Iowa Caucus

Former state Sen. Jeff Lamberti has endorsed Republican John McCain’s for president, and will serve as co-chairman of the Arizona senator’s campaign for the Iowa caucuses, aides said today. Lamberti, of Ankeny, was a two-term state senator and former Senate president before running unsuccessfully for Congress last year. Lamberti joins former U.S. Rep. Greg Ganske of Des […]

Former President Jimmy Carter, in Iowa last week, told an Iowa City audience about his rise from obscurity to victory in the 1976 Iowa caucuses. Carter recalled that his campaign was too broke to afford hotel rooms, so he and his staff members slept in supporters’ homes. “When I came to Iowa, nobody knew who I was […]

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani’s campaign manager declined to say today whether the former New York mayor would compete for support in the Ames straw poll, scheduled for August. “We’re 100 percent committed to playing in the caucuses, at this point,” Giuliani manager Mike DuHaime said during a conference call when asked if competing in the […]

A gaggle of Republican presidential candidates is headed to Iowa for the Republican Party of Iowa’s Abraham Lincoln Unity dinner this weekend. It’s a big deal in the first-in-the-nation caucus state. But don’t expect to see U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the state’s senior member of the GOP. Asked today by reporters what his role will be in […]

EASTERN IOWA POLITICS– Iowa’s population is much smaller than New York, California, Florida or Texas.

But, for more than 30 years, presidential politics have made our state their top priority. Now, some fear that may change.

Iowa’s tradition of hosting the first-in-the-nation caucuses has benefited our state for decades. On Saturday, Nevada announced plans to move up its caucus.

A string of other states are also threatening to move their primary or caucus before Iowa’s. Nearly every major 2008 presidential hopeful has already set foot in Iowa this year.

“It’s a good cross-section of all of America. We’re the heartland of America,” Mike Robinson, chair of the Linn County Democrats, said.

The main reason candidates come here is because they want to do well in the Iowa caucuses.

“Iowa has a very diverse political population. It gives a good sampling,” Janet Johnson, executive member of the Linn County Republicans, said.

Other states say they have just as much to offer. As many as 20 states are trying to move up their caucus or primary.

“People are more aware of the importance of the elections. We have more of a world economy… more of a world community, and America is a very big player in that,” Johnson said.

Now, Iowa must play defense. The caucuses generate tens of millions of dollars for Iowa every four years. They also benefit people in the state personally because almost everyone has a chance to meet the presidential candidates.

Of course, there’s a political plus, too.

“We’re worried people would not campaign here if we’re not number one. If we become a secondary state, they might just say we’re going to campaign in Florida, New York, California, where all the voters are,” Robinson said.

Republicans and Democrats are uniting to ensure Iowa’s number-one rank remains the same.

“We’re working together just because we all recognize the importance of what Iowa has to offer,” Johnson said.

“You have an engaged voter. You have a more savvy voter. They’re great to campaign to for those reasons,” Robinson aid.

Both parties promise they won’t let any other state steal the number-one spot.

Iowa has a state law that requires our caucuses to be held before New Hampshire’s primary.

But now that Nevada has moved up in front of New Hampshire… Iowa may have to adjust its law to remain first.

Notre Dame students are voicing strong political opinions as the 2004 campaign opens in Iowa today, reflecting an unusual contingent in an era when a high number of college students and their peers are not registered to vote.
According to the Federal Election Commission, 18- to 24-year-olds have been significantly under-represented in presidential elections. However, many Notre Dame students are registered to vote and are actively following the 2004 campaign. The first caucus takes place in Iowa today, where the College Democrats are currently working on behalf of Sen. John Edwards.
Casey Fitzmaurice, president of the College Democrats, organized the trip to Iowa to support Edwards in association with Nick Smith from Purdue.
“There’s a group of 34 of us from Indiana,” Fitzmaurice said Sunday. “We’re going door-to-door campaigning, handing out literature and talking to [caucus voters] about why John Edwards should be the next president.”
Fitzmaurice said that interest in participating in the caucus came from a variety of campus sources.
“There was a huge response from students at Notre Dame - the College Democrats, political science students, John Edwards fans and people who just wanted to see the caucus,” she said.
“[The caucus] is going to be exciting, anything could happen,” she added. “The Des Moines Register, Iowa’s largest paper, is calling it a four-way dead heat between [John] Kerry, [Richard] Gephardt and [Howard] Dean.”
For Notre Dame students who are Iowa natives, involvement in the caucus can also include casting a vote.
“I’m a registered Republican,” said Christopher Disbro, a freshman from Waukee, Iowa. “I did my own research, decided what I liked and what I didn’t, and registered accordingly. It was an independent decision. I haven’t gone to [the Iowa caucus] lately, but living in an important area has made me more politically aware.”
Freshman Steve Cartwright pointed out the caucus’s vital role in foreshadowing the campaign’s coming months.
“It’s actually really important to support a strong candidate in Iowa, as the caucus tends to set the tone for the entire election,” Cartwright said. “If a strong front-runner emerges, the country’s undecided voters tend to lean in his or her direction.”
Cartwright is in the process of registering to vote via the non-profit Rock the Vote! initiative.
“I should be a card-carrying Democrat by the time the 2004 presidential election rolls around,” he said. “With any luck, I’ll be voting in the Pennsylvania primary via absentee ballot this April.”
Rock the Vote! is one of many programs in place to register young voters.
“I went to renew my driver’s license when I turned 21, and they asked me if I wanted to register [to vote],” said junior Chris Henschen. “I never really made an effort to do it. I’m not following anyone yet, but I’ll probably start watching the election this summer.”
For freshman Ryan Iafigliola, the registration process was relatively simple, but actually voting has proven more difficult.
“They came to my high school, set up a both, and I registered,” said Ohio native Iafigliola. “It’s tricky to vote [while in college] because I don’t live at home and have to request an absentee ballot.”
Freshman Clare Charbonnet also registered at her high school when her government teacher passed out registration forms. “[My teacher] said that anyone who didn’t vote didn’t have the right to complain about the government - and I complain a lot,” Charbonnet said.
Despite these students’ efforts, the Institute for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement (PACE), affiliated with Salisbury University, reports that on the average, the voter’s registration level of college students is 16 percent lower than that of the total voting age population. In 1972, the 26th Amendment granted suffrage to 18- to 24- year-olds for the first time. However, in recent years the media has emphasized a decrease in social activism among young adults.
Even with this negative stereotype, Notre Dame students remain involved in the political process. Fitzmaurice and the College Democrats, in association with other organizations on campus, are planning a Rock the Vote! initiative on campus later this semester.
“I am registered to vote [because] I want to have a say in the political system, even though sometimes the most votes doesn’t equal the winner,” said sophomore Matt Frey. “I am not following a candidate as of now, but I do think some of the preliminary Democrats are more qualified than the others.”
Senior Jessica Leibowitz remembers the 2000 election as a big event on campus.
“My friends and I really cared about the election, but it really depended on where you were from, what kind of family you were from, and who your friends were,” she said. “We watched the debates, which were really important, and left the TV on all night, going to bed thinking Gore had won.”
Leibowitz, who voted by absentee ballot, said she thinks television exposure and campus voting drives also contributed to the 2000 election’s publicity.
This year, some potential voters remain unsure if they will participate.
“I’m not registered to vote - I didn’t turn 18 until I got here,” freshman Carolyn White said. “I really don’t know if I’m going to vote yet, and if I do, it will not be for Bush. I think the Notre Dame student body election is more important at present, but whoever gets elected as the U.S. president will still be in office when we graduate, and his [or her] presidency will greatly shape the economy and job market.”
White said that campaign platforms in 2004 will greatly affect the lives of Notre Dame students as they look forward to the future.
“At the national level, students should be interested in candidates who support increased federal aid to college students, take gutsy positions on protecting civil rights, and address the problems that we saw in high school and that our children will see - like aggressive positions on drug and gun control,” Cartwright said.

On Monday, January 19, Democrats from all over the state of Iowa will convrge in each of its 2,131 different precincts to debate and show support for their respective candidates, giving to ordinary citizens the first opportunity to pick their President.

The caucus in Iowa has just recently become two separate races: one between Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean for first place among Democrats, and the other between Senators John Kerry and John Edwards for third.

A candidate’s success in the Iowa caucus has often depended largely on the effectiveness of his campaign organization to help supporters get to the caucus. The contest next week will be no different.

Dick Gephardt, a veteran Congressional leader and winner of the Iowa Democratic vote in 1988, was favored to win easily before Governor Dean’s insurgent campaign in the past three months. Now Gephardt’s highly organized get-out-the-vote campaign structure, largely run by local unions, (a strategy that delivered the Iowa caucus for him in ’88) has been trumped by Dean’s incredibly fervent and effective grassroots campaign. Not only does Dean have the most active supporters in the state, 3,500 other Dean campaign workers from out of state will arrive in Iowa this week.

On the issues, the Dean-Gephardt battle has varied by the day. Just over a month ago, Dean’s anti-war position consistently energized and attracted support (Iowa has been a dovish state since Vietnam despite its dependence on international exports of pork and corn).

But with the capture of Saddam Hussein, Iraq has received less attention from the candidates and the press, and as a result, the Dean campaign has shifted its focus to the economy—a subject in which Gephardt has more credibility. Gephardt is a Midwestern protectionist who has demonstrated his support for farmers’ interests for decades as a Congressman—and agricultural issues cannot be underestimated in Iowa’s political landscape.

This potentially damaging shift in focus for Governor Dean has been counteracted by the three key endorsements he recently received—events whose effects in isolation could be minimized by other candidates, but in succession cannot be ignored. The first was by Al Gore, the former vice-president who has already beaten the sitting president, which asserted that Dean did have support from the Democratic establishment.

The second was by Bill Bradley, a lesser national figure, who was the Senator who challenged Gore in the 2000 primary and, in effect, these two endorsements by leading Democrats who have a history of disagreement implies that Dean might not be divisive after all.

Those endorsements help Dean immensely, particularly by transforming him from the dark-horse candidate to the unequivocal front-runner. Nevertheless, Gore and Bradley’s endorsements are not as important in Iowa as they are on the national stage.

The final endorsement will likely have the most impact on the caucus. Senator Tom Harkin endorsed Governor Dean this past Friday. Harkin’s nomination is momentous for two reasons: one, he is the leading Democrat in Iowa, and two, he was the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Thus, Harkin will not only be likely to sway undecided Iowans (an attempt he made in his endorsement speech), including farmers, who are among his most adamant supporters.

Despite these three blows, Gephardt still can edge out a victory with his effective get-out-the-vote campaign. On the night of January 19, whomever the victor is, that candidate’s workers will have played a vital role in his victory.

In the past two weeks, an equally contested race has developed between John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina. Both candidates have mounted desperate but spirited campaigns for third place hoping that success in Iowa will propel them to victory in the next primaries, in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Their strategy is well founded because Kerry needs to win New Hampshire over Dean to carry him into the later primaries, and Edwards must win South Carolina if he hopes to continue to run in the southern primaries that follow the one next to his home state.

Kerry benefits from a well financed and disciplined campaign in the state, whereas Edwards has been rewarded by residents in recent polls for refusing to engage in the mudslinging at Dean (a practice that Kerry began).

Interestingly enough, this secondary race will have an enormous impact on the primary race between Gephardt and Dean, for both candidates draw support away from the two leaders. Kerry’s campaign in the past weeks has consisted largely of reactions to Dean’s campaign and comments that Dean lacks the experience and integrity necessary to beat Bush.

Although Kerry and Dean do not have similar support bases, the more people Kerry convinces that Dean is not of presidential ilk, the less likely people are to vote for Dean. The effectiveness of his negative campaigning remains to be seen.

Edwards’s effect on Gephardt’s campaign is even more pronounced. Both candidates draw from the same demographic—farmers and the so-called “Reagan Democrats” (white, blue-collar males). The Edwards campaign in Iowa got an unprecedented boost when The Des Moines Register endorsed him in its Sunday publication. Finally, the Dean campaign recognizes the opportunity that Edwards presents to disable Gephardt, and Senator Harkin, in his stumping for Dean, made a point to mention Edwards as a great candidate.

All of these confounding factors are impossible to separate and measure, reemphasizing how inexact the science political science is in this country. Nonetheless, if there are no certainties in the outcome, there are certainly consequences of the possible results.

Gephardt must win Iowa if he wants a shot at the nomination. If Dean beats him, the congressman is finished, and the candidate from Vermont might get the momentum necessary to win New Hampshire and eventually the nomination. If Dean does not win, he will still have enough money to run an endurance race through the later primaries, but that possible outcome makes it even more necessary that he beats Kerry in New Hampshire.

If Kerry beats Edwards out for third, Kerry might receive enough press to help him beat Dean eight days later in New Hampshire. If Edwards wins third, Gephardt will almost certainly lose in Iowa and the young senator from the south will receive unprecedented attention as the new anti-Dean.

At least one thing is for sure. The Iowa caucus on Tuesday will be a dramatic beginning for what is shaping up to be one of the most passionate and polarizing elections in American history.

Democrat John Edwards was the clear leader of two recent polls of Iowa Democratic caucusgoers. On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani topped John McCain in a poll by Strategic Vision, but the former New York City mayor and Arizona senator were virtually tied in a survey by the University of Iowa. Here are […]

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani remains on top among Iowa Republicans, according to a poll published today, just days before he is scheduled to make his Iowa campaign debut. Giuliani had support from 25 percent of likely Republican caucus goers in the survey by Zogby International taken Wednesday. Arizona Sen. John McCain was in second […]

U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney are the latest presidential candidates to announce plans to tag Iowa in the coming days. The Republicans will be among eight candidates to hit the leadoff caucus state over five days. Tancredo plans to make a “major announcement” in Iowa Monday as the guest of Jan Mickelson’s