This week the ground fighting begins in earnest in Campaign 2000. So far most of the media attention has focused on New Hampshire, which votes on Feb. 1. It has an open primary; irascible, quotable citizens—and easy air connections to Washington and New York. The unofficial cross-party ticket of challengers—Bill Bradley and Sen. John McCain—is wooing independent-minded voters there, and now leads the unofficial cross-party ticket of insiders and establishment scions, Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

But the more urgent bulletin comes from Iowa, which holds its unique caucuses eight days earlier, on Jan. 24. The news from the Iowa front: Bradley is moving in for what he hopes is the kill. He’s filling the airwaves with TV ads—an astounding $800,000 worth. “It’s a McDonald’s-size buy,” said one Gore insider. He’s moving a cadre of organizers into the state, led by youths trained in Participation 2000, a campaign school at which Bradley has lectured for years and which he has shrewdly used as a hiring pool. Most important, the candidate himself is scheduled to spend 16 days in Iowa between now and caucus night. Having already secured his ground in New Hampshire, Bradley thinks he has a chance to devastate Gore with a preliminary victory in Iowa. “They’re not just trying to finish close,” said Whouley. “They’re out to win.”

To do so, Bradley wants to generate a sense of excitement in Iowa—the kind that would draw more than just the usual suspects out on a cold January night. The caucuses themselves, in schools and meeting houses across the state, are complex and lengthy affairs that can last hours before balloting begins. They’re the sort of event that, normally, only a party insider could love. In Iowa, among Democrats, that means union members, especially the United Auto Workers and members of the National Education Association.

Those groups are for Gore—or at least their national leadership is. The question is one of enthusiasm. “We have to light the fire,” says Whouley. Bradley, meanwhile, is looking to find a flood of new participants—outsiders and first-time caucusgoers who will view attending the events as an exciting mission. Gore will have Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin at his side; Bradley will enlist popular senators from neighboring states: Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska.

Gore himself is a tough counterpuncher. The vice president’s expectations have remained relatively high in Iowa, where the combination of Big Labor power and caucus complexity should favor him. He still leads Bradley by 18 points in the latest polls there. But his once commanding lead in the campaign-finance race has now shrunk to nothing. Campaign reports released last week show that Gore and Bradley will have roughly the same amount of money to spend this year—about $19 million—though Bradley is now raising funds at a much faster rate.

The schedule of primaries after New Hampshire would make a loss there especially devastating—and especially for Gore. On Feb. 5 there’s Delaware, a state where Bradley is a familiar figure from his days as a New Jersey senator. Then on Feb. 29 there’s Washington, a state that Bradley has assiduously cultivated—and where he’s been endorsed by the state’s largest newspaper. By the time the campaign gets to New York and California on Super Tuesday (March 7), Gore may have spent a month twisting in the wind.

That’s why the vice president, like Bradley, will be spending the bulk of his time this month in Iowa—10 to 12 days, campaign officials say. And that’s why both candidates were hunkered down over the millennium weekend at home, resting with their families. Gore had to deal with an additional—far more important—concern. His wife, Tipper, underwent surgery at Johns Hopkins to have a nodule removed from her thyroid. The procedure was successful, and the tests quickly came back negative: no cancer. It was the best news Gore had gotten in a long time, and, he had to hope, a good sign, as he headed out to a frigid battleground that he no longer controls.