What’s Happening in Iowa?
guest post by Chase Martyn
Managing editor of the Iowa Independent
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Greetings! My name is Chase Martyn, and if you listened to Taylor’s show on Wednesday,
you already know that I’ve been asked to blog a weekly roundup of presidential
campaign news from the ground in Iowa. I’ll be on Taylor’s show each Wednesday,
and my roundups will go up here each Sunday.
With the fund raising quarter drawing to a close, candidates did not spend
much time in Iowa this week, but surrogates were in town. Two surrogates, Sen.
Barack Obama’s wife Michelle and former Sen. John Edwards’s campaign manager
David Bonior spent time in the state courting voters and playing
up the importance of a victory here for their campaigns.
A review
of where the most presidential candidate appearances have taken place seems
to confirm the notion that Iowa will be a key battleground for both Republicans
and Democrats in 2008. Iowa has had over 1,200 candidate appearances since January,
more than double the number of the next-most-traveled state, New Hampshire.
Despite all of the attention, an overwhelming number of Iowans have not settled
on a candidate to support. Although many are leaning for one candidate or another,
private campaign polls show that up to 80% of caucus goers predict that they
could change their minds about the race between now and January. Polls have
tended to show either a Clinton or an Edwards lead in recent weeks, but generally
no leads are outside the margin for error. And a Newsweek
poll released
today shows a narrow lead for Obama among likely caucus goers, so it isn’t time
to write any of the top three off.
Among the so-called “second tier,” Gov. Bill Richardson and Sens.
Chris Dodd and Joe Biden have all built momentum in Iowa of late. Richardson
has kept himself in double digits in Iowa polls, Biden has racked up an
impressive number of state legislative endorsements, and Dodd has transfered
more resources here, claiming to have nearly 60 staffers on the ground.
The biggest surprise of the week came from Edwards, who announced that he
would accept matching funds from the FEC for his campaign. FEC rules will
prevent him from spending as much money on media in Iowa as he might have otherwise,
although campaign manager David Bonior told me that he expected that the state-by-state
spending caps would not be an issue. Still, Obama and Clinton are likely to
spend significantly more than Edwards here.
On the Republican side, many presidential candidates will be in Des Moines
this evening for a
dinner hosted by the socially conservative Iowa Christian Alliance, known
for carrying significant influence in the Republican caucuses. Former Sen. Fred
Thompson will be making his first appearance in front of the group, but Rudy
Giuliani wasn’t invited. Steve Scheffler, organizer of the event and kingmaker
among Republicans in the state, said “I think a lot of our base would rather
wander in the wilderness for eight to 12 years than to vote for [Giuliani].”
Finally, the celebrities have also started coming to town. “Sexy plumber”
James Denton, star of the ABC series Desperate Housewives, is making
a swing through Iowa for Edwards this weekend, and The Last King of
Scotland‘s Forest Whitaker will campaign
on behalf of Obama next week.
If you’d like to follow the news in Iowa in between these Saturday updates,
head over to Iowa Independent or to
my personal blog for more.
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