IOWA CAUCUSES

Clinton campaign adds 20 paid Iowa staffers

Jennifer Jacobs
jejacobs@dmreg.com
Hillary Clinton Democrat Hillary Clinton smiles at members of the media April 14 following a roundtable at Kirkwood Community College's satellite campus in Monticello, Ia.

Hillary Clinton has hired 20 more field organizers to campaign for her in Iowa, and they started work Tuesday, a spokeswoman told the Des Moines Register.

"A top flight organizing staff is critical to winning the caucus and we're excited to add to the team that has been on the ground for nearly three months," Clinton's Iowa director, Matt Paul, told the Register in a statement.

Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state, is in Iowa Tuesday for her fourth visit to the first-in-the-nation voting state since she formally announced her candidacy April 12. She was scheduled to do events in Iowa City and Ottumwa.

Lily Adams, the campaign's Iowa spokeswoman, declined to reveal the total number of Iowa staff, which includes a team of strategists based in Des Moines, but said the 20 hires join the existing team of 21 field organizers and six regional organizing directors on the ground since April.

All 47 are paid, Adams said.

The field staffers are focused on organizing down to the precinct level, doing one-on-one meetings with activists, county chairs and Iowans who have never caucused before, as well as organize house parties and attend local Democratic events. They use commitment cards to secure pledges to caucus for Clinton on Feb. 1.

The Clinton campaign also has more than 100 unpaid "organizing fellows." Aides said they got more than 1,000 applications for the summertime Iowa Organizing Fellowship program, meant to teach the full-time volunteers organizing strategies and help Clinton bring voters into the fold.

Late last month, a woman chosen to be a fellow in the state of Nevada publicly criticized Clinton for not paying her interns.

"Forget arguments about raising the minimum wage. I can't even get a wage," Carolyn Osorio wrote in an opinion piece published by USA Today.

"Finding out that Hillary perpetuates the exploitation known as unpaid internships was like discovering that Santa wasn't real," Osorio wrote. In response, the Clinton team said campaigns in both parties have used volunteer interns in the past.

Eight of the 20 additional Iowa hires already had unpaid jobs with the campaign, Adams said Tuesday.

The Clinton team has been completing the process of hiring the 20 organizers since early June, Adams said. Their first day on the job was Tuesday, when they began two days of training in Des Moines. They will then be deployed across Iowa this weekend, she said.

Paul said the the campaign has been preparing for competition in the Iowa caucuses since Clinton announced her candidacy in April.

"As we've said from the beginning," Paul said, "we are taking nothing for granted in the caucus and these organizers will increase our campaign's ability to work with supporters in every neighborhood and precinct to get the word out about Hillary Clinton's campaign to fight for everyday Americans."