With many undecided, Democrats sum it up

By Michael Mishak (contact)

Thursday, Jan. 3, 2008 | midnight

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Karen Hoyt has lived in Iowa for the past 35 years, but has never until now participated in the political circus that descends on her state every four years.

A caucus is an obscure political process on its own, but combined with the bone-chilling temperatures that swept here Wednesday, it's a recipe for political abandonment.

Still, on the eve of today's caucuses, which will likely change the dynamics of the presidential race for both Democrats and Republicans, Hoyt and hundreds of her fellow Iowans braved the elements, slowly trudging down crunchy, snow-packed paths and icy pavement to hear the closing arguments of candidates who are locked in perhaps the most fluid race in the contest's history.

That's how precious this state is as the first to weigh in on the presidential race: Each of the three top Democratic candidates visited here Wednesday, on the hunt for votes in a process that could go any way -- and adding to the importance of Nevada's caucuses Jan. 19. Depending on the outcomes here and in New Hampshire, Nevada could dramatically change the political mix.

“This year is different,” Hoyt said, after listening to New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's pleas for support in a gymnasium at Kirkwood Community College. “It feels like a pivotal time in history. We have a responsibility, not just to the country but to the world -- and it has to be taken seriously.”

Why, after 3 1/2 decades, has Hoyt finally embraced the caucus? Barack Obama has captured the imagination of the 58-year-old retired art teacher, conjuring images of Robert F. Kennedy. She said she met Kennedy in 1968 when her high school class stayed at the same hotel in Omaha as he did. But politics, she said, has never been the same since, so Hoyt checked out of the process altogether -- until Obama.

But after hearing Clinton's pitch Wednesday, Hoyt said she might be swayed. And she's not alone. A Des Moines Register poll this week found that nearly half of likely Republican caucusgoers and more than 30 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers could still be persuaded to support another candidate. Hence, the glut of candidates crisscrossing eastern Iowa Wednesday, boiling down a year's worth of campaigning into crystallized points -- and putting the faces and names of Iowans to the problems each hopeful has sought to address.

Indeed, this state's voters, famously finicky, have enjoyed the ride this election cycle, many seeing candidates multiple times.

And the candidates played every card in their deck, even while not making reference to one another by name.

Clinton was introduced by former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and appeared with her daughter, Chelsea. The senator made the case that she was the most presidential of the candidates, ready to lead “from day one,” and sought to remove the “change” mantle with which Obama and Edwards have been running, taking subtle digs at both of them.

“Everybody running is talking about change,” Clinton said. “Some believe we have to demand it. Others believe we have to hope for it. I believe change comes by working really hard for it.” She then ticked off her resume, from her work with the Children's Defense Fund to her efforts to reform health care as first lady to her bipartisan work on military issues as a senator.

The Clinton crowd, warmed up by polka tunes on an accordion, was filled with mostly older women, a key demographic for the campaign, both here and nationally, and the most likely to caucus.

By contrast, the younger and more diverse audience that came to see Obama a few hours later at the Veterans Memorial Building was pumped up with the sounds of Motown. “This vibe is a little different, isn't it?” Hoyt offered. The crowd chanted -- and rewarded itself by applauding.

Obama directed the spotlight on a dozen of his Iowa organizers, inviting them onstage, embracing them and thanking them for the precinct-level work that ultimately will decide today's contest. And he sought to close the deal.

“At the end of our session here, a light bulb will go off,” Obama said. “A light will come down and you will have an epiphany. You're going to caucus for me.”

Asked for a show of hands, the crowd revealed itself to be nearly all first-time caucusgoers.

“We have to turn the page,” he instructed them. “We cannot win an election by living in fear of losing it.” He invoked Clinton's husband: “Bill Clinton was right in 1992. Barack Obama is right now.”

And then he turned his sights on Edwards, a former trial lawyer: “I turned down trial lawyering to become a civil attorney.”

Obama has repeatedly placed himself and his campaign in the canon of American history, and did so again Wednesday, ranking his candidacy alongside the abolition of slavery, victory in World War II and the civil rights struggle.

For his part, Edwards attracted an overflow crowd to a banquet room at the Marriott, promising a “tidal wave of change.”

The audience answered his remarks with chants: “Go John Go!”

Edwards referred to polls showing him as the most competitive Democrat in the general election and spoke with ferocity -- before joking about his Southern accent: “The last two presidents we elected -- Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton -- they both talk like this.”

He burnished his foreign policy knowledge, commenting on upheaval in Pakistan, saying, unlike President Bush, “I understand this in a serious, very substantive way.”

After taking some questions he exited to Bruce Springsteen's “The Rising.”

So who is Hoyt going to caucus for?

“I could be happy with any of them,” said Hoyt, who did not attend the Edwards event. “But I'm going back to Obama.”

Michael J. Mishak can be reached at 259-2347 or at michael.mishak@lasvegassun.com.