In Iowa, good organization likely to determine winner
knoxstudio.com
By BILL STRAUB
Scripps Howard News Service
January 18, 2004
INDIANOLA, Iowa - Bette Helm, who made a living driving Greyhound buses, is like a lot of other Iowa voters preparing to attend Monday's first-in-the-nation Democratic caucuses - she is swayed by the last candidate she hears.
She liked Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, and then she thought about Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, who is supported by her husband's labor union.
But after listening to Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina on a cold Midwestern night, she left toting one of his yard signs.
"I was pretty undecided," she said. "But he said he was going to change a lot of things. I like how he says wealthy people shouldn't run everything."
Voters like Helm, undecided and liable to change their minds at the last minute, have transformed this year's Iowa caucus into the most unpredictable of events.
It appeared for weeks that former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean had a leg up on the field, but polls show the flinty New Englander is beginning to lose ground. Now the contender best able to get out the vote will leave the Hawkeye State with the favorite's mantle.
After building a fragile lead in Iowa, where he started early and attracted support for his opposition to the war in Iraq, Dean began to slide in the final two weeks under an intense barrage from the other contenders and his propensity for impolitic statements.
During the final days, touring one end of the state to the other, Dean endeavored to tone down his rhetoric and pulled from the air a television ad skewering Kerry, Gephardt and Edwards for supporting President Bush's call to war.
The ad apparently backfired, drawing attention to what critics view as Dean's intemperate personality, and some voters began to question whether the doctor-politician has what it takes to succeed in carrying out what has emerged as the real issue facing the eight Democratic candidates - the ability to defeat President Bush in November.
"A gaffe," Dean told supporters in Fort Dodge, "is when somebody tells the truth and the establishment doesn't think he should have said so." But the rationale for his shoot-from-the-hip style seemingly hasn't convinced doubtful Iowa voters.
Once Dean began to slide, someone had to fill the vacuum. That, according to polls and interviews, is Kerry, who was considered all but dead before Christmas.
Kerry entered the campaign as the likely frontrunner, given his extensive Washington experience and his status as a Vietnam veteran. But he got off to a shaky start, even slipping to third in New Hampshire, a state that borders his Massachusetts home.
Searching desperately to capture momentum, Kerry changed his campaign leadership team and moved most of his staff into Iowa, hoping a good showing would give him a boost. The gamble seems to have worked. Most of Iowa's undecideds are breaking his way and he is picking up those who have lost their affection for Dean.
"I like what he stands for - he was on a patrol boat in Vietnam, the same as I was," said Rick Walraven, an environmental health specialist from Altoona. "The other thing that stands out is he's trying to help the working person, people who work for a living and are paying too much in taxes.
"He seems to have self-assurance," Walraven said. "He knows what he's talking about.
Another, more subtle, boost for Kerry came when Iowa's popular first lady, Christie Vilsack, announced her support and traveled with him throughout the state. Endorsements usually mean little in campaigns, but this one seemed to resonate among women voters.
"I trust her judgment," said Kay Neumann of Dedham, who operates a non-profit. "Her main thing is education - she's very strong on that - and I think a lot of women, particularly, are interested in what she has to say."
Edwards, who has run the most positive campaign, also has shown signs of picking up. For those whose primary goal is to defeat Bush in the fall, his southern background has proved enticing.
No Democrat has ever won the White House, Edwards reminds voters, without capturing at least five southern states.
"The South is not George Bush's backyard," Edwards told supporters attending a rally at Simpson College in Indianola. "It's my backyard."
The one who has the most to lose in Iowa is Gephardt, the one-time frontrunner here. Gephardt has acknowledged that he must win Iowa to remain viable.
While the polls are showing a decided shift, they don't tell the whole story. Dean and Gephardt still have, by far, the best organizations and are better positioned to see that their supporters attend Monday's caucuses, providing them with a quiet but decided edge.
At United Auto Workers Local 1024 in Cedar Rapids on Saturday morning, more than 200 volunteers, most from industrial unions like the machinists and the boilermakers, many from out of state, attended a Gephardt rally and quickly dispersed to canvass neighborhoods, concentrating primarily on the Democratic, blue collar west side.
May Scheve, chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party traveled in from St. Louis to ride herd over the get-out-the-vote effort in Cedar Rapids, Iowa's second largest city. She said the volunteers were going door-to-door, identifying Gephardt supporters. Voters responding positively received a follow-up call from volunteers on Sunday.
"We'll see if there's anything we can do for them, like give them a ride to the caucus," Scheve said. "There's a ton of labor here today but we get people from all walks of life. And this is going on all over the state."
Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager, dismissed the polls on Friday, insisting that the only thing that matters is getting the voters to the caucuses. To achieve that, Trippi said the campaign has more than 3,000 volunteers, mostly young people, combing the state in Dean's behalf.
"We have more than anyone in history," he said.
Kerry also has a formidable operation, having brought in most of his staff from New Hampshire in December. But Kerry doesn't have the get-out-the-vote abilities of either Dean or Gephardt and will have to count on the momentum his effort has generated.
The wildcard is Edwards, who is concentrating his resources elsewhere and maintains a relatively paltry organization in the Hawkeye State. During a stop in the tiny Eastern Iowa town of Maquoketa, which drew an impressive 200 people on a typical gray winter afternoon, Roxanne Conlin, the campaign co-chair, beseeched attendees to bring friends and relatives to the caucuses.
"Frankly, we're on fire," Conlin said. "We do have an organization but we don't have the experienced political organization with lots of people who have been to a lot of caucuses. We've built from the ground up and it does depend on individual people."
Given that thin organization, Edwards can transform himself into a serious contender with a good Iowa showing, meaning third place or better, establishing that average voters are attracted to his positive, increasingly populist, message. A strong outing will provide momentum in South Carolina, where he already is showing up well, and further harm the hopes of Howard Dean.
Ironically, the candidate who stands to gain the most is one who isn't competing in Iowa. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who entered the campaign late and skipped the caucuses to concentrate on New Hampshire, stands to benefit if Dean falters.
Polls in the Granite State show Clark running second and gaining on Dean. If Dean slides, raising further questions about his electability in the fall, Clark is the one best positioned to pick up the pieces and make a serious run headed to the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
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