Democrats Rally the Troops in Iowa

DES MOINES, Iowa--November 11, 2007— -- Message and muscle were on display at a boisterous fundraising gathering of roughly 9,000 Iowa Democrats with fewer than eight weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses kick off the presidential nomination contest.

The annual Jefferson-Jackson day dinner here takes on extra heft every four years when the Democratic presidential hopefuls take to the stage and preach to the proverbial choir. (The event also took on some extra length as many of the candidates egregiously exceeded the 10-minute speaking limit.)

Each of the Democratic contenders, Clinton aside, sought to distinguish himself from the frontrunner in some fashion and to varying degrees of subtlety.

As for the signs of organizational muscle, the two national frontrunners turned out their troops in full force at Veterans Memorial Auditorium. The Clinton and Obama campaigns each claimed to have roughly 3,000 supporters in the hall -- making up two-thirds of the total crowd.

The Obama troops clearly won the contest for loudest cheers in the hall as they offered some call and response with the "fired up, ready to go" chants that have become the standard finale to the senator's stump speech. (And they were decked out in red T-shirts with "I'm fired up" emblazoned on the front and "He's ready to go" on the back.) The Edwards campaign claimed to have roughly 1,500 supporters in attendance. There was nary an undecided voter to be found.

As Sen. Obama has been doing on the trail with increasing frequency, though in his delicate way, he focused attention on where he differs with Sen. Clinton and clearly electrified his supporters while doing so.

"When I'm this party's nominee, my opponent won't be able to say that I supported this war in Iraq; or that I gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran; or that I support that Bush-Cheney policy of not talking to leaders we don't like. And he won't be able to say that I wavered on something as fundamental as whether it's OK for America to use torture –