Caucus summer is in full swing

In August 2015, I attended a political conference in Columbus, Ohio, where several Republican presidential candidates were slated to speak. At one point, I was washing my hands in the ladies’ room when another attendee walked in and told me excitedly that she’d just met Ted Cruz, and that he was in the hallway if I wanted to shake his hand myself.

“Nah, I’ve done that a few times already,” I told her. The woman looked incredulous. “When?” she asked.

“I’m from Iowa,” I replied. “We’re crawling with presidential candidates right now.”

“Really!” she exclaimed. “Which others have you seen?”

The woman’s eyes widened as I started down the list of 17 notable candidates who had declared for the Republican nomination for president in 2016. What I had started to take for granted — the gaggle of wannabe presidents clomping through our state clamoring for our votes — was something of which she was envious. To her, meeting a presidential candidate was a rare treat. To me, it was pre-caucus business as usual.

We’ve been lucky here in Iowa to have the candidates flocking to us and not vice versa. The recent decision of national Democrats to bump Iowa from its first-up position in the presidential nominating lineup should remind Republicans how lucky we are that the presidential wannabes still are coming to us and not vice versa.

I love it. Only in Iowa (and New Hampshire, I guess) can an ordinary citizen walk right up to a presidential contender and tell them to their face that one of their proposed plans is crap. I didn’t actually use the word “crap” when I approached Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy at Hospoda in the Czech Village a few weeks ago, but I did tell him that I didn’t like his plan of raising the voting age to 25 except for members of the military, first responders or anyone 18 to 24 who can pass the U.S. citizenship test. Ramaswamy took my very direct comment in stride, acknowledging the incredibly lofty feat of passing a constitutional amendment in order for his idea to be realized. “But it starts a conversation,” he told me.

That it sure does. Will that conversation be about the necessity of a baseline understanding of civics? Probably not. That’s the thing about us in the press: We tend to zero in on the more outlandish parts of a candidate’s platform, because that’s the kind of information our consumers want. To me as a voter, Ramaswamy demonstrated more positions with which I agreed than not, particularly on issues like climate change and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) corporate strategies. I wouldn’t mind if he stuck around in the presidential rat race for a while. I might even consider him for my caucus ballot next February.

That’s part of what makes being first in the nation for caucuses so neat: Even the long-shot candidates with minimal name recognition and resources can win if they put in the work to talk to Iowans and ask for their vote. In 1974, a little-known peanut farmer serving his first term as the governor of Georgia declared for the Democratic presidential nomination. He spent quite a lot of time visiting small Iowa towns and attending their events. His work paid off: Jimmy Carter won more votes at the 1976 Democratic caucuses than any other candidate. That win propelled him into the national spotlight. Eventually he secured his party’s nomination and went on to defeat incumbent Gerald Ford to become president.

Carter’s kind of retail politicking still bodes well for candidates in the 21st century. Rick Santorum wasn’t well-known to Iowans at all before the 2012 caucuses. He was a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania who lost badly in his bid for a third term over five years before the 2012 caucuses. Santorum trekked all over Iowa, visiting all 99 counties — called a “Full Grassley,” after Sen. Chuck Grassley, who visits all 99 Iowa counties each year. The effort, which included stops in small towns sometimes overlooked by other candidates, paid off. Despite lagging in the polls for almost the entire campaign and limited resources from relatively lackluster fundraising, Santorum’s polling surged with only a week before the caucuses, and he ended up being declared the winner.

So, anything is possible during the Iowa caucuses. That’s true on both sides of the aisle. Hillary Clinton seemed to think that 2008 was her turn to become president but ended up coming in third at the Iowa caucuses behind Barack Obama and John Edwards. (Edwards is that one guy who made millions as a personal injury lawyer before his career in politics. He’s also the one whose $400 haircuts were billed to his campaign.) Hillary seemed a shoo-in for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, and she did get it — but only after barely surviving the Iowa caucuses, where her margin of victory over socialist hero Sen. Bernie Sanders was slim. Like Republicans, the Democratic candidates had to actually show up and ask Iowans for their votes.

Many Iowans — myself included — make it a point to see as many candidates as possible. That fills up the calendar quickly, but it also makes for some really memorable experiences. In 2015, I decided that I wanted to ask the same question of all 17 notable Republican candidates. I got as far as three-fourths of the way down the list of candidates.

Seeing those candidates up close can be an interesting experience. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a 2016 candidate, would only take a few questions at his town hall-style events — not because he was unwilling to take more, but because he gave such incredibly long-winded answers — sometimes five minutes long — that he only had time for a few. Christie, a sharer of anecdotes much like me, is expected to declare for the 2024 race on Tuesday.

Rand Paul, another 2016 GOP candidate, always seemed aloof and disinterested, making me wonder why he was even running. I’ll never forget the Republican Party of Iowa’s 2015 Lincoln Dinner, when almost the whole lineup of declared or soon-to-declare candidates appeared. They were each given a firm 10 minutes to give a speech. When it was his turn, Paul sauntered up to the podium and started his talk by making a flippant comment about how he was officially “on the rubber chicken circuit.” (Rubber chicken refers to meals served at banquets where the need to mass produce the meal for a large crowd can impact the quality of the food.)

I’ve been to more rubber chicken dinners than I can count, but I’m not sorry that I wasn’t in attendance for Black Hawk County’s annual Lincoln Dinner in August 2011. The dinner was held the day after presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, a former congresswoman from Minnesota who was born in Waterloo, won the now-defunct Iowa Straw Poll in Ames. In true diva form, Bachmann was reported to have waited in her tour bus instead of coming inside and having actual conversations with the regular people whose votes she wanted. When the Black Hawk County party chair introduced her, Bachmann waited another two minutes before coming into the hall with blaring music like a rock star. To this day, that bizarre occurrence is a sore subject for those event organizers.

I’ve already had a few interesting experiences during this political cycle. In February, former Vice President Mike Pence appeared at the Pizza Ranch (of course it was a Pizza Ranch) to talk about transgender ideology in schools. Declared candidate Perry Johnson, a wealthy business owner from Michigan, also attended and brought his own campaign staff and a video crew. When asked what brought him to the event, Johnson told reporters that he was there to “support” Pence. He likely meant that he was there to support the cause of pushing back on gender ideology in schools, but I had to laugh at the awkwardness of one candidate crashing another prospective candidate’s event.

It’s officially a caucus summer now, which means that candidates are going to be trekking across Iowa wanting to meet us. I encourage Iowans to take full advantage of the opportunity and find the events where candidates will be appearing. Our Gazette Campaign Almanac is a great way to get the latest news about candidate visits. Signing up for campaign updates and reaching out to one’s own political contacts to get in touch with local campaign staffers also is a great way.

There’s something satisfying in watching a president stand in front of the U.S. Capitol building to take their oath while knowing that their path to that achievement started with talking to you and others like you. And we here in Iowa remain up to the task.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com