February 2007 - Posts
Feb. 20, 2007
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- This week, the New York Times had an article about presidential campaigning in this state, with the headline "In Iowa, the Living Room Has Fallen Out of Favor."
It suggested the intimate gatherings that once defined Iowa's political events have yielded to the big rooms, with bigger crowds and bigger press corps.
It's true, as the Times story mentioned, that Hillary Clinton spoke to a few thousand Iowans in Des Moines and Davenport a few weekends ago, and Barack Obama attracted four-digit crowds in Cedar Rapids and Ames. John McCain and John Edwards campaigned in hotel ballrooms, not private living rooms, in Iowa last weekend. But most who will attend Iowa's presidential caucuses next January probably remain picky shoppers, not impulse buyers. They still want to see candidates' body language up close, get gut-feelings about these people who seek their support.
So it was this night in a Cedar Rapids pub and grill called the Irish Democrat. "That's a redundant title to a bar," joked Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who is both Irish and a Democrat, and happens to be running for president.
Appropriately wearing a green necktie, Dodd met about 50 people in the bar, most of them Linn County Democrats who stopped in to meet the senator. There was no stump speech, just hand-shaking and back-patting, introducing himself to people one and two at a time. After Obama had filled a high school gym here and McCain packed a ballroom in a downtown hotel within the last two weeks, a presidential campaign stop in Cedar Rapids resembled most of the hundreds that had come to this city over the last few decades. It was small-scale, personal, and not accompanied by a glut of national media.
Which means one thing: Dodd, 62, is a dark horse in the Democratic field, out of the bright light cast by Clinton, Obama and Edwards. He insists he isn't a bit disheartened by it. Maybe that's because he could be more able to easily move about Iowa and meet more of its potential voters than the aforementioned trio.
"I believe in retail politics," Dodd said. "When I first ran for Congress there were 60 towns in the Congressional district. We debated each other 60 times. Sometimes there were more candidates in the room than there was an audience.
"If there were not an Iowa or New Hampshire, I'd be out here having a beer with you at the Irish Democrat, but I wouldn't be a candidate. Because it wouldn't be possible for me to be one. This state allows me to take my 26 years of experience in the United States Senate that involved every major foreign policy debate, authored almost every piece of major legislation involving families and children in the last 25 years, as well as was a major force on the financial services area, to be heard.''
But this wasn't a night for sounding like a policy wonk. Facing a wall that featured photos of John and Robert Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Jimmy Carter and Tip O'Neill, Dodd went from table to table in the Irish Democrat to try to warm strangers to an Irish Democrat most of them knew little about.
"I'd be happy to have a thousand people show up,'' Dodd said. "But I know it's an essential liability for (Clinton and Obama) in a way. Because Iowans don't just want to go to a rally. They want to sit down and look you in the eye. It's almost a physical process.
"They do something here that I've always thought is so important, I don't care what office you're running for. It's a question voters ask candidates that is never articulated directly. Too many people in public life think campaigns are about them. Campaigns are rarely about the candidate. They're about the voter. That sounds cute, what do you mean by that? I mean the following:
"You may ask me a question as a voter. The question you're really asking me, particularly the first time we meet, is 'Are you listening to me? Are you paying attention to me? Do you know what I'm going through? Do you have any idea what it's like to lose your job? Senator, do you have any idea what that's like?' That's what you're asking me. If I don't answer that question or series of questions formatively for you, you never get to my eight-point program on energy, or health care.
"Don't misunderstand me. If I don't have answers on the intellectual side, I'm not suggesting you can get away with that. But frankly, this is a far more primal exercise than it is an intellectual one. It becomes intellectual."
This day for Dodd included meeting about 50 people at an Iowa City coffee shop, touring a Johnson County neighborhood center, meeting with an IBEW council in Cedar Rapids, and stopping in a Cedar Rapids pub where many a presidential candidate has wandered through over the years. It was a lot of "Are you listening to me?"
"I've often said if I could have one thing said about me at the end of my public life, it would be the great anecdote about old FDR,'' said Dodd. "His casket is going down Pennsylvania Avenue in April of 1945. A reporter is interviewing the crowd about their recollections of him. Some guy seemed to be grief-stricken more than the rest. The reporter says, 'You must have known Franklin Roosevelt.' He said they never met. "So why do you seem more grief-stricken than the rest?' He said 'I didn't know him, he knew me.' I remember hearing that 30 years ago and thinking what an incredible thing to say about someone.
"To me, that's really what goes on in Iowa and New Hampshire. People ask that question 'Do you know who I am?' "
With 11 months left until Iowa's caucuses, Dodd can answer it many times. He'll probably do it in a living room or two along the way.
Feb. 17, 2007
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- You can't come off looking like the grim reaper if you want to get elected to anything other than, well, grim reaper.
That isn't the easiest thing to avoid when you're 70 years old, you're about to discuss deadly serious global issues, and you're on a campaign schedule that would beat down people a half-century younger. Like Chicago last night, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Davenport, Iowa on this day, South Carolina tomorrow, and onward.
So Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain tries to warm crowds with old chestnuts of jokes before soberly explaining why he believes the U.S. must maintain and increase its military presence in Iraq.
"Two inmates at a state prison are in a chow line,'' McCain told a crowd of about 450 this afternoon in a ballroom at the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel. "One of them said to the other one 'The food was a lot better in here when you were the governor.' "
"Do you know the difference between a lawyer and a catfish? One is a scum-sucking bottom-dweller and the other is a fish. There goes the lawyer vote.''
"Following Phil Gramm (who introduced McCain here) sometimes, I feel like Zsa Zsa Gabor's fifth husband where on the wedding night he said 'I know what I'm supposed to do, I just don't know how to make it interesting.' That's the kind of line that goes over better at Republican women's club meetings.''
Jokes about Zsa Zsa Gabor's long line of marriages faded from comedians' monologues back when Ronald Reagan was president. McCain referenced Reagan four times here, but in more relevant contexts. But hey, Zsa Zsa is newsworthy again, so maybe McCain's on to something there. Her eighth and current husband, Frederic von Anhalt, filed papers in California this week seeking to establish paternity of the late Anna Nicole Smith's daughter. Which some have found pretty funny in itself.
But McCain is running for president. Like he did seven, eight years ago. Unlike seven, eight years ago, he isn't bypassing campaigning for support in the Iowa caucuses to focus on the New Hampshire primary. He used the phrase "my friends" at least a dozen times in addressing this gathering of people who were almost entirely strangers to him. He's looking for all the new friends he can grab, since his support of the Iraq War and President Bush's intent to send another 21,500 troops there isn't an overwhelmingly popular stance these days.
And, the sprinkling of his old jokes aside, his tone was very serious. So was his audience.
"We lost the Vietnam War and we came home,'' he said. "All we had to do is heal the wounds of that war and of those men and women who had suffered so grievously in that conflict. But (the North Vietnamese) didn't follow us home. If we leave Iraq, I am convinced (Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists) will want to follow us home. Why am I convinced of this? If you read al-Zawahri, if you read bin Laden, if you read these people, it's not Iraq they're after. It's us they're after. It's us. It's the United States of America.
"This is now, whether it was before, another part of this great struggle betwwen good and evil, and real evil as you know it. People that enjoy cutting off peoples' heads on the Internet. People that enjoy torturing and killing people just because they happen to be Sunni or Shiite or some other religion."
Had Joe Biden not changed his schedule on this Saturday, two men with a total of 54 years of service in the U.S. Senate would have been at presidential campaign appearances just three blocks apart on the same Cedar Rapids street. They would have touted two vastly different philosophies on what the nation should do in Iraq. But Biden interrupted his weekend trip to Iowa to fly back to Washington Friday night for Saturday's Senate vote on a nonbinding resolution rebuking the president's deployment of additional troops into Iraq.
McCain called the nonbinding resolution "a publicity stunt," skipping it to stay in Iowa. So, he probably got more publicity from this trip than he would have otherwise.
Funny how that worked out.
Feb. 10, 2007
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- One moment in Barack Obama's "conversation" here Saturday afternoon produced a lot of soft, skeptical chuckles.
"There's a big crowd today," Obama said late in his talk to the gathering in the gymnasium at John F. Kennedy High School, where none of the 2,200 seats appeared empty. "But let's face it. The novelty's going to wear off. It'll be 'Oh, it's Obama again. He's coming to town. A ballgame's on, I've got things to do.' But that's OK. What that means is we'll be able to meet in smaller groups and house parties.''
That was when the snickers seeped from the bleachers. A house party for this guy? Somebody better have a whopper of a living room. Based on the size and interest of a crowd here for a presidential candidate 11 months before the Iowa caucuses, it's doubtful any residence in this city of over 100,000 people will suffice as a campaign stop for Obama anytime soon.
"This is the biggest crowd I've spoken to," this district's first-term Democratic U.S. Congressman, David Loebsack, told the crowd before Obama arrived. He wasn't joking.
Obama gave his "I'm in" speech Saturday morning in Springfield, Ill. Here in his first Iowa stop as an official candidate, the Democratic U.S. Senator from Illinois held what was billed as a "conversation." That seems to be a buzz word early in this presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton had a self-described "conversation" with Iowans two weekends ago. Obama had one here Saturday afternoon, and presumably had one in Waterloo Saturday night and would have one in Ames Sunday before flying back home to Chicago. A conversation apparently consists of a candidate giving opening remarks for several minutes, then offering long answers to questions from five or six citizens out of 2,200.
Whatever this was called or whatever it was, a lot of locals were dialed into in it. When a long line of people willingly waits more than five minutes outdoors in single-digit temperatures for doors to open for anything, they're either really curious or really passionate. This audience had plenty of both types. They roared when Obama and his family entered the Kennedy gym, and they roared even louder when he said "This is the first of many visits I'm going to make to Cedar Rapids." They made a collective "Ohhhhh" of disappointment when they were told there was time for just one more question.
But while some are calling Obama a "rock star," this event didn't come with a light show and an ear-puncturing decibel count. If anything, the heat was turned just a bit down. The predominant visual from the event was of faces old and young of different colors sitting intently, focusing on the senator's words. Everyone waited until an Obama sentence was finished before they sounded their approval. There was no foot-stomping or whistling once he began the hour-long talk. These people came to listen.
"You could tell everyone was attentive. You didn't have to strain to hear him,'' said 60-year-old Mike Wright of Cedar Rapids.
Wright said he won't need to wade through the numerous other Democratic candidates for president as they flow through here this year. His guy was in this gym.
"I'm on board," he said. "The others seem to be the same-old, same-old. I don't think he's running for himself. I think he thought about it, and I think he's running for this country."
Others here, many who didn't balk when asked to wear an Obama decal upon entering the school, weren't as committal but were no less impressed with his opinions on the Iraq war, health care, education and national security.
"I came looking today," said Linda Whittle of Cedar Rapids, 62. "I intend to see all the candidates that come to town, all the Democratic candidates as they come to town, at least. I loved his answers. I thought they were thoughtful. I love the fact that he was against the war from the beginning. I was so disheartened when Democrats went along with that war resolution.
"I was really concerned about his 'quote' lack of experience, but his life experiences are immeasurably important. I think that's where Bush has gotten us in trouble, in that he just does not have the intellectual curiosity. I don't know that he had traveled outside the United States or into Europe before he became president.
"We just got back from Europe. As the news and everyone reports, they are not very fond of our president and they were not very subtle about feeling us out to see where we were coming from as we were standing in line for two hours to get into the Vatican."
Frederick Thomas, 36, is an African-American formerly from Chicago but now a 6-year resident of Cedar Rapids. He sat in one corner of the bleachers and observed Obama. I'd been to four different presidential candidates' stops in the previous 13 days. No blacks were in attendance. There were more than enough at Kennedy to make Cedar Rapids look more racially diverse than it really is.
"The president we have now has pretty much failed the country as a whole, I believe,'' Thomas said. "We definitely need some changes. We definitely need someone like Barack Obama because he has charisma."
Charisma. That, not "conversation," was the real buzz word of the day. It just kept popping out of peoples' mouths here.
When asked what he liked about Obama, Wright said "Just his charisma. He seems to have good ideas, he's intelligent."
"He just has that ability to transcend generations, races," Whittle said. "Very articulate. He just has that charisma."
Oh, that "rock star" stuff? That became far more perceptible after Obama's "conversation" as he oh, so slowly worked his way out of the gym while signing autographs and getting his picture taken.
A girl wearing sweatpants that identified her as a member of Kennedy's cross country squad squealed and hopped around after Obama signed her copy of his book "The Audacity of Hope."
"I touched his hand!" another teenaged girl giddily shouted at a friend. "I touched his hand, too!" was the reply. "I'm not gonna wash it!"
Who knew that advocating better pay for schoolteachers and a withdrawl of U.S. troops from Iraq by March, 2008 got kids so excited? One wonders if fellow Democratic candidates Joe Biden or Bill Richardson or Tom Vilsack will induce anything resembling hysteria from teen girls as they travel Iowa this year. On second thought, one doesn't.
"He's something different," said a calmer, but nonetheless enthusiastic Ashley Hartkemeyer, a 23-year-old U.S. history teacher at Jefferson High in Cedar Rapids. "A lot of young people are excited about Obama."
Hartkemeyer said she hasn't decided on a candidate, "but I'm very excited about Senator Obama's announcement this morning. I think he's a nice change, a young face.''
And ... "He's someone with a lot of charisma."
Feb. 8, 2007
MONTOUR, Iowa -- He says he's made 16 or 17 trips to Iowa since deciding to consider giving this presidential thing a swirl. Mitt Romney probably needs a lot more to really get known here.
"I never heard of him," LaVerna Watson told me while working in the post office in the town of about 250 people, unaware that a candidate for president had been across the street.
"Are you him?" she sheepishly asked me. When I assured her I wasn't, she appeared a bit relieved and said "Well, good luck to him. There's a lot of 'em."
Presidential candidates are plentiful these days, and they'll be widespread in Iowa through the next 11 months leading up to the state's presidential caucuses. But they rarely stop in this central Iowa town with a restaurant, a meat locker, an auto-repair shop, and little else for business.
"I don't know of a presidential candidate ever coming here before, and I was born and raised just north of Montour," said Joyce Wiese of rural Toledo, less than 10 miles from here, on the other side of the Meskwaki Tribe's casino/hotel complex.
But that changed when former Massachusetts governor Romney rolled into town in the front half of a 2-car caravan. He rode in a maroon Chevrolet Impala on a day that began with temperatures under zero degrees Fahrenheit.
Romney campaigned at a lunch-hour event in Rube's Steakhouse, which long ago put Montour on the map in Iowa. If you're from Iowa, you've probably at least heard of Rube's if not stuffed yourself there. It's a modest, grill-your-own place with large charcoal grills situated in three different areas of the restaurant. But on this day, the Romney campaign hired Rube's staff to prepare fat sirloins and baked potatoes for a gathering of about 130, most of whom were seniors who spoke and applauded like true-red conservative Republicans.
"I like what he stands for. I thought he made real good sense," Wiese said after Romney gave a speech and then took a few questions from the audience."
"I have a son in the military," said Wiese's friend, Donna Gitausis of Tama. "I just don't like people yapping about how we should get out of there (Iraq). We've got to stay and we've got to win.''
"I wish we could get the media to tell the true story," Wiese said. "You talk to guys that have come back, and what they know and what the media tells you are on opposite ends. I just think it's pathetic that (the media) come back and tell the stuff they do and let the people overseas hear that."
Like the other two women, Audrey Lutes of nearby Gilman is a staunch Republican. "I watch two shows every Sunday," she said. "I watch 'Meet the Press' and Fox News. I don't agree with that guy on 'Meet the Press.' I watch it for the news.
"The Democrats, they said they were going to work with President Bush (after last November's election) and they are not. When he was first elected, he tried to work with them, and they wouldn't."
To hear Romney tell it, stopping in Rube's was a sentimental journey on a day in which he also made campaign appearances in the vastly larger cities of Boone, Ames, Marshalltown and Des Moines. A little over a quarter-century ago, he spent some time working in Marshalltown, 15 miles from Montour with a poulation of almost 40,000. Romney was vice president of Boston-based Bain & Company Inc., and one of his clients as a consultant was Marshalltown's Fisher Controls, a manufacturing company owned by Monsanto at the time.
"We used to go to dinner at Rube's," Romney remembered with a smile. "Rube's at the time was just one grill and about maybe 10 tables and a glass refrigerator with good steak. I cooked my own and I cooked it very well done like I like it, with lots of salt."
Romney only ate a little from the salad bar's offerings when he sat at the head of one of the three long tables assembled in Rube's main dining room. But after his speech was over and the crowd had dispersed, he ate by himself in the adjoining dimly lit bar, enjoying a large cut of beef that was in a Styrofoam container. For a few precious moments, it was steak and solace.
Shortly before that, Romney had stood three steps from the salad bar to shake hands with attendees as they filed out of the restaurant and back into the Iowa cold.
"I liked what I heard," an elderly woman told the candidate. "How about running against Ted Kennedy and getting him out of there?"
"I tried that once (in 1994),'' Romney told her, "but he beat me good and solid."
"Really? I can't believe it,'' the woman replied.
Romney is returning to Iowa next Tuesday, the day he makes the formal announcement that he's running for president. Clearly, he has get-to-know-me work remaining here.
Jan, 31, 2007
TIPTON, Iowa -- He has written a book called “Stop Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork.” So did Mike Huckabee see any irony in holding a presidential campaign stop in a downtown restaurant here Wednesday afternoon?
The former Arkansas governor politely laughed at my question, then emphatically replied “No.”
Of course, had the Stoplight Café been a greasy spoon, the question might have been an actual barb. But the food that the Republican’s campaign bought for a gathering of about 30 Tiptonians featured black bean and chicken noodle soup, cornbread, and apple pie. It all looked great.
Huckabee, 51, burdened his 5-foot-11 frame with over 280 pounds while governor. He was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and told to lose significant weight if he hoped to live more than another 10 years. He heeded the advice, shedding 110 pounds. He didn’t add an ounce at this event, opting not to eat. He typically packs his own meals for the day, and keeps them in a portable cooler. But his 25-year-old daughter, Sarah Huckabee, was persuaded to try a slice of the pie.
“It’s real food,’’ Sarah was assured by Mary Barnum, who owns the Stoplight (she said it’s located next to the only stoplight in Cedar County) with her husband, John Barnum. “It’s not processed.”
That might have been a set-up to ask if the same could be said for this event, whether it was real or just processed. But it seemed as genuine as these things probably get. No television cameras and their operators cluttered the restaurant during this stop between Huckabee’s campaign events in two of Iowa’s three largest metropolitan areas, Cedar Rapids and the Quad Cities. So he had room for more relaxed one-on-one conversations. That was after he gave a stump speech and then took several serious questions from people of this town of about 3,200 people in a Q&A session. He isn’t a household name in this race, but the Iowa caucuses aren’t for another 11 ½ months. Which leads to another comparison to Huckabee’s personal life, this being one that he enjoys making.
Huckabee used to be out of breath and exhausted after climbing the long and steep steps of the Arkansas capitol building from the entrance up to the Governor's office. That was four marathons in the last year-and-a-half ago, the most recent last fall in New York City. Well, if he’s gotten himself into anything in this presidential campaign, it’s a marathon.
“I see a lot of similarities,” Huckabee said. “In fact, I’ve said that training for a marathon has taught me a lot about politics. The most important single thing is you can’t get spooked or worried if you think people are running in front of you and getting ahead early on. In fact, that’s great. You want them to get out there early and in front so you can run in their draft.
“Most of the time I’ve run marathons, the people that burst out of the gate often never get to the finish line. Because they’ve burned up their glycogen levels by Mile 17. So the key thing is to stay focused and disciplined, and you have to take the attitude ‘My pace, my race.’ ”
Then Huckabee, his daughter, and his staff got in automobiles and continued on their 2-day swing through several Iowa cities and towns. It’s only Mile 1 of this marathon.
Jan. 30, 2007
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa. -- Tony Loyd is a blogger.
He doesn’t have some high-powered blog on a major Web site. His work isn't known to political junkies across the nation and beyond. He's just a 48-year-old man from Cedar Rapids with a video camera and a blog (rfdblog.com). But he has questions for people running for president. Pointed ones.
Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, made Cedar Rapids his first campaign stop in Iowa as an official presidential candidate Tuesday night. He met people upstairs in the house of Peter Abolins, who was hosting a fundraiser/rally for his brother, Republican Linn County Auditor candidate Dan Abolins of Marion. Then he went to the basement to do interviews with a few assorted media.
The last questioner was Loyd. He asked Brownback if, as president, he would hope to reverse Roe v. Wade, if he would hope to end the death penalty, if he supported extraordinary rendition, and if what he called “Cold War items” in the military budget should be sliced and directed to other national priorities.
The answers weren't quite as direct as the questions, though Brownback said he would “appoint Supreme Court justices who would stay within the confines of the Constitution” and is “for a very limited death penalty myself.” On the latter two questions, he instead talked about other measures he supports.
Before Brownback joined reporters in the basement, Loyd told me, “I find that candidates are really good at taking your question, making maybe a little segue way statement, and then coming back to being on point and saying what they wanted to say in the first place. And they make you feel really good about that, when they’re never really answering your question.”
Loyd would have asked the senator many more questions, but Brownback asked to stop at four. He wanted to return upstairs to mingle with possible Iowa Republican presidential caucus attendees. By then, however, Loyd had become 2-for-2. On Jan. 20, he asked Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards four equally direct questions. The video of that Q &A is on his Web site.
Loyd calls himself an independent, though he's helping promote the Cedar Rapids Democratic Party Meetup Group . The “rfd” in “rfdblog” stands for “Republicans for Democrats.”
“I didn't leave the Republican party,” Loyd says on the site. “It was hijacked by neo-cons.”
So now his mission is to see as many presidential candidates as he can. “I'd go see (Mike) Huckabee tomorrow at 11 (in Cedar Rapids), but I'll be in Waterloo working.” He said he's a manager of “a large company whose name I won't mention because I don't want to drag them into this.” He doesn't sound like he craves the publicity for himself, either.
“I do it for my own benefit,” Loyd said. “There’s a lot of people that read it that seem to get something out of it, just people discovering it, friends e-mailing friends.”
Upstairs a moment later, I told Brownback that he had just spent eight minutes answering that single blogger's questions.
“Yeahhh,” he said in what could have been construed as a verbal sigh. “You do expect that, because so many people get information off the Internet. You’ve got to work on the new media and all media. It has changed campaigning, no doubt about that.”
But if just 40 Iowans see Loyd’s video of Brownback’s answers, that would be the same number as those who met the senator at this campaign stop, where he spent over an hour. So maybe it behooved him to give Loyd that time.
At any rate, Loyd has many other candidates left to interview. “I want to know, and there’s a lot of people out there around the country who want to know what the different horses in the race stand for,” he said.
“It’s not what I do for a living, it’s just what I do. And you know what? If nobody reads it, I'd still do it. Writers write, right?”
Jan. 28, 2007
IOWA CITY, Iowa -- Apparently, fans of politicans aren't clouded by sports allegiances.
You might have thought almost any spot in Iowa would have been a better one for former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson to hold a presidential campaign event than the one he chose Sunday afternoon. Thompson, a Republican presidential candidate, held an event at the Wig and Pen Pub, which basically is just down a long hill from Carver-Hawkeye Arena. There earlier Sunday, Thompson's alma mater, the University of Wisconsin, gave the University of Iowa a 57-46 defeat in men's basketball.
Making matters worse -- or better, if you're a Badgers fan -- Wisconsin beat Iowa in wrestling Saturday night, 19-18. That was the Badgers' first wrestling win over their Big Ten Conference rival in 41 years. At least one Iowa wrestling fan was still muttering about it in an area separate from the pub's room where Thompson's event was held.
Thompson was at the basketball game Sunday. Those who knew who he was and where he was from were charitable, he said.
"All in good-natured ribbing," Thompson said. "The people treated me with a great deal of respect and friendship.
"But the truth of the matter was Iowa's defeated Wisconsin in football four of the last five years. Did you know that? Iowa always beats Wisconsin in the stadium here?
"I think Iowa has won its last 27 games in its home stadium against all teams."
Actually, the Hawkeyes lost their last two home games of 2006. The latter was against ... Wisconsin. But after the wrestling and basketball losing to Wisconsin that Iowa endured this weekend, it was probably best for the candidate not to bring up football with any would-be Iowa caucus supporters. Of which there were nearly 100 on a day in which the temperature barely crept into double digits. The crowd seemed solidly behind its fellow Midwesterner.
"If he can get his name out there and his ideas out there, I think he'd do an amazing job," said Drake University junior Beth Orr of Muscatine.
How convinced is Steve Grubbs of Davenport? The former Iowa state representative has been hired to run Thompson's Iowa campaign. Grubbs was co-chairman of Bob Dole's Iowa campaign in 1996. To hear Grubbs tell it, the fact that Thompson received 1 percent of the support in a Jan. 15-16 Zogby International poll of Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire can be overcome.
"There are 100,000 people will vote in the Iowa caucus," Grubbs said. "We need to meet and convince a good portion that he's the right guy for the job. It's going to require a lot of voter contact, but once they hear his message we're convinced they'll come over and we can get 25,000 votes.
"Think about it. It's 25,000 votes. It's like a ward race in a lot of cities."
Thompson has made five visits to Iowa in January alone, a year before the Iowa caucuses.
"I'm coming to Iowa one day a week, every week," he said. "It's been fascinating ... and fantastic."
Grubbs hitched on with Thompson because "the governor is, first of all, a regular guy. Second of all, he's a successful governor who started welfare reform in America. And, he's one of the most likeable people I've met in my life. I used to be chairman of the Republican Party in Iowa. When (Thompson) asked me to do it, it wasn't a hard decision. He's electable, and he's a reliable conservative. He's been a governor and a proven winner."
But 1 percent in Iowa in a poll in which Secretary of State Condolezza Rice got 9 percent from Iowans though she insists she isn't interested in running? Those aren't numbers that grab Grubbs right now.
"We're filling rooms," Grubbs said. "There's a chance we'll have met almost 100 key voters here today. You do that enough times, you have your 25,000 votes put together."
Jan. 27, 2007
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Fifty weeks from now, on an Iowa night that will probably be similar to this one with snow on the ground and raw cold in its air, this state's presidential caucuses will be held.
Sen. Hillary Clinton will campaign in a lot of rooms across Iowa and the nation between now and next Jan. 14, when Iowa becomes the first state to begin advancing delegates toward the two major parties' 2008 national conventions. But she'll work few rooms smaller than the one she spoke in Saturday night.
Finishing her first day in Iowa as a Democratic party candidate for president, Clinton spoke at a "house party" in the southeast Cedar Rapids Colonial home of Marcia and Daniel Rogers. Marcia, a Democratic activist and president of a human relations consulting firm, said she invited 40 or so people to her house to see Clinton, but 40 somehow turned into about 100.
Throw in a couple dozen press people from outlets ranging from Bloomberg News to the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun newspaper, and it was a crowded house. The living room in which Clinton spoke formally before meeting guests individually, is plenty accomodating for the Rogers family and a few guests. But this night, it felt as stuffed as one of the New York City subways serving Clinton's constituents during rush hour.
Except, of course, that the room's decor was far more inviting and its inhabitants were better-dressed. And, those who enjoy a little vino on the subway seldom have the use of nice wine glasses.
After appearing before about 3,000 people at a rally in Des Moines earlier Saturday, Clinton wanted to have "a conversation with Iowans" in Cedar Rapids that evening. The neighbors next door to left of the Rogers apparently wanted to have their own conversation with Clinton. They put 11 identical signs in their front yard saying "We Stand With President Bush and His Troops."
The word "Bush" was noticeably larger than any other.
But if any staunch Republicans came to see Clinton in person here, they kept it to themselves. Not that everyone was a confirmed member of "Team Hillary," though several put their names on sign-up sheets to indicate they'd be willing to join.
"I have a son who's (a U.S. Army sergeant) in Iraq,'' said Dan Baldwin, the president and CEO of the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation. "I will try to see all the leading Democratic candidates, maybe even more than once.
"I'll try to listen closely to Governor (Tom) Vilsack to see if he sounds like a governor or a president. I'll listen to Senator Clinton to see if she sounds like a senator or a president.
"My wife has only lived in Iowa for six months. She regrets not seeing John Edwards when he was here last week. I told her not to worry, he'll be back.
"It's a remarkable aspect about living in Iowa."
While the event here had a significantly more far-reaching intent than to persuade a few dozen Cedar Rapidians to campaign for Clinton -- the media wasn't invited strictly to enjoy the Hy-Vee supermarket cold cuts provided for it in the Rogers' basement -- it wasn't without personal moments. Later in her two-hour stay, after most of the press had left, Clinton did have 1-on-5, 1-on-3, even a few 1-on-1 discussions with citizens without anyone apparently nearby to record their comments, or the senator's.
Earlier, while television cameras were present, Dale Todd of Cedar Rapids emphatically thanked Clinton for cosponsoring the Lifespan Respite Care Act of 2006 in the Senate. The bill was signed into law by President Bush last month. It authorized $289 million over five years for state grants to develop programs to help families with special needs children and adults.
Todd's 7-year-old son, Adam, is epileptic. Dale and his wife, Sara Todd, have been to Washington to encourage legislators to fund epliepsy research. Shortly after Clinton's formal remarks to the gathering concluded, Tood spoke up to express his gratitude. He and the senator ended up hugging, and both of their voices cracked. He then introduced his boy to her.
But it didn't end there. Before the night was over, Todd was interviewed by reporters from Time magazine and the Daily Iowan, the University of Iowa's student newspaper. Finally, he was asked to share his comments on videotape for Clinton's Web site. This "conversation with Iowans" was likely going global.
Aug. 22, 2006
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- On a late Tuesday summer afternoon in a bar somewhere near the middle of America, a man runs for president of the United States.
Joe Biden is amid pool tables, dart boards and beer signs in the back of the Union Station tavern off a busy street in Cedar Rapids, the second-largest city in Iowa. He is a six-term U.S. senator and the top Democrat on the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, trying to win the affection of about 30 attentive listeners.
They include three female senior citizens who giddily welcome kisses on the cheek from the senator. And, a man in bib overalls who, based on the seriousness in which he tells the senator what matters to him and concerns him after Biden's speech, clearly is nobody's stereotype.
When Biden addresses the entire gathering, his talk is far less formal than it would be in a lecture hall or in a television studio. He makes teasing references to people in the room. He quotes an Irish poet. He occasionally pauses to check a piece of paper with his notes. But it's a campaign speech all the same, delivered with force and passion, with the crescendos of someone who has given countless speeches throughout his adult life.
Sitting at the bar in the front half of the building, meanwhile, nine drinkers either are unaware or uncaring that Biden is in their presence. The lone apparent link between them and their fellow citizens elsewhere in the tavern is the only bar employee working at the time, a young female who clearly is earning her pay dashing back and forth to serve the two groups.
The Iowa presidential caucuses that often have a considerable effect on determining the two major parties' nominees are still a year and four months away from this moment. The presidential election? Two years and three months off. Yet, here is Biden in the middle of one of his four trips to the state in August alone, covering hundreds of miles by automobile to work crowds often similar in size to those one would find in a Cedar Rapids deli or dollar store.
It's the same thing so many other declared and undeclared candidates for president are doing and have been doing in 2006, and the process is barely started. In all of 2007 and the first few weeks of 2008, Iowans will share their state with a slew of candidates, their campaign workers, and media people from all over the U.S. and beyond.
This is how presidents get elected?
"It's kind of amazing, it really is,'' Biden says as he stands in the bar's parking lot after his hour and 15 minutes inside, squinting as he faces the sun before taking an 85-mile ride to Davenport for a political event there this night. He is so far from Washington, so far from anything resembling a media horde and national spotlight.
"They're small crowds,'' Biden continues. "But you only have 100,000 people who go to the caucus. Of those 100,000 people, you get one or two shots at each of them. So you better come across at the time. I'm not going to see a lot of these people again that were here. For all the time I can spend here between now and the caucus -- 17 months or something like that -- how many people am I going to see more than once when I'm here? Not many.''
While many around the nation question why Iowa gets such influence in helping determine presidential nominees, the candidates themselves usually say it's a very good thing. Most happen to be the same candidates who have spent and will spend a lot of time in the state. But it's inarguable that many Iowans enjoy getting up close and personal with presidential hopefuls, summing them up, and telling whatever they feel like telling them.
"Where in the hell else do I go in the next 17 months where I'll have as many serious national press people that come and listen?'' Biden poses. "I can go make a speech in New York or in California to 3,000 people -- not a single serious press person. Not a single one. You know what I mean? Nobody.
"I'm in -- wherever the hell I was with Dave (in Iowa with state Democratic U.S. Congress candidate David Loebsack) four or five days ago. You've got the guy from the Washington Post, you've got three or four national reporters. Yet I go make a speech in New York City to 1,800 lawyers, there isn't a press person in the room. I made a very serious speech.
"It's just a strange process, man. A strange process.''
Loebsack waits for Biden as the senator spends seven minutes in that parking lot addressing a total of three questions from this writer. This isn't an atypical day for Loebsack. John Edwards is among other Democratic big shots who have stumped for him, once in a downtown Cedar Rapids coffee shop over a lunch hour.
Biden, though here to support Loebsack, has made no bones about the fact that he's running for president. The hard part is gaining traction. If it is to happen for him, it will almost surely happen slowly, as it did for Jimmy Carter here over 30 years ago when he canvassed the state thoroughly in the two years leading up to the 1976 Iowa caucus. Carter received the most votes in the caucus, and went from being a presidential long shot to Gerald Ford's replacement.
Says Biden: "I think it's important at this stage -- for the only people who are going to show up are activists -- for them to draw the judgment that you are tough and smart. Resolved, tough and smart. I think that's what they're looking for. I think that's why Iowa's so important along with New Hampshire. If you can't make it through those two portals, you don't get very far.
"If you get blown out here, you don't exceed expectations, you get blown out in New Hampshire, it's over. It's done. Right, wrong, or indifferent, it's done.''