Romney’s tele-townhall’s and moving numbers

Marc Ambinder has an interesting post about Romney’s performance in Iowa. He argues that voter contact is what is moving the numbers. I have made a similar argument in the past. InMuscatine recently participated in one of the tele-townhalls in which Romney answers questions for about a while. After talking to some people in Iowa recently, I was struck by this part of his post:

Thanks to all who joined the call.

Press 1 to help out at the straw poll. Romney’s son will visit all 99 Iowa counties this Summer. Have a good evening.

My understanding is that they also ask this at the beginning of the call. This is a phenomenal way to build lists, introduce voters to the candidates, etc.

There are discussions about Fred Thompson running a campaign with lots of conference calls. I imagine that it would look like this. You actually wonder why other candidates aren’t doing things like this.