Kisses in the heartland, kicks at home

IS SOMETHING besides corn growing in those cornfields?

Last weekend, Senator John Kerry and Governor Mitt Romney spent time politicking in the Hawkeye State. Afterward, David Yepsen, the influential political columnist for The Des Moines Register, put the good word out for both, under the headline, ``Massachusetts duo turning some heads in Iowa."

For Kerry and Romney, it's kisses in the heartland, kicks at home.

On Monday in Faneuil Hall, Kerry delivered an eight-page speech on healthcare. Massachusetts yawned.

Over the weekend in Iowa, Democrats flocked to a sweltering backyard in Story City to hear him speak. In his Aug. 1 column, Yepsen pronounced Kerry ``sharper and more populist" and also observed that the senator's stump speeches ``contain more humor than the wonkish dissertations he served up four years ago."

In Massachusetts, Democrats groan and roll their eyes with every statement from camp Kerry indicating another presidential run. In Iowa, Yepsen wrote, ``the crowd . . . didn't seem dismissive. With polls showing Kerry already running in third place among likely caucusgoers in Iowa, nobody else should be. . . . Kerry is hoping his party will give him one more chance, and the first people who could help give it to him are in Iowa."

He was even more positive about Romney.

In Massachusetts, the public is growing bored with Romney's undisputed mastery of engineering technicalities relating to the collapse of Big Dig ceiling panels. The local press is also starting to ask where Romney was for the last 3 1/2 years, while Big Dig problems were building up to the point of this summer's tragedy. But in Iowa, Yepsen notes that ``Romney wins good reviews for his can-do style and upbeat message."

Yepsen labeled the Massachusetts governor ``the best organized of any of the GOP presidential candidates in Iowa." He said Romney's Mormon faith appears to be helping, not hurting him in Iowa. And he quoted a GOP activist who said Romney reminded her of Ronald Reagan.

``That Reagan standard is a tough one for any Republican to meet. If Romney's meeting it . . . he's well on his way toward winning the 2008 Iowa Republican caucuses," concluded Yepsen. It really doesn't get any better than that for a Republican presidential hopeful, does it?

The preferred script for the next presidential election is a clash between vodka-drinking buddies: Senator Hillary Clinton, Democrat of New York, vs. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. The script is complicated by Iowa. A June poll of Democratic caucusgoers put Clinton in second place, behind John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina. On the Republican side, McCain led a May poll of likely caucusgoers, garnering 26 percent; Romney had support from 3 percent. However, more than half those surveyed were undecided, and the possible entrance of former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani further complicates results. Could Iowa ultimately set up Kerry vs. Romney instead? Yepsen might be on to something.

Kerry's too-long healthcare speech in Boston was delivered to a friendly audience that included the last of the true Kerry believers -- brother Cam Kerry, fund-raiser Bob Crowe, and a small army of young Kerry operatives sporting ``JK" pins on their shirt collars. But, just as Yepsen observed in Iowa, Kerry's presentation in Faneuil Hall was sharper, the content was less wonkish, and the speech included some pretty good lines, which Kerry spoke with humor and style. Given his new antiwar message, it is conceivable that Kerry could stage another comeback in the heartland.

As for Romney, there is something Reaganesque in his speech inflection. Unlike Reagan, Romney does not generally need cue cards. However, his unfortunate use of the phrase ``tar baby" during his last Iowa trip (even though Kerry once used the same phrase) suggests he needs to temper his natural glibness with more thoughtfulness. The Big Dig may also catch up with Romney in a negative way on the presidential trail; McCain, a longtime critic of the public works project, certainly has a vested interest in making it an issue. But for now the Massachusetts governor exudes can-do confidence, especially when he is beyond Massachusetts and its hypercritical media.

Still, the Iowa press can be critical, too. On June 11, Yepsen wrote a column about Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack and his presidential dreams. It was headlined: ``Vilsack faces steep climb." In it, Yepsen noted that ``some Iowans think Vilsack is a tad delusional for even thinking he is presidential material."

No wonder politicians long to hit the road, far from home.

Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com.