Harkin Moves to Rally Supporters Before Iowa Contest : Politics: Favorite-son candidate conducts campaign blitz, pushing for a strong showing in caucuses. Clinton’s surge in poll raises questions.

Sen. Tom Harkin is finding that expectations can be tough opponents as he scrambles to get the support he needs for a convincing win in tonight’s Iowa caucuses, the opening round of the 1992 presidential campaign.

Harkin has predicted that he will get at least 60% in his home state precinct caucuses and that “undecided” will place second. Until last weekend, leading Democrats figured he was right, but a Des Moines Register poll created some doubts. Harkin had dropped 14 percentage points from the paper’s December poll, and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, who had not campaigned in the state, had moved up to second.

Harkin still holds a comfortable lead--54% to Clinton’s 16%--but the poll results were startling because Harkin’s opponents have virtually ignored Iowa.

“All of a sudden--boom--anything can happen,” said Joe Shanahan, spokesman for the Iowa Democratic Party. “This throws my old opinions out the window.”

Harkin launched a three-day campaign blitz of the state over the weekend to rally his most faithful supporters in more than a dozen cities and towns. His campaign staff said the trip was scheduled long ago and was not made in response to the poll.

Last week, in a letter to 60,000 likely caucus-goers, Harkin used expectations for a huge victory to try to boost turnout. “The media have placed enormous expectations on our performance,” he warned. “These ‘experts’ say we must win by a tremendous margin to be the ‘real winner.’ ”

But, buoyed by enthusiastic crowds over the weekend, Harkin repeated his boast that he will top Jimmy Carter’s record score of 59% in the 1980 caucuses.

“As I’ve said before, we will do better than anyone else has ever done in Iowa,” Harkin said Saturday.

That evening, he appealed to a standing-room-only crowd of about 400 cheering people at the state fairgrounds near Des Moines: “You are my friends and my neighbors; you know me well, and now I need your help.”

Harkin needs a good showing at home to better his chances in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary of the season on Feb. 18. Polls there have indicated that he is stuck in single digits.

“We’re going to win the caucuses, I know that,” he told Iowa supporters. “But I need to do it right. . . . We need to come out of Iowa smoking.”

The Register’s poll of likely caucus-goers, published Saturday, also showed 8% for Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey and 5% for both former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. and former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas. “Undecided” held third place with 12%. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

State party officials said that although they were surprised by the findings, they think that Harkin still has a good chance to meet his 60% goal. The reason is at least partly due to Iowa’s caucus rules, which critics consider favorable to Harkin.

Unlike primary voting, which is done in private and can take just a few minutes, the caucus-goer must be a hardy soul, willing to trudge out of the house on a frigid night and spend hours in a firehouse, a church, a schoolroom or some other meeting place. Caucus-goers “vote” by grouping themselves in an area of the room designated for their candidate. There is no such thing as a secret ballot; caucus-goers must stand up for their candidate in front of neighbors and friends, debating their decision and taking in stride any glares or hostility their choice may generate. When opposing a popular favorite son, those side effects can be intimidating.

The kicker is that their discomfort could be for nothing. Unless there are enough other like-minded souls in the precinct caucus to constitute at least 15% support for their candidate, he will get no delegates.

“It’s called peer pressure,” said Lowell Junkins of Waukee, a former Democratic majority leader in the Iowa Senate. “A lot of people in the country don’t understand how a caucus takes place--it’s a very adversarial process. And if you go, it could all be for nothing.”

Despite all their attention, the caucuses play just a small role in the selection of Iowa delegates to the national convention. For Democrats, it is just the first in a four-step process to choose 49 delegates and, at each step, the delegates can switch their support to another candidate.

There are 2,116 precincts that will hold caucuses in Iowa tonight. Partly because it is so difficult to meet the 15% threshold in enough places to make a difference, Harkin’s opponents have virtually abandoned the state. Success in a caucus state means organization, and organization takes money.

Each of the candidates tested the waters before giving up the idea, though. Clinton did some polling in Iowa last fall, Kerrey paid $10,000 for a list of previous caucus-goers, and Brown spent a few days in Iowa last month, with little effect.

But nobody--including Harkin--has spent more time campaigning for President in Iowa than Tsongas. Before Harkin declared his campaign in September, Tsongas spent several weeks in the state last summer. He even opened a Des Moines office, which closed as soon as Harkin entered the race.

But last Friday, he deployed five staffers from Boston to reopen his headquarters for the last three days before the caucus. Tsongas campaign officials downplayed his chances, but they also mailed 18,000 letters to probable caucus-goers identified last summer as sympathetic to Tsongas.

As quiet as the Democratic race has been, the Republican contest has been quieter. The GOP will also hold caucuses tonight, but because President Bush’s challengers have not campaigned in Iowa, the state party canceled the straw poll it usually conducts to gauge candidate strength.

As a result, Republican caucus-goers will vote on a few party resolutions and elect delegates, but they will not be identified as supporting any candidate.