In whirlwind Iowa tour, Kerry aims for everyman's vote
DAVENPORT, Iowa -- It wasn't a Boston accent, no, but presidential candidate John F. Kerry suddenly began dropping his g's yesterday as he sought to project a common touch during his "Fighting for Working Americans" tour across Iowa.
Visiting union carpenters and painters at a construction site, Kerry declined to put a plastic hard hat on his carefully coiffed hair (a camera crew was taping him for a commercial), but he did drop the perfect elocution he honed at prep school, Yale, and during 19 years in the US Senate. He spoke of "goin' deer huntin"' and "goin' to war as a last resort," while "runnin' down the list" of President Bush's budget mistakes that had led to "cuttin' cops" and "shuttin' firehouses."
"If we're gonna make America fair, we gotta get somebody in there who understands what you folks are doin' every day," Kerry said of next year's presidential election. "We gotta get somebody in there who understands what it means to be a workin' person in America."
For a multimillionaire who recently decided to mortgage his Beacon Hill manse to help fund his struggling campaign, Kerry's lost g's were noteworthy as a symbol of his latest strategy to generate political momentum in Iowa. He is seeking the mantle of the average guy, speaking plainly about his hopes for America, during a 24-hour bus tour and events with voters in their workplaces. His advisers touted the 24 hours as a grueling schedule that would reflect Kerry's own taste for hard work and his commitment to "fight for every vote" to make a strong showing in Iowa's influential Jan. 19 caucuses.
Yet in many ways yesterday had all the trappings of a campaign gimmick. Kerry drew television cameras and other media to cover his 24 hours of campaign labor, but he had shaken only about 50 voters' hands by evening.
His staff, in turn, created a special Web page to raise $24,000 in Internet donations during the 24-hour Iowa tour. "$250 = one day of campaign expenses in Iowa," the Web page stated. "$25 = pizza for our volunteers in Iowa."
Aboard the bus, Kerry said that his 24-hour schedule was intended to show the "seriousness" of his campaign, and that he had asked his staff to schedule more events that would take him to varied parts of the state.
"I want to give people a sense that this is how I'll take the job [of president], this is how serious I think it is," Kerry said.
Kerry started the day in a closed-door meeting with about a dozen editors and reporters at a Davenport newspaper.
He then spent 15 minutes mingling at the construction site with about 45 union members, roughly half of whom, however, weren't actually Iowa voters, but workers from across the Mississippi River in Illinois. He laid out his views on health care, overtime pay, and college financial aid.
The construction site visit was highly staged by the Kerry campaign's standards, as a two-person camera crew taped Kerry's remarks for an upcoming commercial; afterward, the senator took part in an additional 90 minutes of filming. Then he rode his campaign bus for an hour to Cedar Rapids, where he visited the Waypoint shelter and day-care center for women and children. There he spoke to nine workers about their low wages, about $7 to $12 an hour. He also took questions from the children, such as one little boy, Quentin, who asked, "Where's your house?"
Kerry planned to spend the evening with firefighters and Democrats in Waterloo and later join in on some late-night bowling in Mason City.
Patrick Healy can be reached by e-mail at phealy@globe.com. 