'I trust him' -- standoffish Iowans flocking to Obama
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BY JENNIFER HUNTER
Chicago Sun-Times Staff Reporter
February 23, 2007
suntimes.com
DES MOINES, Iowa -- Iowans see themselves as a pragmatic people; they deliberate stubbornly before they reach a decision, particularly when it comes to choosing presidential nominees.
They like to meet and query the candidate up close in a neighbor's living room or the local school library. And they are demanding; they want to see the candidate again and again before offering support.
But there is something about Barack Obama that is challenging Iowans' solid, basic instincts, even as they try to resist making a decision so soon. After all, it's a year before the Iowa caucuses, and there are many Democratic candidates passing through: Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden.
Except for Clinton, none of them draw the crowds that Obama, a seeming political pied piper, does. The annual steak fry fund-raiser thrown by Sen. Tom Harkin in September first introduced Obama to Iowans, and they can't get enough, crowding gymnasiums across the state. "I know this man will one day run to lead our country" wrote one local blogger after watching the steak fry on C-SPAN.
'Even more substantive'
Some Iowans, early out of the gate in support of their governor, Tom Vilsack -- who also wants the Democratic nomination -- are beginning to shift quietly to Obama. They say they like his freshness, the excitement he engenders, his forthrightness. And race is not an issue: Iowans remind you the Rev. Jesse Jackson did well here when he ran in 1984.
Just before Obama appeared at a town hall meeting Wednesday, he went to the gold-domed Iowa Legislature to meet Democratic politicians.
Everyone turned out, even the pages. "I was trying to be skeptical," said Sen. Jack Hatch, "but he was even more substantive than I was expecting." Hatch hasn't thrown his support to Obama -- he is a classic wait-and-see Iowan -- but the state's attorney general, Tom Miller, and Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald are enthusiastically backing the Illinois senator.
Even some registered Republicans have succumbed.
Monica Green voted for George Bush last time. But at the town hall session, she was volunteering for Obama. She even contributed $250 to his campaign. She has never done that before, not even for a Republican. "I trust him when he says he wants to transform politics," she says. "Just call me a Republican voting for Barack Obama."
In Iowa, she is not alone.
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