's caucuses are seen as more pivotal to the Democrat nomination.

Consider this: John Edwards and Barack Obama each have more staff in Iowa than all of the Republican caucus campaigns combined, with Hillary Clinton close behind.

Even the Democratic field's lesser-known candidates have built caucus organizations several times the size of some of the best-known Republicans' operations, according to a review of several criteria by The Des Moines Register.

The Republican national frontrunner, Rudy Giuliani, spent 62 consecutive days away from Iowa before returning last week.

One reason for the disparity is Democrats have raised more money than Republicans and have a lot more to spend with less than two months until the caucuses.

Another is that the Iowa caucuses have traditionally been less decisive a contest for the GOP nomination.

But the intensity of the Democratic campaign compared to the Republican contest in Iowa also is a sign the state is the place where Clinton is most vulnerable.

"I think the Democratic challengers to Hillary see Iowa as their best chance to become the anybody-but-Hillary candidate," Georgetown University political science professor Stephen Wayne said.

There are stories about each party that emerge from the campaign activity reported by the campaigns and found in Federal Elections Commission reports.

One factor is staff size, a measure of strength in caucus campaigns where recruiting and keeping track of supporters is labor intensive.

Obama, an Illinois senator, had 145 Iowa employees in September, according to third-quarter reports filed last week. Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who ran four years ago, had 130 on the ground.

Clinton had 117 employees in Iowa, where polls have shown the New York senator in a tight race for the caucuses with Edwards and Obama. Iowa is the only early nominating state where Clinton, the party's national frontrunner, is not comfortably ahead of her Democratic opponents.