5:06 and I'm at the Iowa Events Center awaiting the Edwardian arrival. "Edwards needs to hit a home run tonight," says Johnson County Democratic chair Brian Flaherty. "Iowa's considered his home turf, and tonight is the most attention Iowa will get until caucus night."
I've been on the ground in Des Moines for an hour and a half. On Sign War Row, Team Biden offered free dinner, while a young Dodd supporter stood atop a 30 foot high
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sign waving a hand lettered FREE BEER sign.
Des Moines attorney Nate Boulton, a Biden supporter, offers a two word reason: "Foreign policy." He's been a Democratic activist since high school, when he volunteered on my ill-fated legislative campaign in his hometown of Columbus Junction.
Charles Menge of Cedar Rapids was a 1987 Biden supporter, and was showing off pictures from JJ 1987, including Paul Simon -- the senator, not the Dodd-backing singer -- talking to a young college professor from Mt. Vernon named Loebsack.
Question on the mind of some activists: which candidate is going to redefine himself (no one thinks herself) tonight the way Kerry did in `03?
Violet Bakaler of Newton is a diehard Edwardian from back in `03. "He knows the woes of a working class person, and he's honest, honest, honest." She has two sons who worked at the now-closed Maytag plant. "When he came over right after Maytag closed, you could tell he was concerned about these people," says Nancy Douglas, also of Newton, while charging that the people who closed the plant were Obama supporters.
The efficient Edwards operation brief me on the post-speech drill: a march up to the main event. I witnessed the Obama march up the street a half hour ago, a block and a half of loud, mostly young people, led by a backwards-walking press corps and a popping Barack and Michelle. The Secret Service ruins most of my photos and I nearly walk into our own Chase Martyn. The Obama march looked impressive -- but so did the Dean bus caravan I was in four years ago.impressive
At 5:25, after several other introducers, David Bonior takes the stage. The ex-Hawkeye drops some football references (we got the Floyd of Rosedale win!) and has fun with the Hawkeye-Cyclone rivalry. "The most progressive candidate in this race today," he says. Plays the lobbyist card for several lines.
TV crews are squeezing in behind me as Bonior outlines the health care plan and dropping the End the War line.
Bonior says Edwards "is the only major candidate against NAFTA." Dennis would disagree, more on him later.
"Poll after poll has shown that John Edwards is the most electable candidate." National poll numbers will change "after we win Iowa."
Bonior is NOT introing Edwards, he's introing the MUSIC: Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys. So we detour to the Appalachians for some bluegrass. Wonder if John will still use Mellencamp at rallies after getting booed at the concert last night?
Ralph is riding the "Orange Blossom Special" to the White House, he says. As I live blog I wonder: how many e's in yeeeeeeeeeee-haw? That many, I guess.
There's a brief lull as Stanley finishes, and then unannounced Edwards is on stage. Roxanne Conlin is doing the intro but that's a formality. (Message: 'women don't have to be for Hillary', says the woman who would have been governor if she'd paid taxes in 1982.) Will she say it explicitly? They're in front of a giant flag, Patton-style.
5:52 and John is on. Music is Stevie Ray Vaughan, "The House Is Rockin'."
For the record, Elizabeth's fine.
Sounds like a mega-compressed stump speech, this time with a "tell the truth" cadence.
"I walked into that courtroom and I beat them, and I beat them and I beat them and I beat them, and I'll beat those corporate lobbyists and lawyers as President of the United States."
Name-checks Newton and Maytag.
"Are we in this together? Are we in this together?" He wraps after six minutes of the greatest hits mega-mix to the faithful. And we hear... "this is my country"! I guess he and Mellencamp are OK now.
I'll walk over with the Edwardians and see what I see.
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