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Sounding out candidates at the Iowa caucuses

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Also by Alec Luhn:

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by Alec Luhn

Monday, January 21, 2008

10 a.m., New Year’s Day. No better time to hit the campaign trail.

Bleary-eyed and slightly hungover, I put 2007 behind me and looked ahead to the 2008 presidential election. Along with two political science majors, I trekked to Des Moines, Iowa, where the sleepy cornfields and docile town squares had come alive with election fervor.

The state is traditionally the first quantifiable test of presidential hopefuls. Democrat Barack Obama’s victory with 37.6 percent of the vote gave him widely perceived momentum heading into the primaries, while Republican Mike Huckabee became a serious contender with a 34.4 percent win.

Besides being the first state to vote, Iowa is also one of only 13 states to employ a caucus system, a uniquely time-intensive and personal form of voting where Iowans display their allegiances among their neighbors.

On New Year’s Day, Iowa was in the throes of a political maelstrom leading up to the caucuses on Jan. 3. Would-be presidents were answering questions at town-hall meetings and rallying supporters in elementary school gymnasiums. Cities and hamlets were crawling with media, transforming Iowa into a microcosm focused all the forces of the presidential race on the same place at the same time.

2008 could turn out to be a more tumultuous election year than most: With 12 candidates still entered in the race, a clear frontrunner has yet to emerge on either side. The first three primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire and Michigan all went to different candidates on the Republican side, while Obama and Hillary Clinton won on the Democratic side in Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively.

Who wins will ultimately be determined by the course of that fickle, fateful process: the presidential primaries.

On the road

Equipped with only a camera, a list of campaign stops and a GPS tracker endearingly called “Maggie,” we set out from Madison to journey deep into the heart of the presidential race, crossing the Mississippi into Iowa around noon.

Somewhere in these hills, candidates were leapfrogging across the state in campaign buses with inspirational names like the “Real Solutions Express” (former senator and Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards), the “Constitution Coach” (libertarian Republican candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas) and the “Mitt Mobile, A Five Brothers Bus” (referring to Republican former governor Mitt Romney’s five sons).

The next few days would feature the quintessential elements of American politics: fist-pumping at campaign rallies, flesh-pressing at meet-and-greets and speech-making at such diverse locations as an aircraft hangar and the corporate headquarters of a gas station chain.

They would also include the unwelcome intrusions of media with tape recorders and telephoto lenses, lunchtime interruptions at restaurant campaign stops and more calls for a change in government than anyone could ever stomach.

The primary debate

A part of American presidential politics for more than a century, the Iowa caucuses are a fixture of political pundits, bloggers and nightly newscasts — until the lead-up to the New Hampshire primary elbows them out of the spotlight.

Iowa and other early primary states have more clout in deciding how the race will play out in comparison to the 24 states that vote on Feb. 5, or “Super Tuesday,” since they influence media coverage and the candidates’ perceived momentum.

People who live in states with later primaries generally don’t pay attention until their primary arrives and then only look at “who’s getting the most coverage and who’s most likely to win,” according to University of Wisconsin political science professor David Canon.

Canon said these problems could be partly addressed by a shorter, more evenly distributed primary schedule.

But at the same time, the focus on a single state encourages one-on-one retail politics as opposed to the nationwide TV politics that dominate the later stages. All major Democratic candidates and Republicans Huckabee, Romney and Paul lavished attention on Iowa.

It can also benefit lesser-known candidates like Huckabee, who won in Iowa by mobilizing evangelicals and would otherwise “not even be a factor right now,” Canon said.

The smaller candidates invariably spun the Iowa caucuses as a great equalizer to remove the advantages of money and name recognition. At a campaign stop in Knoxville, Iowa, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., called Iowa “the last level playing field in American politics,” and Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., praised voters in nearby Indianola for sounding out candidates for the rest of the country.

Paul offered a candid appraisal of the primary process during an unguarded moment before a campaign rally at the luxurious Hotel Fort Des Moines. On his way to the elevator, Paul said early primaries like Iowa could build momentum, although he took a pragmatic view of the Iowa frenzy.

“I haven’t been judgmental,” Paul said. “I’ve adapted to it.”

But Paul disagreed with Iowa’s decision to move up the caucuses to Jan. 3, the earliest date ever. In this election cycle, many states have moved their primaries up in a bid for greater importance in the primary process.

“I don’t think that helps grassroots campaigns” because they don’t have as much time to build support on the ground, Paul said.

The underdogs and the big dog

Candidates like Biden revel in the small-town politicking Iowa affords. The senator’s appearance in Knoxville, home to the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame and Museum, was a perfect example of the kind of one-on-one attention Iowa receives.

Biden delivered a speech peppered with foreign policy analyses and literary allusions (including a Hamlet quote and a reference to Pakistan’s “Faustian bargain” with terrorists) to a small group of Iowans gathered in a high school music room.

A conservative estimate would have put the median age of attendees at 50. One older attendee was even connected to a breathing apparatus.

Later that night, Clinton supporters braved the cold at a windswept municipal airport outside Knoxville to hear Bill Clinton stump for his wife.

Inside, volunteers handed out campaign literature in front of turboprop airplanes while a hawker sold buttons to the crowd milling about an adjoining hangar. An industrial-size space heater closely resembling a jet engine spewed blue flame in a vain attempt to heat the room.

The former president arrived 15 minutes late, punctual by campaign standards, and immediately took a more down-home approach than the foreign policy-focused Biden.

In his speech, Clinton quoted Mark Twain and displayed a penchant for folksy adages: Republicans knew “in their heart of hearts” their tax cuts for the rich were wrong, Hillary’s vision for America was no “pie in the sky” and aging baby-boomers would “pose a big ol’ burden” for their kids without social security reform.

Media circus

We moved on to see Dodd at a bar and grill in Indianola, Iowa, the next day. After pulling into town around noon, we had searched in vain for an Internet hot spot as aspiring sprint car drivers whizzed down the main drag.

The town had no wireless-equipped coffee shops, so we headed to the public library for Internet access. Other reporters had the same idea: While there, we waxed political with reporters from The Associated Press and FOX News, which filmed an interview with an undecided caucus-goer in the reading area.

According to CNN, more than 2,500 international journalists received press credentials in Iowa. Even at the smallest events, reporters vied for space with caucus-goers, with photographers elbowing each other out of the way.

“I’m surprised at how over-hyped Iowa’s importance is, how brainwashed people are by the pundits,” said 17-year-old Alex Noot after the Dodd event.

A crowded Obama rally that night included two huge platforms for the press section, conveniently facilitating side shots of Obama against bleachers of cheering fans.

The press cadre even included two ten-year-olds at a Mitt Romney event at the corporate headquarters of gas station chain Kum & Go, deep within the urban sprawl of West Des Moines, where the candidate held forth on the value of business enterprise in front of a giant American flag. Autumn Daniel and Hailey Rice politely questioned Romney after the speech as part of the Scholastic Kids Press Corps.

“I’ve never seen so many people in one room,” Rice said immediately afterward.

Iowa caucuses: “Extremely useful, extremely flawed?”

Like the New Hampshire primary, the Iowa caucuses have sometimes received flak for giving too much say to a small, overwhelmingly white state.

Jerry Bodlander, an AP radio reporter from the Washington, D.C., area, echoed views of many neutral observers and campaign hacks alike, saying Iowans are responsible and well-educated enough to shoulder the responsibility.

Whether or not the front-loaded primary process puts too much power in the hands of a few unrepresentative states, the caucus process itself has flaws, according to Canon.

Whereas Republicans take a simple vote to assign delegates, Democrats follow an initial vote with a period of reassignment. If a Democratic candidate doesn’t meet a certain threshold of votes to earn a delegate in a precinct, supporters often move to the camp of another candidate.

The process is time-consuming and sometimes confrontational. As a result, the people who turn out at the caucuses “are not representative of the state as a whole,” Canon said.

The strict 7 p.m. start time and lengthy voting process make it difficult for parents with children to attend, while older voters and evangelicals historically turn out in higher numbers.

High school senior Lindsey Wetzel had to call in sick at her waitressing job to attend her 69th precinct caucus in downtown Des Moines.

Although Wetzel admitted she had not done enough research, she felt the need to support Obama, given what she knew from friends, websites and Facebook groups, she explained, munching on a cookie decorated like the “O” in the Obama campaign logo.

For Biden precinct captain Laurie Soroka of Des Moines, it’s simply a question of motivation. “If you’re not going to participate in the caucus, you don’t deserve a voice,” she said.

But the process can be intimidating. Charles Thomas, attending the 68th precinct caucus in the auditorium next to the cafeteria where the 69th was meeting, said it was his first and last time at a caucus.

Thomas, a Clinton supporter, went to the caucus with his mother, an Obama fan. He felt uncomfortable with the public format, which he said has led some acquaintances to look down on him, “like I’m less of a black man because I’m supporting Hillary.”

“If I was really on my P’s and Q’s, I would come out again to support my candidate, but I might just punk out (during the next election),” he said.

Marty Manley, an Internet-company CEO from Oakland, Calif., came out to Iowa to see all the candidates in person. He called the Iowa caucuses “extremely useful and very undemocratic.”

“We’re thinning our field (of candidates) based on a flawed election,” Manley said. “But maybe it’s America’s focus group, a very knowledgeable group.”

“Just politics”

Regardless of the fairness of the process and of the power wielded by Iowa voters, the caucuses can undoubtedly make or break a campaign. As Dodd noted at his rally in Indianola, a win in Iowa can propel an underdog candidate to the forefront of the public eye.

“I’ll become a household name by 8 o’clock Friday morning,” Dodd pledged.

Dodd earned 0.2 percent of the vote and left the race after the caucuses. But Obama, who had been trailing Clinton in national polls, made headlines with his win in Iowa. His come-from-behind victory became the story of the day.

Despite the face-time with candidates and involved voting process, many Iowans were jaded about the presidential race.

“It’s just politics,” said Vicki Beattie, a Knoxville hotel manager from New Zealand who caucused for George W. Bush in 2000, but now supports Clinton. “It was the same in New Zealand. … You say all these wonderful things to get people to vote for you, and then they get into office … and it’s not as urgent as it was in the campaign.”

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