Apparently, it's never too early to start wooing those Iowa activists.

A couple of weeks ago, Democrats in Linn County, which includes Cedar Rapids, were recruited to participate in a focus group. The purpose, as the participants learned later, was to sample opinions on whether they preferred one of the big names as their 2008 nominee — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, former senator John Edwards of North Carolina — or whether they might be more receptive to a lesser-known Democrat, someone like, say, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana.

Bayh's office has been cagey about the sponsorship of the session, organized by pollster Paul Maslin and discovered by the political online newsletter Hotline, but participants say there was no doubt that the purpose was to gauge possible interest in a Bayh candidacy.

"I thought it was something to do with Hillary Clinton," Randy Nading, a factory worker and party activist who was one of about a dozen participants, said in a phone interview. "When I saw all guys (in the group), I thought they were trying to figure out whether men would support a woman candidate."

But when the participants were shown videotapes of Bayh (and the better-known Democrats) and then asked questions about whether they would be receptive to someone who had been — picking a few things at random that just happened to come straight out of Bayh's biography — governor of a medium-size midwestern state, had served in the Senate and had supported the Iraq war, Nading said, "It didn't take long to figure it out."

The session seemed to work as Bayh's advisers had hoped. By the end, a majority said they were receptive to the candidacy of a lesser-known Democrat. Well, it's a start.