From tacos to BBQ, meet Clinton's dream team

With early voting starting today in North Carolina, the word-of-mouth strategy becomes all the more crucial.

Trujillo says that the campaign will host early vote events in almost every county in the state. And today Clinton’s campaign chairman and vociferous advocate Terry McAuliffe will be on hand to make his case to voters at several polling places.

In comparison to Texas, North Carolina’s election laws make the vision of an early push even easier to realize. In the Lone Star State, a campaign event utilizing a sound system must take place at least a thousand feet from polling places. North Carolina law only requires a distance of 50 feet.

But the biggest advantage for early vote promoters in North Carolina is also the most unpredictable. North Carolina’s new “one-stop” policy allows new voters to register and cast their ballot in a single trip, meaning that a curious passerby — if the inspiration of a surrogate or the urging of a volunteer moves them — can become a voter in a matter of minutes.

“Not only can you turn out your universe,” says Smith of the North Carolina system, “But you can expand your universe if you turn it out.”

The potential jackpot of early voting is no secret, though, and Smith will face a formidable challenger in his counterpart, Obama state director Craig Schirmer. Schirmer is a veteran of North Carolina politics who managed the Senate campaign of Erskine Bowles in 2002. “We are going to make an unprecedented, aggressive, all-out assault on the one-stop, early vote window,” he promises. “We have grassroots volunteers coming out of the woodwork to help.”

With polls that show Clinton down by double digits to Obama, who benefits from the state’s high concentration of students and African-Americans, the campaign is counting on Smith’s knack for seeking out new pockets of support. As in other states, registrations have skyrocketed, as has the number of Republican voters switching their party affiliation in order to vote in the May 6 Democratic primary.

Video Clinton, Obama in tough Pa. debate April 17: In what may be their final debate, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama defend themselves from tough questioning at a forum in Philadelphia. NBC's Lee Cowan reports. Today show

State Board of Elections Director Gary Bartlett estimates that as many as a third of primary voters will vote early, and he notes that the ballooning group of “unaffiliateds,” who can vote in either the Republican or Democratic contest, render even the most educated projections chancy.

“You can throw all the historical stuff out the window this time,” he chuckles.

Smith agrees. As in Texas, other state contests like those in Pennsylvania and Indiana mean that North Carolina cannot be viewed in a vacuum, and no amount of number-crunching can account for the nuances of a state so unused to the glare of the presidential spotlight. “Our job is just to throw everything that we can at it,” he says.

One thing is certain, though: North Carolina’s house call from “Doctor Death” sent a clear signal to political operatives early this spring that polls would not dissuade Hillary Clinton from competing there.

That, says the data-crunching Smith, is because no spreadsheet can ever tell the whole truth. “You have to steep yourself in local knowledge,” he says of his lightning-fast moves from state to state. “If you just look at numbers, you never really get the flavor of it.”

Maybe that explains another noteworthy difference between the Clinton campaign’s efforts in Texas and the new push in the Tar Heel State: They’ve replaced the free tacos from Texas with good ol’ fashioned Carolina barbeque.

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