(DES MOINES, Iowa) — No one wins Iowa. But some claim second and leave the state with an honest moral victory and a heap of momentum.
Earlier this week, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., told an assembled crowd that there would be three tickets successfully leaving Iowa, and that he would claim one of them. Kerry grabbed a first-class seat in surprising fashion Monday night, placing the presidential aspirations of Gov. Howard Dean in the bulkhead of the coach section and leaving those of Dick Gephardt and the remaining candidates on the tarmac.
Even the extreme cold of Iowa today failed to keep turnout numbers low, as was initially forecast.
Expecting a record turnout, due to the closest race since Jimmy Carter put the caucuses on the map as a little-known former governor of Georgia in 1976, Iowans braved the weather. With school gymnasiums and church basements overflowing across the state, results were slowed in several precincts.
Kerry supporters cited his military experience and leadership qualities as the main factors for their support; he polled well with men and moderates. With a ground effort anchored by fellow Vietnam veterans, who turned out in droves to cheer his victory later in the night, Kerry played on this oft overlooked constituency to surge past the labor-reliant Gephardt — the only Midwesterner in the race — and the insurgent Dean with his motley coalition of white-collar unions, university students and Nader-type leaners. Iowans, it appeared when the polling was complete, turned a sour eye to the fire-and-brimstone approach of the oft-angered Dean to the statesman-like Kerry. Even in his speech to supporters following his distant third-place finish, Dean shouted at the top of his lungs a litany of states he intends to capture in coming weeks.
“He just turned us off at times with his anger and his negative comments,” Don Jones, a Grinnell, Iowa, retiree, said in reference to the views of he and his wife on Gov. Dean.
Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat and freshman senator, grabs another of the prized tickets out of Iowa with a close second-place finish and a momentum push as the primary process swings south in the coming months. Edwards, viewed by many Iowans as a fresh face with a positive perspective, was, along with Kerry, one of the earliest entrants for the Democratic nomination. After faltering during Dean’s insurgency, Edwards regrouped and now stakes his claim as a formidable contender in what remains a wide-open race. He must now perform in his native South. Edwards is considered an attractive vice presidential possibility; no victorious Democratic ticket has been without a southerner since FDR.
No one wins the White House in Iowa. But someone can lose it.
Richard Gephardt’s defeat here was, perhaps, the most stunning of the events to take place Monday night. Familiar to many Iowans, Gephardt won 1988 caucuses here by a margin of 31 percent over Michael Dukakis and Paul Simon. Among the most common reasons caucus-goers gave for their support of Kerry and Edwards — positive campaigners and fresh faces against the labor-centered, protectionist Gephardt — was their ability to connect with voters individually. To several native Iowans, Gephardt’s views appeared unchanged since his last attempts to woo the state more than a decade ago, and his message appealed largely to the shrinking demographic of traditional labor.
Most Iowa-centric prognosticators, including the revered Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen, favored the prospects of Dean because of his heretofore unseen ability to rouse volunteers and precinct organizers — the ground troops of this truly grassroots political endeavor. The conventional wisdom in Iowa has always held that on-the-ground organization would beat last-minute momentum. Tonight, that standard was bucked as well.
Dean’s resounding defeat was, perhaps, the most stunning of the events to take place Monday night. He trucked in more than 100 students from the UW campus to turn out the vote in Dubuque. He had one of the finest field organizations the state has ever seen, and he won the endorsements of important Iowa leaders like Sen. Tom Harkin and respected establishment Democrats such as Bill Bradley. Nearly anointed as the party standard-bearer just three weeks ago, he returns to his native northeast — New Hampshire — after a disappointing third-place finish and robbed of the critical momentum now clearly in the lap of another New Englander in Kerry. Dean’s campaign bubble seemed to burst once Saddam Hussein was captured, taking away one of the targets of his angst.
Dean did not lose the White House tonight. But all of the rousing speeches, Internet supporters and university students could not bring him a victory in Iowa, leaving the future of the Dean revolution severely in doubt and the envelope sealed on the past of Dick Gephardt.