Democracy, Iowa style

Published 12:30 pm Friday, January 29, 2016

OTTUMWA, Iowa — By the time the Iowa caucuses take place, Ottumwa will have seen virtually every candidate, many more than once.

Both Bill and Hillary Clinton will have campaigned here. Bernie Sanders drew a big crowd. Donald Trump drew a bigger one. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio visited. Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Ben Carson?

They all came to a town of 25,000 in southeast Iowa.

Residents here expect them to do so. It’s standard for the Iowa caucuses.

Few people know the caucuses better than Mike Glover, a longtime Associated Press political reporter from Des Moines. He retired in 2012, but visited Ottumwa last November to talk about his decades-long career.

“The state of Iowa is so special because people get an upfront look at the political process,” he said.

Iowans get to meet candidates informally. Glover recalled talking with then-Sen. Barack Obama at the bar of a Holiday Inn during the 2008 campaign. Similar stories of informal brushes with candidates are common among Iowa reporters and residents.

The caucuses have a near mythic status in American politics, but the winner doesn’t always come in first. In fact, nobody won the first two Democratic party caucuses.

In both 1972 and 1976, “Uncommitted” won the contest with more than a third of Democratic caucus goers. In 1972, that was enough for a slight edge over Edmund Muskie. In 1976, “uncommitted” was nearly 10 percentage points better than Jimmy Carter.

The 1976 caucus is remembered as the event that launched Carter to the nomination and then the presidency because he beat expectations.

Carter was not well known, but his personable campaigning drew voters to him. He barnstormed Iowa, talking to as many people as he could. He didn’t finish first, but he wasn’t expected to.

Something similar happened in 2008, when then-Sen. Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton. It was an upset, and it gave his campaign strength well beyond the state.

That explains why, in the run up to caucus night, some candidates play down their chances. Winning doesn’t help much if the candidate was expected to win. Underperforming relative to expectations is damaging.

What are candidates looking for in Iowa? Passion.

When supporters are passionate about a candidate, they talk with family and friends about the campaign. Those conversations can help sway others. And, since the caucuses only turn out a fraction of registered voters, every single person matters.

When Bernie Sanders opened a campaign office in Ottumwa last September, hundreds of people showed up. The crowds couldn’t fit in the office, so campaign staff ran a speaker out onto the street so more people could hear his speech.

A major goal is to get new people to the caucuses, and this year Linda Vogt of Ottumwa says she’ll be one of the newcomers. She’s a Trump supporter and made sure she got tickets for his visit to southeast Iowa in early January.

“I went online and signed up for two tickets, printed them off on the computer and got them right away,” she said.

Vogt rarely attends campaign events. Her last one was for Mitt Romney. That may seem recent, but keep in mind the fact candidates have been campaigning in Iowa since last summer. If you want to see a candidate, you have plenty of chances. And many Iowa voters will go to several campaign visits before deciding who to support.

Not everyone, though.

Pastor Rose Kessler of Keokuk County decided to support Ted Cruz for the Republican nomination soon after seeing him in the summer of 2015. She didn’t need to look at other candidates after hearing him.

“I believe that he is true to his values. What he said he would do, he would do,” she said. That includes Cruz’s pledges to lower taxes and shrink government.

Iowans take into account how candidates campaign, too. When Hillary Clinton held a house party in Ottumwa last July, Shannon Addison was one of the people in attendance. Addison backed Clinton eight years ago and had no hesitation doing so again.

She saw a difference this time around, though. Addison thought Clinton’s approach in 2015 was different from her first bid for president. In 2008, Clinton seemed to be “in campaign mode.”

“This time that was much more in a personal mode,” said Addison.

This year’s caucuses are as uncertain as any. Polls show multiple candidates on both sides within range of victory.

Republicans Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have been at the top of the polls for some time. But Cruz’s poll numbers slid in recent weeks. And it’s not clear whether Trump’s decision to skip the final pre-caucus debate will hurt him.

Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are close, with most polls showing a lead for Sanders. Caucus polling is notoriously tough, though, and all that is certain is the race is close.

The key lies in whether the candidates, particularly Trump, Cruz and Sanders, can get their supporters to turn out. Each of those campaigns has a high proportion of support among people who have not previously caucused, usually the best predictor of whether people will caucus in the future.

If supporters stay home, it opens the door for a surprise. The chance is particularly strong on the Republican side, where Marco Rubio is many people’s second choice. If he exceeds expectations he could win momentum even if he doesn’t come in first, giving voters in later states a reason to give him a second look.

An Iowa win might be just as important for Clinton. New Hampshire follows Iowa, almost literally Sanders’ backyard. He’s expected to win there. A victory in Iowa would make it easier for Clinton to weather the New Hampshire results and get to the later states, where she is stronger, in good shape.

Glover, the veteran caucus reporter, was confident when he spoke in Ottumwa that Iowa voters would make a good choice in the end.

 “Voters in Iowa,” he said, “are pretty darn smart.”