The end of the beginning of an exhaustive, expensive and so far inconclusive race for the White House will take shape Thursday night when Iowans vote in their caucuses in the most wide open presidential contest since 1952.
The early campaign has been marked by a fierce, frenetic energy in the Democratic contest, with signs that independent voters are gravitating toward them, while the Republican field has lacked a galvanizing message or personality and exhibited a notable reluctance to embrace President Bush.
Democrats are locked in a three-way struggle among Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, with a trio of other candidates with far longer resumes trailing badly.
Republicans in Iowa are choosing between two fresher faces from the ranks of former governors — Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts — while better-known candidates Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani have largely forsaken the state, though McCain made a caucus eve visit to suburban Des Moines.
The GOP contest also presents an element of uncertainty surrounding Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, whose Internet-networked campaign has benefited from extraordinary fundraising while connecting a committed, eclectic group of supporters who could affect other contenders, notably the attempt by former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee to rejuvenate his campaign.
The outcome in Iowa is expected to hardly be decisive, but it is likely to winnow the large field on both sides at least somewhat. And voters in each party will be using their preferences for president to send a message about the direction they want to see in Washington and the world.
In the end, millions of dollars in TV, radio and direct mail advertisements and millions of hours in phone-banking and door-to-door canvassing will translate into this: some 200,000 people expressing their choice for president in nearly 1,800 precinct caucus sites scattered across Iowa’s 99 counties.
“This caucus is a historic caucus, where both parties have a wide open race,” said Chuck Laudner, the executive director of Iowa’s Republican Party.
New Hampshire on deck
By Friday morning, the accelerated presidential nominating process will immediately move to New Hampshire and its leadoff primaries on Jan. 8. Like pulling the chain attached to the now politically incorrect incandescent light bulb, the presidential stage in Iowa will go dark.
On caucus eve, candidates fanned out across the state and showed lengthy closing TV ads seeking a last boost of support among what polls have shown to be a consistently fickle and uncertain electorate.
Huckabee departed Iowa for Burbank, Calif., to appear on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” as it resumed new broadcasts. Romney questioned whether Huckabee was more concerned with a hypothetical “caucus in Los Angeles” than in Iowa’s caucuses.
Clinton, meanwhile, taped some lines for David Letterman’s show, which cut its own deal with striking writers.
Clinton and Obama also each aired two-minute television spots on evening newscasts across Iowa, speaking directly to potential caucus-goers, while Edwards had a long-time friend in the state, laid off from the now closed Maytag appliance plant in Newton, deliver a one-minute testimonial.
“After all the town meetings, the pie and coffee, it comes down to this: Who is ready to be president and ready to start solving the challenges we face on day one?” Clinton said in her ad. “If you stand with me for one night, I will stand up for you every day as your president.”
‘For your hopes’
Obama, who has consistently promoted a theme of change to counter criticism that he lacks experience, promised in his ad to end the “obscene influence of lobbyists and the politics that values scoring points over making progress.”
“I will carry your voices to the White House, and I will fight for you every day I am there,” Obama said, adding that caucusing for him was not just about his candidacy, but “for your hopes, for your dreams, for the America you believe is possible.”
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Edwards relied on Doug Bishop, a former union representative and Maytag worker from Baxter, to give his last TV pitch. Bishop, currently the Jasper County treasurer, recounted how Edwards “grabbed my 7-year-old son by the hand, he dropped to one knee, and he looked him straight in the eye and he said, ‘I’m going to keep fighting for your daddy’s job.'”
But the contenders also relied on traditional retail politicking.
As Clinton told supporters in Cedar Rapids that she was the lone Democratic contender qualified to walk into the Oval Office and immediately address the “stack of problems” awaiting the next president, the candidate who once was considered invincible found herself in a tight contest with Obama and Edwards.
Obama told his supporters that Americans were the “real agents of change” as he sought a large turnout for caucus night with a candidacy counting on first-time attendees and more youthful voters. Edwards soldiered on through a 36-hour marathon of campaign events.
The expectations game
Among Republicans, Huckabee sought to downplay expectations of victory in the caucuses, contending he has been vastly outspent by the wealthier Romney campaign. Huckabee said that a second-place finish in Iowa would not sideline his bid.
Romney said he would not predict the outcome of the GOP contest on Thursday night. But Romney, who was the early Iowa front-runner only to be eclipsed in a strong challenge by Huckabee in recent weeks, told a crowd of supporters in eastern Iowa that he believed he’d win the Republican nomination.
Doug Gross, Romney’s Iowa state chairman, said in the final hours before caucus night the campaign was making tens of thousands of contacts with voters who had previously committed to the former Massachusetts governor.
“Intensity is the key issue,” Gross said of Romney backers, adding that he would be surprised to see “50 percent of the turnout being evangelical Christian voters” who have been the target of Huckabee’s campaign.
Representing the sped-up nominating schedule that begins on Thursday night, Romney didn’t even wait for the contest to end in Iowa before using a Quad Cities’ campaign event to turn his attention to the challenge presented by a resurging McCain in New Hampshire. Romney criticized McCain’s failed efforts to provide a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
There may be as much at stake for Iowa on Thursday night as there is for the myriad candidates.
Under increasing pressure from other states seeking a greater role in the presidential selection process, the operation and impact of the caucuses may have much to say about Iowa’s leadoff status.
“The Republicans and Democrats are going to host [with] quality, with integrity, honest-open caucuses,” said Mike Milligan, the executive director of the Iowa Democratic Party. “We’ve been doing it for 35 years and we’re going to do it in 2008, and we think we’ll let that speak for itself.”
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