CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, 3:38 a.m. – Yesterday, Cedar Rapids radio personality Tim Boyle energized hoards of Obama supporters in his introduction of presidential candidate Barack Obama in the city’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum.”I need your help,” Boyle said.He divided the audience into two segments and instucted one side to yell “O” on cue. The other was taught to alternate between “bama” and “8.”
ANKENY, Iowa, 2:16 a.m. – After our whirlwhind tour of the state of Iowa, seeing three candidates, getting lost in Des Moines for a few hours and blasting Bright College Years on the Iowa highway, we have finally settled for the night at a friend’s house outside of Iowa. We are staying with Brendan Fitzpatrick ’10, who lives in a suburb of Des Moines.
Talking to Brendan who, with his parents, will be participating in the Democratic caucus tomorrow, we realize just how exciting the caucus is for residents of Iowa, especially for the many that will be caucusing for the first time. So we will join Brenden in his precinct, observe and report back tomorrow.
Many of Brendan’s friends — college students — will also caucus tomorrow. But just how will youth vote, in general, play a role in the upcoming election? And more pressingly, how will the youth in Iowa, caucusing for the first time, help choose the next president of the United States?
INDIANOLA, Iowa, 11:30 p.m. — The scene this morning in Indianola’s First Methodist Church resembled a pep rally more than a town hall meeting as Yale’s sole representative in the race, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton LAW ’73, stopped here on her trek across the state.
DES MOINES, Iowa, 5:22 PM – Would you like some creamer with that Richardson? How about a little sugar in your Huckabee? You say you want a half-caff skim peppermint Hillary latte?
Such is the scene at Zanzibar’s Coffee Adventure in Des Moines, on Ingersall Avenue, where the owners have set up a “Coffee Caucus” to gauge customers’ political leanings tomorrow. Customers asking for a cup of coffee will be asked to pick from any of fourteen pots of coffee labeled “Obama,” “Dodd,” “Romney,” (etc.) representing each of the presidential candidates. In 2004, the system accurately predicted the outcome of the Democratic primary.
Of course, there wasn’t any Republican primary back then, so there was just one big pot of coffee for George W. Bush. It was decaf.
Check back tomorrow for “exit polling” from Zanzibar’s.
CENTERVILLE, Iowa, 7:58 a.m. – We finally saw one of the candidates this morning. But it wasn’t in any large auditorium; it was in the intimate confines of an Iowan family home.
SIOUX CITY, Iowa, 6:09 p.m. – Delaware Senator Joe Biden is not happy with President George W. Bush.
“This president has done more to harm our national defense than any president in modern history,” Biden declares as he paces before an audience of mostly senior citizens at the Boys and Girls Home.
It was to be one of many jabs the 65-year-old senator threw at the sitting president during the course of a one-hour port of call. Biden also lashed out at Bush’s mishandling of the post-September 11th moment, accusing the president of dividing the world in a moment of grief rather than uniting it. Energy policy also fell under Biden’s harsh gaze, as he attacked current levels of alternative-energy funding and laid out a plan to raise taxes on individuals making more than $435,000 a year to fund investment in alternative energy.
But it was style more than substance that set the Biden stump apart from others – for me, at least. Biden ditched the podium after minute four of the speech, opting instead to pace in front of the assembled crowd of about 150. Time after time, he paused to lecture a voter like a stern schoolmaster, explaining just how dangerously unstable the status quo is and talking about the need for someone to “right the ship.” Biden is a man not afraid to raise his voice, not afraid to show the passion beneath the policy positions he espouses. At times it can come across as patronizing or frustrated, at others as imminently necessary.
Delaware Senator Joe Biden talks with supporters at an event at the Boys and Girls Home in Sioux City, IA.
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.
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.
NORTH SIOUX CITY, Iowa, 10:29 a.m. — I-29 crosses the Big Sioux River at North Sioux City, South Dakota. Just across the river and down an exit ramp is the Seargant Floyd Iowa Welcome Center staffed by Mark and Sharon, who moved to the state just a few years ago and will caucus for the first time on Thursday.
“I’m supporting one and she’s backing another,” Mark says, declining to mention names. The two are both registered Republicans, so they have largely been spared the $10 million-plus feeding frenzy of robo calls and canvassing on the Democratic side of the campaign. “We’ve received calls, and the ads are on all the time,” Mark says.
Overall, though, Sharon likes the process. She says it’s important. “It’s part of the process of communicating information,” she says of the candidates’ endless campaigning. Mark nods his head, adding, “In some states, the caucuses don’t really matter, but here in Iowa, we really get to pick ‘em.”
Here I stand at the border of South Dakota and Iowa, ready to cross into the state on every American’s political radar this week.
