Bill Richardson

Woop! Since the last time I posted, I’ve seen three candidates: Bill Richardson, gov of New Mexico; Chris Dodd, good senator from Conn. (as opposed to crazy Joe Lieberman); and John Edwards again for a short stop at the Mill. (That makes four senators and a governor, one of the senators twice, from 9 pm Tuesday to noon today, or 39 hours of presidential candidates.) I should say that everywhere I go, people are talking about the candidates and the caucus. This is not a "media creation" and this is not some elitist thing. And also, everywhere I go, people are undecided but leaning toward Edwards or Obama or Dodd. (Which is weird — where's Hillary Clinton in all of this?)

Also: Hot talking points for the Dems have been:
• taking back the Constitution
• an America we can be proud of again
• giving services to the wounded troops and civilians
• killing No Child Left Behind
• universal health care or some kind of health care plan.

Oops, let me back up: Bill Richardson was coming to the Mill (site of many a Greg Brown concert, among other things, though what I mostly remember from it is many nights of trying to find something decently healthy to eat during concerts and poetry readings) at 8:30 last night, so we popped down for dinner around 6:45. (I’m so, so happy our friends are undecided and still want to see all of the candidates!) Last night, it was colder than the proverbial you know what, but around 150-200 people packed into the Mill’s (finally nonsmoking) back room, and we were glad to have been there early. (I'd post a picture, but I can't force it to go in the right direction for some reason. Halp, James and Molly!)

A weirdly boring blues band played for a while, and I plugged my phone in behind the bar to charge so I could get the exciting photos that you can't see just yet. We mixed healthy spinach salad with cheese fries and jalapeno poppers for a mixed Iowa/Oregon-ish experience.

Edwards’ stop on Jan. 2 began with his wife speaking, then Mary Culver (gov’s wife), then John. Obama’s started with young, organized campaign dudes. Richardson? He had a military pilot who had been a prisoner in the Sudan, an older guy now, whom Richardson had helped get out of the country. The guy said, “I was a lifelong Republican until I met Bill Richardson.”

So he went on about Richardson’s foreign policy experience and courage. All of this time, Richardson was on stage, quite close to where we were sitting, and he was looking at some notes that later on turned out to be the counties in Iowa he had visited in the past 48 hours (I think). And where Clinton was wearing a nice skirt and blouse (I think — we were farther from her than from anyone else we’ve seen), Obama an open-necked shirt and jacket, Edwards the same (and Chris Dodd this morning a full suit), Richardson? He’s the governor of New Mexico. You know, the West. (As a matter of fact, if you're reading this blog, you probably do know.) That means ix-nay on the uit-says, I guess; he wore his shirt untucked, and it had leather elbowpatches, and he wasn’t wearing a jacket. I found that kind of impressive (perhaps because I chose to live in casual country; I mean, there’s a reason for that!) Turns out someone on the radio this morning said she thought the same thing, and combined with his generous informality on stage AND his foreign policy experience, it changed her to caucus for him. He spoke a lot about environmental issues, including saying, “I mean, 30 miles per gallon? That’s pathetic!” If I didn’t think he was such a nuclear power proponent, I would have fallen for him right then. (This Grist interview addresses some of the issues though not super-critically. Hey, maybe I'm totally wrong!)

We had to sleep sometime, and I was frozen by the time we got back through the crazy cold.

Speaking of foreign policy experience, anyone who made it to Chris Dodd’s campaign stop at the same coffee shop where Edwards was yesterday (Dodd’s was at 8 this morning) might have changed her mind to caucus for him. Besides the firefighters who lined the stage and the East Coast folks near me in the audience and the press corps, I’d say there were about 95-125 people there. Yes, it was the smallest crowd so far, but damn. Dodd knows his stuff. I mean, he knows his stuff. Peace Corps and military service both combined with years of Senate work. His wife, Jackie Clegg Dodd, came out after Iowa City’s youngish (our friends say he’s in his lower 40s, but he looked pretty young!) city council person Matt Hayek (sp? Will check soon) talked for a long time about why he was supporting Dodd. Jackie Dodd was also quite convincing (“Chris has gotten seven pieces of legislation passed this year, and that’s more than the top three candidates combined have ever gotten passed,” well, that there’s a good point), and then Dodd spoke.

He talked about how the new president won’t have time to get up to speed and talked about how Benazir Bhutto had called him when she was under house arrest and asked for his help. Though that seemed a little disingenuous, it was still impressive. He talked about Darfur also and about legislation he had gotten passed. I don’t know why he hasn’t gotten more attention, possibly because he IS totally qualified? (But, as I thought with Richardson, I think he’s running for a cabinet position, really. Though the conventional wisdom on Richardson, who has already been a member of the cabinet [of Bill Clinton], is that he’s running to be Hillary’s VP candidate.)

That was my fifth candidate in three days, and though I liked both Dodd and Richardson, and though Obama was moving and well-coordinated, and though Hillary Clinton is my super-strong second choice, I’m an Edwards fan through and through. He’s the only one who said a word about corporations. He’s the only one who talks about the gap between CEO pay and the pay of the average worker. He’s the only one who talks about the ways these things destroy the American, blue-collar dream; he’s not stuck only talking about the middle class; he’s devoted. And so I returned to the Mill, with yet-undecided friends in tow. I admit to an ulterior motive: After every candidate we saw, they’d say, “Well, I think person X might be it!” and I really, really wanted the last candidate they saw to be John Edwards. They didn’t come with the two Oregonians (that is, me and someone else) to see him yesterday, and they sure as hell didn’t come with me this morning to Dodd (I’m just so excited to have these chances, you know? It’s damn exciting! I can't stop going to candidate things! I haven't even seen my friends. It's so wrong. Yet it's a political junkie's dream three days ... ). So.

’Twas the shortest campaign appearance yet, as he came in, talked with people, shook hands, answered people's questions (one woman was crying, and whispered her question in his ear, and he said, "I'm sorry; I'm so, so, sorry," and I think she decided to vote for him after that — the Bill Clinton tradition, which worked well here) gave a last-minute appeal. "We're all in this together, we're in this with you, and you know what this is all about: this is about changing America, this is about fighting to change America. It's about being able to be proud of this country we live in, to make an America where our children can succeed." He asked people to make calls, get friends to the caucus, get to the caucuses early: "We need you to be on time, we need you to be present, because you are the ambassadors for the change that we've vbeen fighting for. You are the agents of that change. We're going to start a movement here in Iowa that everyone of us can be proud of." Then he took off for Cedar Rapids.

But as he left, Elizabeth Edwards moved back to chat with the crowd where we were, and she, just being herself, charmed the HELL out of the friends, who were already leaning toward Edwards. Well, at least one of them now says her first choice is still Obama, but that her very strong second choice is Edwards. It’s my desire now to get her moved over; her partner already seems moved over. We’ll see. There are four hours before the caucuses supposedly start (2 now that I'm finally at a place where the wireless is strong enough to post the blog) though it seems that they will be ultra-crowded and might be overwhelmed with people and start late.

I'm going to charge up the laptop so I can live-blog, if that's possible, the caucus tonight (Iowa City precinct 15, I think, though I might switch among precincts if that's possible).

UPDATE: Just walked into the house, and the formerly-Obama-Edwards-as-a-second-choice person has switched to Edwards. Wow. But of course, anything could happen tonight! (Except that I don't think Dodd or Richardson, Kucinich or Gravel, has a chance.) Also, I'm about to give the other friend my sound file of Edwards yesterday at the coffeeshop. Next up: Caucus liveblog if at all possible!