The message Bush is missing in Iowa
DES MOINES
THE MOVEMENT to recall George W. Bush in 2004 is underway. Too bad the president will be skipping the Iowa caucuses. If he would campaign here and be exposed to thousands of close encounters of the agitated-voter kind, he would receive a rude wake-up call.
I have felt the ferment in Iowa. It was palpable at each of the 10 "Hear it from the heartland" public forums I conducted over the last several months with the Democratic presidential candidates. Voters are anxious. They feel our country is dangerously off course. And they are eager for big changes.
As Iowans grilled the candidates at the forums, one message came through loud and clear: It's still the economy, stupid. In spades. Even Iowans who have jobs are worried about losing them, especially in manufacturing. They are concerned by reports that poverty rates are rising, average incomes are falling, and millions more Americans are stranded without health insurance.
Folks also wonder how Bush could turn a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion into a projected deficit of $2.3 trillion. To families used to making painful budget choices around the kitchen table, this behavior just seems reckless.
More bad news for Bush: According to a recent New York Times poll, most Americans don't think their taxes are any lower than they were three years ago. Of course, if they are not millionaires, most of them are right.
Aside from jobs, the most important domestic issue for Iowans is health care -- access to health insurance and the skyrocketing cost of premiums. Owners of small businesses are being slammed by health insurance costs rising as much as 20 percent a year. And employees are outraged that increases in insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs are gobbling up whatever pay increases they earn.
Another surprise in Iowa this political season is a big surge in interest and participation on the part of young people in the 18-to-25 age group. They are volunteering, showing up at candidate forums, and pursuing nontraditional campaign activities such as on online blogs and "meet-ups" organized via the Internet.
Young Iowans I talk to have no problem mixing idealism and skepticism. They roll their eyes at a president whose "Clear Skies Initiative" is designed to allow utilities to pollute more freely and who claims that 35 attacks a day on American soldiers in Iraq is a sign of progress.
Early in the California recall process, bigwigs in Sacramento were dismissive of Arnold Schwarzenegger, just as the Bush crowd now disses the Democrats campaigning in Iowa. But millions of Americans who followed the "Heartland" forums on C-Span know better: this field of Democrats is exceptionally strong.
Sure, every four years pundits come up with their predictable put-downs of the Democrats and Republicans competing in the Iowa caucuses. The aspirants are derided as the "seven dwarfs," the "nine nobodies," and so on. That's nonsense. The whole point of the marathon campaign leading up to the caucuses is to allow Iowans to work their unique magic. And nobody does a better job of detecting which of the "dwarfs" in January is most likely to be a dragon slayer in November.
As Bill Clinton told 8,000 fired-up Democrats at my Steak Fry gathering in Iowa in September, "If people are telling you that these candidates are not `big,' what they really mean is that they're not famous yet."
Exactly. In early 1976, Jimmy Carter was not yet famous. Nor, in early 1992, was Clinton. But the following January, each man raised his right hand to be sworn in as president.
My reading of Iowa Democrats this year is that most are genuinely open-minded. They hunger for a candidate who will stand up and fight for core Democratic values, but they have no use for ranting and venting. Is "electability" on people's minds? You bet it is. As one Iowa activist put it: "This isn't about ideology this year. It's about beating Bush."
Bush seems confident that he can raise obscene sums of money and drown his opponent in an acid rain of negative TV ads. But this recall is not about money. It's about millions of new voters mobilizing to take back their country. This movement is palpable today in Iowa. And it will find a standard-bearer when Iowans conclude their caucuses on Jan. 19.
Tom Harkin is a Democratic senator from Iowa.
