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The Believer Stalks the 2004 Democratic Candidates: Dispatches from a Few Cold Places
DISPATCH ONE—Iowa
I just ate a fried pork tenderloin the size of a lady's pocketbook that was perched, dry as a bone, on a tiny little bun, and I have to say I'm feeling much better. The waiter at a place called Raccoon River Brewing Company recommended it. If you're in Iowa, he said, a state with more pigs than people, the thing to have is pork tenderloin. It's the eve of the caucuses, and this is downtown Des Moines, where I'm recovering after three days on the road followed by a bruising jaunt on one of three giant charter busses in Howard Dean's campaign entourage. But first, let's explain: The Believer has sent me on a mission to follow our great nation's quadrennial political hoo-hah, starting with the Iowa Caucuses, the closely watched and supposed early litmus test of Presidential candidacy, which commences tonight. This here is the first in a series of dispatches. And let me tell you: I had no idea how fast things move out here in the run-up to the Big Day—required, by the rules of the Democratic National Committee and Iowa state law, to be "at least 8 days earlier than the scheduled date for any caucus or primary which constitutes the determining stage of a Presidential nominating process in any other state, territory, or any other group which has the authority to select delegates of the Presidential nomination." Iowa likes to be first and its citizens are quick to talk politics, as we discovered the minute we touched down in the state and found a little caucus forming behind the Alamo rental counter. Who's the "we" at the Alamo counter? I'll tell you. Stephen Elliott is here too, writing what will surely be a kick-ass book about the entire Presidential Campaign. He and I are now, I am happy to report, in league. We met in the A terminal at Midway in Chicago five days ago, and flew into Cedar Rapids on a thirty-seater turbo prop. Cedar Rapids is an entirely unremarkable town, but it's between Iowa City (where there was some action to be had owing to the fact that it's a university town heavily trafficked by the candidates) and a place called Waterloo, which is the residence of a local politician named Dave Nagle. We wanted to talk to Nagle because he's the person who went toe to toe with the DNC in the 1980s over the timing of Iowa's caucus and won its lasting status as the "first in the nation." But back to the Alamo Counter. The two clerks, after refusing the Believer credit card, decided they want to talk politics. One, the guy, was a Republican, and was friendly enough. Until, that is, he started mumbling about Metallica and how the White Stripes isn't really rock and how nobody likes good music any more. I said that "Ride the Lightning" fucking rips, which is true, but that the White Stripes can keep up with the best of them and added that Jon Payne, the Music Editor of the LA Weekly, where I contribute, had recently written that the illest guitar lick of all time appeared on Elephant. The woman, a Democrat, asked which way this Believer publication leaned. The Believer's probably leftish, Steve said purposely. So you guys are Democrats? asked the Metallica guy. Yeah, well you know, returned Steve, We're educated people, so, you know, of course we're Democrats. The woman smiled a furtive "Right On!" smile, and the dude turned flush and got real quiet and puttered around with papers behind the counter. We later learned that the woman was still undecided about the caucus, but was leaning toward John Kerry. There's a lot of leaning in Iowa. But that was days ago. I have since told Rob Reiner how much I love Kermit the Frog, achieved deep inner peace at the Maharishi University of Management, caught pancakes flipped in the air by Howard Dean, and met a goddamn lot of people, most of them very nice. All of that and more, in time. The important thing to do now, before the caucuses commence, is explain what they are and how they got to be that way. For the insider's version, Steve and I went to see Dave Nagle, who agreed to break it down.
DOWNTOWN WATERLOO Dave's offices look dated. They're wood-paneled, with low ceilings, small rooms, and they smell like smoke since he sits in there smoking at his desk all day. His computer monitor is tiny, like a decades-old terminal at a small regional library, and I notice that he's still running Windows 3.1. Dave looks very serious, but he turns out to be accommodating and patient. And he tells good stories. We sat down, and he jumped right in: "Today's process was a reaction to the Democratic National Convention of 1968. There was a feeling that the party bosses were controlling the process and that the people were being denied the vote. In the days of Mayor Daley and James Farley in Connecticut, the delegation was bound as the delegation voted. So if you had eighty delegates from Connecticut, and a majority of them went to John Kennedy, all eighty votes went to Kennedy. As a result of that we went to a proportional representation system, which meant that if you won delegates in this state you get to keep them." He then pointed out that Iowa first installed the caucus process because it encouraged party-building and grass-roots organization. He gave us a preliminary copy of the caucus packet that voters would receive Monday night. Much of it relates to party activities: precinct caucuses also adopt platform planks for consideration at the County Convention. And they select the people who will run the convention: the members of the platform committee, the rules committee, the committee on committees, which is a nice term for the people who bring refreshments. And then, when the County Convention meets, that cycle repeats to determine who goes to the District Convention and how that will be run, where it's repeated once more up to level of the State Convention. Around that time, Dave's wife, Deb, brought in a bowl of bite-sized candy which I started devouring. "So, you see," Dave summed up, "most years, the caucuses function as party apparatuses, not as part of the Presidential elections." Why, then, are we sitting in Cedar Rapids eating tiny Twixes and talking about them? "The importance of the caucuses is an historical accident," Dave explained. The caucuses were always set early because the whole cascade of conventions, from Precinct to County to District to State and then on to National, required several months. They had to start early to get it all done. "Then, in 1972," Dave added as I ate the last Tootsie Roll in the bowl, "Johnny Apple from the New York Times showed up and wanted to know how Ed Muskie did in the Precinct caucuses. McGovern had won, and that turned out to be the first chink in Muskie's armor." That was when the caucuses were discovered as indicators of the Presidential process and the flood gates opened. The 1976 season came along, and so did the entire national press. As a political event, the caucuses are unusual because they're one of the last strongholds of intimate, hands-on, retail politics. The state has 1,993 voter precincts, and each one holds a caucus, which is really a small meeting where politics is hashed out at the most local level. Here's an attempt to describe it with minimal detail: 1) The proceedings commence and everyone separates into preference groups, so 2) there'll be the Dean group and the Gephardt group and the Whoever else group and they'll all go sit or stand separately. Then, 3) if a group doesn't comprise 15 percent of the total people there, they're not considered "viable", and they then have to take their second choice and line up with someone else. 4) The result is counted proportionally. Aside from some technical aspects that are important but too technical to report here, the caucuses are simple in principle, but they get messy for various reasons, including the fact that everyone wants to persuade people to move around to their groups, like a multivariate exercise of political red rover. And it's important to remember that one of the groups could be no candidate at all. In the last few days of the campaign, the most important cohort is the undecided caucus-goer. "Undecided" is its own candidate here, which reflects Iowans' fierce demand to be convinced by their politicians. If "Undecided" has enough people, "Undecided" ranks, meaning there are really eight candidates in play, the eighth being a personification of dissatisfaction with all the others. If voters here don't like what they're offered, they can send back the entree with a note to the chef. In 1976, when Carter supposedly won Iowa as a dark horse, "Undecided" had him beat by ten percentage points. Thus the need for the giant campaign organizations all over town. Each requires its own army in the days before caucus night to make calls, to knock on doors, to send emails. Don't forget! Tomorrow's the caucus. Need a ride? Fine. Childcare? My sister will watch your kids. Working late? Come straight to the caucus and I'll meet you there with dinner. Many caucus hosts try to lure attendees with fresh baked goods. That may be meant to encourage the democratic process, a gesture in the name of civic duty, or also a partisan ploy, because it is important to remember that a caucus host may be backing Kerry, or a Dean activist, or a Gephardt stalwart. Which is why this race has become so exciting: it's the first cycle that's been up for grabs since 1988, and because of the weird game theory in play during the caucus itself, the outcome is essentially unpredictable. Earlier in the week, Dean's victory seemed certain. The question was whether he'd win by a smaller margin and therefore disappoint expectations. Then came Sunday morning and a five pound edition of the Des Moines Register, splashing a giant headline about a new poll with Kerry and Edwards surging and Dean in third, putting all four main candidates within a spread of eight points.
Edwards: Shades
of Omen 3; How did this happen? No one knows, exactly. They said it would shape up to be a four-man race, but we didn't really believe it. It seems that a lot of those supporters of "Undecided" are coming down off the fence, mostly into Kerry's and Edwards's yards. Almost everyone I happened to speak with in town is toggling between them. Steve and I spent several days with Dean's people talking about "The Movement," and grass roots and that seemed to be the story until we wound up at an Edwards event at Drake University on Sunday, and it became clear that this dude is on fucking fire. Where Dean seems exhausted, Edwards is cresting. His event was mobbed. Wearing a sharp suit and a lavaliere, Edwards moved gracefully, using his hands for flourish. His years as a trial lawyer pay off in a room full of voters. He almost looks too good; I kept getting the slight feeling of watching a televangelist, and then I realized he reminded me of Sam Neill's Damien in Omen 3: The Final Conflict. Steve thinks he's sinister too. Antichrist or not, Edwards is shooting sparks as he works the crowd. He may not win, but all I know is that the guy opened up his afterburners a few days ago and his hair still looks perfect. Kerry had an even bigger crowd assembled about an hour later at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. But his stage show isn't as slick; it came off like a wedding stacked with too many long toasts. But still: 3,500 people showed up to take it all in. And then there's Ol' Gephardt. I went by his gig expecting to find a couple dozen geezers in VFW boaters covered in cobwebs, but instead wandered into a raucous party of union bruisers and steel workers and a full bar, while a menacing parade of beautiful, shiny 18-Wheelers—Peterbilts and K Whoppers from all over the country—circled the hotel for two hours blowing their teamster horns in a very effective show of force. Now it seems you can't count anyone out. This morning there are Dean people standing on street corners. All the campaigns have been canvassing and phone banking since 6:30 a.m. Everywhere you go there are people with orange Dean hats, Edwards Buttons, Gephardt T-shirts. The girls at the baked-goods counters are wearing Kucinich stickers. I tried to talk specifics with James Carville yesterday, and he brushed me off, repeating only, "It's very exciting!" I was annoyed at first, but later realized: that's all there is to say, really. It's very exciting.
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