Tag Archive: Yale on the Trail: Democrats

  1. Bill Clinton woos voters with reminiscence about 1990s

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    Bill ClintonAMANA, Iowa, 4:26 p.m. — Bill Clinton is 26 minutes late. He was supposed to arrive in Amana at 4 o’clock to address a crowd of bundled-up Iowans at this small outpost 10 miles off I-80. So now we’re sitting in this corrugated metal structure that gets a degree colder every time someone opens the door. A cluster of twenty-something Hillary staffers stand in the corner in ankle-length coats, clutching clipboards and looking around nervously. One of them clearly looks like D.C., but a couple others are wearing enough Carhartt to pass for native Iowans.

    Finally a voice breaks through an ambient Fleetwood Mac tune and announces the arrival of Chrissie Vilsack — the wife of former Governor Tom Vilsack — and President Clinton. The crowd rises to its feet.

    “I was watching the football games on the way over,” the former president begins. “And I was watching this kicker in the fourth quarter of the game and thinking, ‘That’s how the Iowa caucus-goers are going to feel on Thursday.’ On caucus night, the whole future of the world is on your shoulders — don’t feel any pressure at all.”

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  2. In morph from stylist to general, Edwards rallies his ‘fighters’

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    Edwards

    Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards called attention to the growing divide between moneyed corporate interests and working man’s values at a rally in Sioux City Sunday night

    SIOUX CITY, Iowa, 9:43 p.m. — Tom Petty must have been proud. And Bruce Springsteen. And John Mellencamp and John Fogerty.

    Elizabeth Edwards’ introduction of her husband was almost superfluous after the battery of American classic-rock anthems that preceded it – the crowd got the message: John Edwards stands for you. And America.

    The former senator from North Carolina held the floor of the Sioux City Convention Center for almost an hour Sunday night, preaching classic themes of right and wrong, good and evil and the working man against the corporation.

    “My belief is that corporate greed has infected every part of the government,” Edwards said. “When you go to caucus on Thursday night, you better send a fighter into that arena.”

    Edwards claims to be just that fighter. Drawing on his 20 years as a trial lawyer in North Carolina, Edwards touched on health care, college tuition fees and pork-barrel spending in his denouncement of moneyed corporate interests that he said “have a stranglehold on your democracy.”

    The crowd loved it. Edwards was interrupted with applause time and time again — once by a standing ovation in the middle of his prepared remarks.

    “I thought he was truthful and honest,” Sioux City resident Gary Turbes said at the end of the event. “He’s got a vision for the future.”

    –Zack Abrahamson

  3. For Dodd, a struggle to matter

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    LE MARS, Iowa, 12:29 p.m. — “This has to be about something more than celebrity,” Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd told a crowd of 30 as he stood atop two stacked forklift palletes. “This has to be about something deeper, much deeper – about substance and about who has the ability to lead this country.”

    This week is likely to make or break the campaign for dark horse Dodd, who has lagged in polls in Iowa and nationally since the announcement of his candidacy in January. At the 4 Brothers restaurant in Le Mars, Dodd asked Iowans to look past his relative obscurity and “prove the national pundits wrong.”

    A third-place finish here would be an impressive victory for the veteran Connecticut legislator, although Dodd left himself room in the expectations game to finish fourth, telling those in attendance that “Iowans could punch three, even four tickets out of this state.”

    Harold Schaitberger thinks he can make that happen. The general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters union has been on board with the Dodd campaign since August. He has traveled to all 40 local firefighter unions across Iowa, urging members to support Dodd and lending “firepower” to a campaign that Dodd admits has few celebrity allies.

    Dodd - Dec. 30

    Chris Dodd at an event in Le Mars, IA at the 4 Brothers Restaurant. Dodd discussed his experiences in the Senate, the need for substance over celebrity in this year’s election, and made a passionate appeal for Iowa voters to believe in his underdog crusade for the nomination.

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