Thursday, February 01, 2007 - Posts
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.''