Andrew Sullivan sums up Iowa for the "London Times."
The Iowa Moment
Suddenly, An Open Race
It's one of the weirdest rituals in America's politics, but an irresistible one. Every four years, the snow-swept, frigid Iowa caucuses occur around the same time as the president's State of the Union address. This year, the drama is high. In Iowa, a four-way race, with no truly accurate polling, could lead to any kind of result in the first skirmish of the Democratic primary campaign. On Tuesday night, president Bush will give his third formal State of the Union address as an instant rebuttal. He has already spent the last couple of weeks boldly sucking the atmosphere out of the Democratic contest with banner initiatives - near amnesty for illegal immigrants, trips to the moon, a pro-marriage initiative - billions here and there aimed at every interest group he can find. Meanwhile, the Democratic candidates have been busy sucking the blood out of each others' jugulars, in one of the nastiest, toughest snowball fights in many election cycles. For any fool still believing that the United States has become a one-party fascist state under Republican military rule, the political hoopla of the season must come as something of a surprise.
But the biggest shocker is what has suddenly happened to the Democratic race. For months now, the Internet-fueled, machiato-driven, war-hating candidacy of Howard Dean has been the only story. He still has to be one of the favorites. He has much more money than anyone else; he's more organized for the blizzard of primaries that will come after New Hampshire (January 29); and the endorsements keep coming his way. Both Al Gore and Bill Bradley - the two candidates in 2000 - have signed on. The most influential figure in Iowa politics, Senator Tom Harkin, has backed him. The first candidate to drop out, former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, backed Dean last Thursday. On the weekend before the caucuses, Dean got a photo-op with Jimmy Carter. But at some point in the last two weeks, his momentum stopped dead and then started to go backwards, like a racing car suddenly choking in a snow drift. In the middle of last week, polls showed the Iowa caucuses in a dead-heat between Dean, Richard Gephardt (from neighboring Missouri), John Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, and John Edwards, the Democrats' version of Tony Blair with a deep Southern twang. In New Hampshire, Dean's once-formidable lead has also begun to deflate - this time with the wacko General Wesley Clark breathing down his thick little neck.
What happened? In simple terms, Dean's rivals all focussed on bashing the front-runner. His gaffes were broadcast far and wide; and his record examined in such excruciating detail that many began to fear he was too much of a liability to be elected. Dean kept insisting that there had not been a middle class tax cut under Bush - which is simply untrue. He opined that Americans were no safer with Saddam in custody - something that's arguable but the kind of churlish comment that reminded people why they didn't much like Howard Dean in the first place. Old tapes surfaced in which Dean had dismissed the Iowa caucuses as a mud-bath for special interest groups. Not good if you need Iowans to vote for you. Then there were the debates in which Dean tried so hard not to lose his temper that he came off as almost vacant. But more profoundly, the context which made a Dean candidacy appealing - a war which seemed to be going badly wrong and an economy still struggling to revive from recession - began to wilt. Saddam's capture, less violence in Iraq and a booming fourth quarter all took a toll. And the temper tantrum that Dean represented blew itself out a little.
At the same time, it's not clear who could replace him. Wesley Clark isn't even competing in Iowa and last week suffered yet another blow to his credibility. Last October he bluntly stated, "I've been very consistent... I've been against this war from the beginning... I was against it last summer, I was against it in the fall, I was against it in the winter, I was against it in the spring. And I'm against it now." But in September 2002, he had given testimony to Congress, urging the use of unilateral force if necessary to get rid of what he was certain were chemical and biological weapons. Could Saddam be linked to al Qaeda? "It's normal. It's natural. These are a lot of bad actors in the same region together. They are going to bump into each other. They are going to exchange information. They're going to feel each other out and see whether there are opportunities to cooperate. That's inevitable in this region, and I think it's clear that regardless of whether or not such evidence is produced of these connections that Saddam Hussein is a threat." Of course, these views might actually help Clark in a general election against Bush. He could support the war, criticize the conduct of it, and propose new anti-terrorism measures. But when he entered the race, that's not what primary voters wanted to hear. So he switched positions and then tried to spin his way out of it. Not exactly encouraging.
Who else do the Dems have? The Lieberman campaign has yet to take off; John Kerry has had an awful campaign and is still way behind in New Hampshire, a neighboring state of his native Massachusetts. He's had a "surge" in Iowa, however. Gephardt is an old hand and a decent fellow - but he's a very mediocre figure, and doesn't have the stature or clout to beat president Bush. John Edwards? He hasn't even finished a single term in the Senate, has no national security experience, and has enjoyed a bump in the polls largely because he has run a sunny campaign. It's still possible Edwards could do well enough in Iowa and New Hampshire to follow up with a good showing in South Carolina - the next major primary stop. I've liked what I've seen of Edwards' campaign; and I'd be fascinated to see what he could do with the nomination. But at this stage, it's still unlikely he'll break out. And the danger of a Dean collapse is that his army of young supporters may not be easily transferred to another candidate. Given this potential mess, some in Washington are actually talking about a brokered convention, in which Hillary could make a dramatic last-minute entrance. But that would take a brutally inconclusive battle for the next two months - so that no single candidate could emerge with a mandate. And that's exactly what the accelerated primary schedule was designed to prevent.
And the president? On so many levels, he seems commanding. He has no primary challenge, will soon have raised $200 million to put out his message, has the national security question as a shield, and an economy set to grow some 4 percent this year. Overshadowing the Democrats, he has used the last two weeks to unveil two big initiatives - a near-amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants and a revitalized space program. His approval rating is around 60 percent - higher than any incumbent president in recent times. But he is wise not to be complacent. A recent poll showed him beating Howard Dean by a mere 51 to 46 percent - a sign that the country's even split has not evaporated overnight. The bump after Saddam's capture will soon wilt, if it hasn't already. Fiscal conservatives are restless - because of the astonishingly high levels of spending and debt that this administration is racking up. His religious right base is furious that he hasn't embraced a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and civil unions. The hard right is dismayed that he is showing compassion toward illegal immigrants. Although the economy is still growing, employment has barely budged. High productivity and outsourcing to workers abroad are keeping millions of Americans out of the workforce. Key industrial states have seen hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs disappear. And a solid fifth of the country is passionate about getting rid of him. Then there's the chance of a debacle during the hand-over of sovereignty in Iraq or continuing slump in employment. And the picture former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recently painted of the administration - ideological, blinkered and fiscally recklesss - was not a pretty one.
I wish I knew what all this adds up to. I don't. But the fluidity of the Democratic race and the aggressiveness of the president in countering it suggests that both sides are taking this coming battle very, very seriously. Both sides are behaving as if they think it will be close. At this point, they're probably right. From being a potential bore, this campaign has turned out to be as surprising and as discombobulating as the classic Clinton-Perot-Bush mini-series in 1992. And not a single vote has been cast yet. Stay tuned.
January 19, 2004, Sunday Times of London.
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