Hopefuls strive to re-create Kerry’s 2004 momentum

By J. Patrick Coolican (contact)

Sunday, Nov. 11, 2007 | 9:29 a.m.

Editor's note: Presidential campaigns are now fully engaged in Iowa, preparing for that state's first-in-nation caucus Jan. 3. With Nevada's presidential caucus scheduled for two weeks later, the Sun went to Iowa for a glimpse at what might be in store for voters here.

DES MOINES, Iowa - If Iowans have grown tired of the endless visits from presidential candidates and the ubiquitous political ads - there are so many that local merchants have been warned there's no TV time for them before Christmas - they can blame Sen. John Kerry.

The Massachusetts Senator and failed Democratic presidential nominee was the candidate with no chance in November 2003, when Howard Dean led the field in money, endorsements and momentum.

But Kerry and his people were slowly building an organization here, and after a late push delivered an Iowa victory to him the momentum carried him to the nomination.

It's a strategy in evidence here in 2007, as all the candidates hope to replicate Kerry's momentum while the frontrunner, N.Y. Sen. Hillary Clinton, wants to seal the deal with an Iowa victory.

So Illinois Sen. Barack Obama spent the week here leading up to the climactic Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner Saturday speaking at packed, intimate gatherings.

At an old armory in Fairfield, a funky little town that's home to the Maharishi University of Management (it focuses on transcendental meditation), Obama used his standard stump speech, which alternates from inspiring rhetoric to professorial policy talk.

Near the opening he used his best joke line, criticizing the Bush administration's energy policy: "It didn't help when you put my cousin Dick Cheney in charge of energy policy." Every family, he quipped, has a "black sheep" and a "crazy old uncle."

The crowd loved this bit. Perhaps transcendentalism lends itself to humor better than other world views.

Jerry David Flusche, who works for a wind power company, said after the event he'd caucus for Obama. He said he was impressed with Obama's articulated vision and subdued ego.

Obama and his aides say they've been stuck in many polls because people don't know him. They know his name and know he's famous and is liked by Oprah Winfrey, but they don't know him enough to elect him president.

With more than a dozen events across Iowa last week, as well as roundtable discussions and interviews with local journalists, Obama's campaign hoped to make its case with Iowans.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards is one man Iowans know well. After his second place finish here in 2004, he returned to Iowa in 2005 and has visited all 99 counties - twice.

On a Friday evening visit to a community center on Swan Lake in Carroll, about 90 minutes northwest of Des Moines, the air smelled of cow dung.

A 12-point buck graces a wall of the center, whose small meeting room was overflowing.

Edwards has settled happily into his role as fierce, outraged populist with a smile.

A man in a T-shirt that read "1/20/09" - the day President Bush will leave office - asked if Edwards would fight for working people.

He said that when he was a lawyer he would tell his clients - often the parents of children injured by faulty products or medical malpractice - that he'd do everything he could for them.

"Then I walked in that courtroom and gave that company hell."