Sanders hires key Iowa staff members

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, who turned a lot of heads last month with big crowds in Iowa, is putting staff in place to try to capture some of that enthusiasm.

On Thursday, the campaign said Blair Lawton, the man who ran the Iowa arm of the now-suspended effort to convince U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren to run, is moving over to be the Vermont senator's political director in the state. Lawton's hiring was one of three positions the campaign confirmed Thursday.

'He's a good get for us,” said Pete D'Alessandro, a longtime Democratic operative who has been charged with putting together a staff in Iowa for Sanders.

Lawton said that Sanders was a logical choice for him. 'I've always admired the senator,” Lawton said. 'He's a great progressive we need in the race.”

D'Alessandro also said that Justin Huck, the field director for the League of Conservation Voters in Iowa, has been picked to be the field director for the Sanders campaign here.

In addition, Tara Thobe, who worked in New Mexico the last election cycle, has been tapped to be statewide operations director.

Early polls still say former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton holds a wide lead, both in Iowa and nationally.

A Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll, released last week, said that 57 percent of likely Iowa Democratic caucusgoers support Clinton. Sanders was next at 16 percent. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and ex-Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia were both at 2 percent.

Clinton also has an organizational head start. The campaign has opened offices across the state and has more than two dozen field organizers working here.

Sanders, O'Malley and Webb all are in various organizational stages.

Still, the Sanders campaign says it is seeing dividends from the early interest in the senator.

D'Alessandro said of the more than 600 people who signed in at Sanders' event in Davenport, twice as many as he would have expected indicated they were willing to caucus for him. 'This early in the game, that's a really good sign,” he said.

Sanders, Clinton, O'Malley and Webb will all be in Iowa over the next few days.

O'Malley is making a trio of stops on Thursday, including in Mount Vernon and Iowa City.

Clinton, who is launching her campaign with a speech in New York on Saturday, will be in Iowa the same day. On Sunday, she will hold her first large-scale event in the state with a rally at the state fairgrounds in Des Moines.

Webb will be in central Iowa on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Sanders, meanwhile, will be holding a half dozen events across the state Friday, Saturday and Sunday, including a steak fry at the IBEW Local 205 Hall at 6 p.m. Saturday.