Here is the New Republic on Edwards.
CAMPAIGN JOURNAL
Beyond Belief
by Ryan Lizza
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 01.19.04
Besides the birth of the Dean phenomenon last year, I haven't witnessed anything in this campaign as exciting as the Edwards events I've attended over the last few days. A Dean event is like a Grateful Dean concert, where the faithful show up and groove to their favorite hits. There is a knowing, insiderish connection between the fans and the musician. The applause is boisterous yet perfunctory. There's no expectation of hearing something new. (For all those Dean fans who think this analogy stereotypes Dean supporters as hippies, please direct your complaints to Dean media adviser Steve McMahon, who coined the Grateful Dead comparison in a conversation with me Saturday night.)
Edwards's events here are like watching a roomful of formerly deaf people listen to music for the first time. People walk in as skeptics and leave as believers. There is a local rule of thumb popularized by David Yepsen of The Des Moines Register that says if an Iowan is sitting back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest, that's a sure sign the candidate has yet to win him over. While I wait with about 150 other people for John Edwards to arrive at a community college in Iowa Falls on Saturday night, I spot one such man, Dennis Reynoldson. He is 61 years old and has never been to a caucus in his life. "I'm not even a Democrat," he tells me. "I'm an independent, but I'm going to switch." He says he voted for Gore but "wasn't all that disappointed when Bush won." But after the Bush tax cuts and the war, he's decided Bush has to go. "I never came to a thing like this, but I'm going to the caucuses Monday night." His only question now is which Democrat to support.
When Edwards arrives he and his staff seem giddy. Just minutes ago they learned that the eagerly awaited Des Moines Register poll shows Edwards, who has never polled higher than the low single digits in that survey, in second place with 23 percent of the vote. As I shadow behind him while he's shuttled briskly down a hallway, I shout a question about what he thinks of the poll. He glances back and flashes a wide smile. (Later, in an interview with CNN, he carefully downplays the relevance of the poll.)
Edwards's presentation over the last week here is more intense and more theatrical. He arrives and departs to rock music blaring from his bus. He draws huge crowds that spill outside of union halls and community centers. He delivers his stump speech in a theatre-in-the-round setting where he stands dramatically in the center of a circle of Iowans. His longtime message of tying his own working class background to a set of policies meant to address middle-class anxiety remains unchanged. Grafted onto it more recently is lots of language about hope, optimism, and an end to the petty sniping that has characterized the campaign. Unlike the events of the other candidates, most of the people at Edwards's events have never seen him before. Many have come out because they watched his final debate appearance, which won rave reviews, or read that he was endorsed by The Des Moines Register.
You can actually watch and feel the crowd metamorphose from folded-arm skepticism to open-minded-curiosity to head-nodding support. "The truth of the matter is this," Edwards says in his closing argument at one stop, "We Democrats have always been the party that believes you don't look down on anybody. That you lift people up. That you don't tear people apart. You bring them together. We are the party that believes that in our America the family you're born into and the color of your skin will never control what you're able to do. I don't for a minute believe I can do this by myself. But I believe that you and I can do it together. Here's why: Because I believe in you. And you deserve a president who actually believes in you. Join me in this campaign! Join me in this fight..." The rest is drowned out by a standing ovation.
After the event in Iowa Falls, I find Dennis Reynoldson again. What does he think now? "He's a good man," he tells me. "I like him. I'm going to vote for him. Now excuse me, I'm going to go shake his hand."
I will probably regret suggesting this. But what if, on Monday night, the precinct caucuses are swamped with 61-year-old Edwards voters like Reynoldson, rather than 18-year-old Dean supporters? This is certainly unlikely but not as crazy as it sounds. Despite the conventional wisdom that a massive increase in turnout on Monday will naturally benefit the Dean campaign, in a long conversation about the caucuses on Saturday night, Joe Trippi explained to me that one of his biggest fears is unexpectedly high turnout. The reason is that a hard count campaign in a caucus is different from a primary campaign. Trippi has the name and address of every Iowan he believes will caucus for Dean. He has a guess at what total turnout will be. Given those two variables, he's fairly certain Dean will win. In a campaign based on a hard count, the unexpected is your enemy. For more than a year, Trippi has scoured the state for Dean voters and thinks he's found all of them. If turnout suddenly spikes on caucus night above his projection he has no reason to believe those extra attendees are Dean people. Trippi notes that Iowa caucus veterans like him and Gephardt campaign manager Steve Murphy sometimes wonder--and worry--that the caucuses will take on the characteristics of a primary, where the dynamics of a last minute surge mess up one's hard count. Trippi didn't betray a hint of concern that Edwards could pull this off, but it's at least worth considering that if turnout is explosive, it's not obviously a good sign for Dean.
What's so fascinating about this late Edwards surge is how organic it is. Edwards has few big name endorsements. He has no unions backing him. He has few out-of-state volunteers. "We don't have any external support," Roxanne Colin, a leader of Edwards's Iowa campaign, exhorts the crowds at every stop. "We're counting on you." The campaign's method of spreading the fire they have ignited here is as low-tech as begging audiences to go home and call everyone on their Christmas card lists.
The cycle of expectations moves fast here. Within 48 hours, pundits have both blessed Edwards as the late-closing "it" candidate and dismissed the surge as too little too late. Caucuses, everyone seems to agree, don't reward a candidate with a late spike in the polls unless he or she has already built the delivery mechanism to take advantage of it. Edwards's aides, seeking to tone down expectations, but also acknowledging reality, concede they are out-manned on the ground. "Do we have the thousands and thousands of bodies these other campaigns have?" asks Edwards communications director David Ginsburg. "No."
Still, there are two reasons not to casually dismiss Edwards. The first is Jennifer O'Malley, Edwards's field director. Operatives like Michael Whouley of the Kerry campaign have rightfully received much attention lately. But O'Malley has a victory under her belt that's worth remembering: She was the field organizer for Senator Tim Johnson in 2002, one of the few campaigns in the last two cycles where the Democrats convincingly beat the Republicans on the ground.
But even if O'Malley's organization doesn't get Edwards's people to their caucuses, maybe all those teamsters and teens working for Gephardt and Dean will. The Iowans moving into the Edwards column are not just undecided voters. Many of them are people having second thoughts about their first-choice candidate. For example, on Friday I met a man named Robert Bell, a Gephardt supporter. And not just any Gephardt supporter. Bell is the guy Iowans see on TV in Gephardt advertisements and in their mailboxes on Gephardt campaign literature. Where did I meet him? At an Edwards event in Winterset, Iowa, where he seemed to be swooning along with the rest of the crowd. He said that Edwards was "tugging" at him. "I like Dick and I've know him for several years," Bell told me with a voice that suggested loyalty rather than passion. But does he wish he were backing Edwards? "Sometimes." Bell is a man of his word and seems likely to stick with Gephardt. But if Gephardt's TV pitchman is flirting with Edwards, how many others have actually jumped ship?
The question is, what if many of the folks the other campaigns believe are solidly behind their candidate have switched to Edwards in the last week? It's not inconceivable that Kerry, Gephardt, and Dean will bring some of these people to the polls, or at least call them up and urge them to get out and vote. "Our people may be going because of the help of the other campaigns," says Ginsburg. Maybe it's wishful thinking. But as Edwards says in his stump speech, his campaign is one based on hope.
Visit Ryan Lizza's new weblog, Campaign Journal, for more Iowa coverage from this weekend. |
