I had the unique privilege of spending this past Monday evening in the heart of the American democratic process: the one-room Municipal Library in Albion, Iowa. On Thursday/Friday I had made the 21-hour trek from Raleigh, North Carolina to Ames, Iowa with around 40 other volunteers, mostly students from other North Carolina colleges. When I initially agreed to make the trip (and also, more strongly, about 15 hours into the trip) I thought myself to be as crazy as you may well think me. Nonetheless, what transpired was, at the perhaps unavoidable risk of sounding cliched and corny, one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life.
Our tasks the first few days consisted almost entirely of making phone calls and going to door to door to try to shore up support for our candidate. Since this process of systematic harassment had commenced long before our arrival and was being carried out by at least three other campaigns, some folks were, understandably, not too pleased to hear from us. The only frightening encounter, though, came not with a disgruntled Iowan but when a van full of Dean supporters, a cult-like crowd wearing bright orange hats and dressed from the neck down in black, pulled up beside me and a fellow volunteer and flung its doors open. I was certain they were going to kidnap and somehow brainwash into following their lord and master, but instead they just hissed at us (I swear I'm not making this up) and drove away.
Those voters who did want to discuss the issues or express their thanks or admiration, however, made all the angry rejections worthwhile. The process also became exceedingly more rewarding as we approached caucus night and shifted our focus from swaying undecided voters to rallying those who had expressed support for Edwards. This latter group was, not surprisingly, a more sympathetic lot, particularly when we would show up at their house out of the -15 degree wind chill and tell them how far we had come.
To provide a very brief overview of the caucus process: on caucus night, Iowa voters gather somewhere in their precinct to divide that precinct's delegates among the candidates. The room is divided into different preference groups, one for each candidate. Supporters of the different candidates, both voters and observers such as myself, are then allowed to try to win over people from other groups or undecided voters. When people are done realigning, the precinct's delegates are awarded in proportion to the number of supporters each candidate has.
When I first walked into the Albion Municipal Library, caucus location for Iowa and Taylor Townships in Marshall County, Iowa, things did not look good for John Edwards. The only person there when I arrived, apart from the librarian and a few children, was a woman hanging John Kerry signs and balloons. The next group to arrive was armed with Gephardt stickers and signs. As people filed in, I worked my way through the crowd, trying to keep a fairly low profile and not appear slick or pushy. While I overheard people here and there saying they were for Edwards, there were no signs, no stickers, no buttons; no visible signs of support for Edwards at all, save for the photo of him which hung by a piece of yarn from my neck. When the caucus chair called for the voters to break into preference groups, I feared the worst. To my pleasant surprise, as one woman went to the front to grab the "Edwards" sign, which the chair had printed up and nearly half the room followed her to our corner.
Before sending the volunteers out to our precincts, the paid campaign staff gave us instruction in the art of deal-making, different ways of trading support or winning over undecideds based more on process than principles. As things unfolded on caucus night, the caucus strategy briefing moved further and further from my thoughts, particularly as I listened to people discuss why they were supporting a certain candidate. I do not mean at all to sound condescending when I say that it just didn't seem right to discuss any coolly calculated deals with people who were supporting a certain candidate because they believed that person was best equipped and most willing to save their job, or simply because they had heard him speak and trusted him at a gut level. As things worked out, simple logistics played more to my advantage than any strategy session ever could have. The precinct's lone uncommitted voter and the four Dean supporters, not enough for Dean to win even a single delegate, all happened to be standing near the Edwards area, and no one from the Kerry or Gephardt groups made any effort to win these people over. Other than one Dean supporter who saw this as an opportunity to duck out early, they were all easy converts. The undecided woman told me the most important issues to her were the loss of factory jobs and health care, two of the issues Senator Edwards is strongest on. After reciting some biography and quoting some proposals, she was on board. The remaining Dean enthusiasts, who had been instructed to back Dean by their union representatives, all said that Edwards had been their second choice going in, but I like to think I cemented their support by pointing out that he had the highest rating from the AFL-CIO of all the candidates. When all was said and done, Senator Edwards won five of the 10 delegates from the Iowa-Taylor precinct, with Dick Gephardt taking three and John Kerry two.
Because Edwards had done so well in the library, I was a little disappointed when I learned that he had only finished 2nd, even though the 32 percent of caucus goers he won quadrupled his poll numbers from only two weeks before. Within the Edwards camp, I was alone in feeling disappointed. I was one of the last to arrive back at the Ames headquarters on caucus night, and when I arrived the celebration was in full swing as people shared war stories and congratulated one another. Putting aside the whole "helping to change the course of the nation" aspect, the displays of elation on the part of this group of people whom I had labored with, and grown rather fond of over the past four days was enough to make all the travel and all the work worth it. And, I must admit, although while the Edward's campaign prides itself on its reputation as "the positive campaign," the somber mood emanating from the Dean headquarters next door didn't exactly hurt.
Anthony Resnick is a Trinity sophomore. His column appears every third Thursday.
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