Obama and Iowa.
How is he really playing there? Is this all smoke and mirror? Or are folk really listening and paying attention?
These are questions, which many of us, NOT FROM IOWA, are asking? Is he making a difference, dent or again, all smoke with no fire?
For me, it is hard to see, because Iowa is really hard to poll. It is. People can tell a pollster one thing and then go to a caucus for someone else. Or just NOT SHOW UP. That is why the polling there is sporadic. So, what is Obama doing or rather how is he doing in Iowa?
Well, let us deal in what we know. We know he has 31 offices in Iowa. We know he has out spent Clinton by roughly 20%, and have one of the largest grassroots outreach of all the campaigns. So, this is all good on paper, but what about Iowans? And what does it mean for winning this state?
Campaign officials say Obama's emphasis on ground organization reflects the nature of a presidential campaign that styles itself a popular movement and the preferences of a man whose early adulthood was spent as a street-level community organizer.
The campaign's success in fundraising—particularly raising money early in the year, when there was plenty of time to negotiate office leases and build a field staff—has provided the resources. Though Clinton's fundraising surpassed Obama's in the third quarter of this year, the Obama campaign still has raised the most money overall for the primary campaign, $75 million as of Sept. 30.
Not only is this impressive, exciting, but necessary. He is one of the candidates that have embraced what grassroots is. That is building an organization and infrastructure from the bottom up, not the top down. This gives volunteers, paid staffing ownership and empowerment in the organization. He is one of the few candidates, with the exception of Edwards, who has done this. And this has been built in Iowa, by dedicated Iowans. Not big endorsements by politicians, but working activists who know their neighbors, know their precinct, and know Iowans.
And we must note that none of this could have been done without money. He did not have it. Not like the Clinton machine. He had to go earn the trust of Americans for something new in politics, a real change. He has been successful in raising the most primary cash, but for the third quarter has the most donors at 108,000, bringing total donors to 365,000. A feat many would never have thought could have been done.
Now since we are done with the money game. We are in all practical purposes. By the time quarter four is over, we are knee deep in Iowa. So, again, can Obama really change and bring change to what many Americans are wanting by winning Iowa?
AT A RECENT rally at Luther College, Brenda Meyer text messaged her sons when Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he respected the rights of hunters while decrying the dumping of handguns and assault weapons into cities. Meyer is a 46-year-old nurse from Decorah. She is a lifelong Republican and everyone in her family is a hunter.
She was in Decorah only because she was dragged here by a friend, Carol Hemesath, a Democrat and a mental-health therapist. Another Democrat nursing friend, Deb Tekippe, tried to persuade Meyer to come along earlier in the day but Meyer turned her down.
She said she is seriously considering crossing party lines for the first time to vote for Obama. "My father would be rolling in his grave if he knew I came to this rally," Meyer said. "I hope I wasn't schmoozed but he said sometimes we have to do the right thing because it is the right thing, even if it is unpopular. It is time we had a president who did that."
This statement is very interesting. Why? Because for the Democrats to win in 2008, we must not sit on our laurels and assume that we are just going to dance into the White House. We must run a strong competitive and outreach campaign that will be inclusive to all. We need Independents and Republicans to vote our ticket. I cannot comment on the other candidates, but do know that Obama does have the broad brush stroke, meaning he is attractive across all party lines.
Another interesting tidbit is this:
Asked if President Bush had any credibility left with her, she cited Iraq and his veto of expanding health insurance for children and said, "No. None . . . . I like the fact that Obama admits that he will make mistakes as president. We need that honesty."
The first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses have emerged as perhaps the only chance for Obama or any other candidate to stop Hillary Clinton's nomination. It is the only early state where Clinton does not have a double-digit lead in polls, a fact frequently attributed to heavy anti-Iraq war sentiment among Democrats. If Obama ekes out a victory, it is because the perception of his sincerity trumps Clinton's experience.
George W. Bush has not only decimated his party but destroyed it to oblivion. People do not trust what comes out of anyone’s mouth that has Washington, D.C. attached to it. They don’t trust it. This may be an issue with Hillary Clinton and her Iraq Vote. Many have written, that Iraq, is Clinton’s main problem in Iowa, which means she may have a ceiling there. If so, this is the opening for an Obama upset. This also plays into the honesty issue. Americans are looking for straight talk. Honesty. We have been lied to repeatedly by this administration that you get the consensus that Americans do not want another Washington insider for President. After George W. Bush, do you blame them?
Hemesath and Tekippe both said they formerly favored Clinton, but changed their minds.
"Yes, I think Hillary has the experience and intelligence, but Hillary has a message that she will lead us," Tekippe said. "Obama has more of a message that he can lead us, but with our help. I had Hillary's picture on my table. It will have to go to the back now."
Hemesath said, "I actually kind of like the fact that he is a bit raw, unpolished. He seems more honest. I want somebody who represents this country like a human being. George Bush has the US hated like at no time in my life."
Again. Honesty. Obama does not pander for votes. He says what he means, whether we will like it or not. That is called being honest, being real. He is telling voters; this change will not come alone from him, that it is the voter that makes the final call. This is what the voters in Iowa get from him. It is this that will have folks caucusing for him.
Fifty-year-old Geri Porteney of Oelwein picked up an Obama supporter card after crying to him in the front row about how her brother had to work despite cancer to keep his health insurance. Porteney said Clinton may know the issues, but the way Obama looked her in her wet eyes and held her quaking hands "meant more to me than anything."
Rex and Nell Boyd, both 55, who own their own window sales and installation business, came 90 miles from Belmont to hear Obama in Waterloo. They once favored Edwards. "I liked the way Obama answered the black man [in the audience] on criminal justice," Nell said. The couple spends their spare time teaching youth canoe and kayak skills and helping build theater sets at the local high school. "He said poverty drives crime and the fix is education," Rex said. "But parents have to do their part, too."
This sums it up about Barack Obama. Sincerity. Honesty. Trust. Change.
That is the choice Iowans have, which many believe will happen.
Update [2007-10-16 14:21:5 by icebergslim]: Apparently, the books were not so accurate in the reporting of the Clinton Camp. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are TIED with Cash on Hand. Want to close the gap? Click, here.