Howard Dean’s home state of Vermont has always been known as a rather earthy place. So perhaps what transpired at Camp Wesley Woods near Indianola, Iowa, the other night was somehow fitting.
The church camp is playing host to dozens of Dean supporters, men and women, young and old. Among them was Carol Haas, a 55-year-old volunteer from Kent, Ohio, who arrived late one night this week and promptly fell asleep in her bunk bed before her mostly twentysomething male roommates returned from a hard day’s canvassing.
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Haas awoke to find a naked man standing in the room.
But she was unflappable. It didn’t bother her, she said, later recalling the flasher: “I’m a nurse.”
–Flynn McRoberts
SPLITTING HAIRS
Teamsters, Steelworkers and fellow union members greeted a horn-blaring caravan of 18-wheelers that delivered Rep. Richard Gephardt to a rally in Marshalltown, Iowa, on Thursday night. The workers, including members of Teamsters Joint Council 25 from Chicago, are the ground forces for Gephardt’s get-out-the-vote effort in Iowa on Monday.
In firing up the troops, though, Teamsters President James P. Hoffa may have given false hope to union members suffering from hair loss.
Speaking of Gephardt’s plan to repeal President Bush’s tax cuts and use the revenues to help subsidize medical insurance, Hoffa lauded the Missouri congressman for proposing a “national hair-care policy.”
Hoffa quickly corrected himself to say “health care.” But it wasn’t immediately clear if he had sparked a run on Rogaine.
–Rick Pearson
NO TIME TO LINGER
As the Democratic presidential hopefuls traipse across Iowa, some boast of hitting each of the state’s 99 counties, while others gladly recall a bit of local trivia for audiences.
Seldom, though, do the candidates actually see any of the sites as they zip in and out of towns during the final days of the caucus campaign.
So when Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri arrived in Britt, he dashed into the town’s library on Main Avenue. After he finished discussing foreign policy and health care, he climbed into his waiting car and headed down the road for the next stop.
Though it was only 100 yards away, there was no time to stop by what is advertised as the nation’s only Hobo Museum and is featured in signs that proudly advertise the town’s annual Hobo Convention.
Hobos may have time to linger, an aide mused, but presidential candidates do not.
–Jeff Zeleny