Anyone watch the Republicans debate tonight? I liked Letterman's line after their first debate–seeing those guys together on stage is like looking at the evil law firm from a John Grisham movie.

I'll be watching later, after kids are in bed. 

Deeth's liveblog is over at Iowa Independent.

If you caught it, who do you think were the winners and losers?

Any references to Newt or Fred Thompson? Rumor has it Newt is going to endorse Fred and try to be the brains behind that operation. What do you think–could Newt be Fred's Cheney? 

Speaking of Republicans, there's an interesting diary up at Daily Kos now, called Ron Paul hates you. For the record, I have never been a fan of Ron Paul, although i did think he performed well in the first Republican debate, in terms of putting forward a coherent ideology. 

UPDATE: Chris Dodd's campaign put up this graphic to call attention to the unequal allocation of time in the debate:

CNN, time to rein in Wolf Blitzer.  

Chris Bowers has the numbers on the Democratic side at MyDD:

Iowa, May 30, 1,238 likely caucus goers, MoE 2.7%. No trendlines
Edwards: 31
Clinton: 17
Obama: 17
Richardson: 10
Biden: 4
Kucinich: 2
Dodd: 1
Gravel: 0
Undecided: 10
Six poll Iowa average: Edwards 27.7%, Clinton 22.8%, Obama 19.8%, Richardson 8.3%

He notes that this polling firm uses automated phone calls.

Political Wire notes:

On the Republican side, Romney is at the front with 31% support, while Fred Thompson comes in second with 15%, followed by Newt Gingrich with 10%, John McCain with 9% and Rudy Giuliani with 8%

I don't know whether Clinton and Obama are really that far back in Iowa, but I think it's fair to say that the recent ARG poll showing Clinton 31, Edwards 26 and Obama 11 was an outlier. 

ARG's likely voter screen for Iowa must be very screwed up. Their results have been very different from most of the other polling here all year.

Meanwhile, go read John Deeth's latest post to see why it's so hard to identify likely caucus-goers. Also, it's getting harder to get random samples in polls because increasing numbers of people either refuse to respond to pollsters or have only cell phones.

I imagine that Obama does quite well among the “only have a cell phone” crowd, so polls may be understating his support.

But if I were Obama, I would fire the scheduler who put him at a west-coast fundraiser instead of in Cedar Rapids on Saturday night. That was a crazy decision. He's rolling in money and is probably going to outraise Clinton in the second quarter. He's trailing in the Iowa polls and should have taken that opportunity to make the sale with party activists.

Ordinary voters won't care a bit about who came to the Hall of Fame dinner. But every one of the 1,000 people who attended can probably influence at least a dozen friends and neighbors. 

 I'm taping the debate and will watch it later, after kids are in bed.

Meanwhile, tell us what you think–who won?

Who surprised you?

Whose supporters will be cringing?

UPDATE: Deeth's liveblog is here: http://jdeeth.blogsp…

SECOND UPDATE: I watched the rerun on CNN. By the way, in case you missed it,  you can find the transcript on the CNN site here:

http://transcripts.c…

Several candidates did well, and I don't think anyone made any big mistakes.

The format was much better than the first debate on MSNBC, and most of the questions were not bad, although Wolf did toss out some really stupid ones, like the hypothetical trying to trick them into saying they would or wouldn't bomb Osama bin Laden if innocent people would die in the attack.

Quick reaction, taking the candidates in alphabetical order:

Joe Biden helped himself. He's got a lot of experience on the Sunday talk shows, and he knows how to answer a question in 60 seconds. Also, on a superficial level, if you are not listening closely to the content of his answers, he sounds confident and forceful. He comes across as a strong candidate, not a guy hovering between the second and third tiers. The substance of his answers was pretty good too. My favorite moment was when he took the question about earmarks and tied it to public financing of elections–big money in politics is obviously behind most of those middle-of-the-night earmarks that could not withstand scrutiny.

Hillary Clinton did ok, but to me she sounded more defensive than she did during the first debate. I thought she handled the trick question about don't ask, don't tell well. I sense that she is playing these debates not to lose, and is mainly focused on avoiding big mistakes. She looked mad when Edwards emphasized that he was wrong to vote for the war, and that Obama was right. Edwards was pointing toward Obama, saying he was right, but from the perspective of the cameras, it looked like he was pointing at Clinton, who was standing in between Edwards and Obama. 

Chris Dodd had substantive answers to the questions, but he is less animated as a speaker than some of the others. He didn't get as much time to answer questions, which was a bit unfair. I liked how he said the first thing he would do as president would be to restore some of our constitutional freedoms, and he would do that on the first day. At some point, I think Dodd is going to have to take a bigger risk in a debate to try to get some media coverage, because right now they don't seem to give him the time of day.

John Edwards helped himself. Like Biden, he came across as a strong and confident speaker. He went out of his way to draw distinctions between himself and the others, and Clinton in particular. He answered the questions well, and on a few occasions got the discussion back on track after it had meandered away from the original question. I liked the line about how the job of the president is to lead, not to legislate. I liked how he pointed out that Clinton and Obama didn't announce in advance whether they would vote for or against the recent Iraq war supplemental funding bill. 

Mike Gravel stuck to form as the angry old man, calling out everyone serving in Congress, and saying Americans need to “grow up” and get used to paying more for gasoline. Although he is not running a real campaign outside of these debates, I am glad he is up there showing everyone what a real liberal looks like (hint to wingnuts: Hillary Clinton is not a real liberal).

Dennis Kucinich has a coherent message and is playing a similar role to Gravel in this campaign. He is going to get a negligible number of votes, even fewer than in 2004, but he is up there showing what the left of the Democratic Party  looks like. His best moment was when he advocated for a single-payer health care system rather than a for-profit system. Unfortunately, there is no chance in hell that single payer could ever pass the Congress.

Barack Obama seemed subdued. He comes across as calm and confident, and he answered the questions well, but I am not sure that he made up any ground on Clinton. It's going to be a little tough for him, because he is running as a different kind of politician who can unite us, and that image would take a beating if he started attacking his rivals. But at some point he may need to come across a little more forcefully (a la Biden) if he wants to dent Hillary's inevitability campaign in New Hampshire. My favorite moment was when he rejected the premise of the question about English as an official language. It played to the image he is trying to cultivate as a uniter, but more important, it was a step toward holding journalists accountable for the framing of their questions.

Bill Richardson's performance was an improvement on the first debate, but he still seemed a little uncomfortable cramming his answers into 60 seconds or less. I liked that he mentioned solar and other forms of renewable energy, not just ethanol. I don't think he made the sale with many people tonight, but I don't think he said anything to inspire undecideds to cross him off their list either. I don't think he's convincing when he says you can get universal health care without any tax increases. A little more straight talk is in order here.

Responding to my post on the Obama health care proposal, Obama supporter RF wrote this:

I think we definitely need to know what ideas the candidates have on the major issues, have an idea where each candidate would like to take us.  But political reality is that the president will need to work with Congress on all legislation.  No president will ever get exactly what s/he wants in any piece of legislation.  It’s like obsessing about grammar and style in a rough first draft or an outline of an article, knowing that it will be completely rewritten.

Obviously any president will need to work with Congress. But it is very important to know what the president's starting point for negotiations will be.

I am a lousy negotiator, because I try to figure out what a fair compromise is, and that's my first offer. I have made that mistake several times in my life.

Look at Bush's record of legislative success. He puts in every bad idea on the Republican wish list, and he ends up getting almost everything he asks for. He doesn't say, Congress would never pass that extreme an energy bill. He just keeps asking for everything, even highly controversial things like drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. In the end, ANWR was excluded from the bill, but Bush got all the other bad stuff he wanted.

Similar story on taxes. Bush has asked for all manner of ridiculous, unaffordable tax cuts. He kept asking, even if Congress didn't immediately pass what he asked for. At this point, the only thing he couldn't get through was the permanent repeal of the estate tax. But he aimed high and got almost everything else he wanted.

Hillary Clinton's starting point on health care will be a few nibbles here and there, trying to get health insurance for some portion of the enormous uninsured population. Even if Congress gave her everything she asked for (which wouldn't happen), we would be far from universal access to health care.

Barack Obama's plan seems much better than Hillary's, and more detailed, but from what I have read, it is also less than a universal plan, and it lacks some of the elements I like in Edwards' plan.

I am under no illusion that Congress would rubber-stamp what Edwards asks for, but I feel quite confident that he will drive a hard bargain and get us the best possible deal for health care. I feel that Clinton and Obama will not push Congress as hard on this issue. 

On energy policy, so far Dodd, Richardson and Edwards have offered the most ambitious proposals to combat global warming. No doubt these would not get through Congress intact, but it is very important to aim high (e.g. policies that would achieve an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050).

So bring on the details, I say, and tell us what your legislative priorities would be. 

Yesterday Barack Obama released his health care plan. I didn't have time to blog about it, let alone read it, so I can't give you my impressions yet. I am glad he released a plan, because a robust debate over who has the best plan to improve our health care system can only be good for the country and for the Democratic Party.

The Des Moines Register's story on the plan is here.

The Financial Times covers the plan here.

Obama supporter “Democratic Luntz” makes the case on Daily Kos for why this is a great plan.

Ezra Klein, one of the blogosphere's leading wonks on health care policy, doesn't seem too impressed. At his blog and at the American Prospect, he notes that the plan would not achieve universal health care coverage and doesn't provide a public health insurance option that would be available to all Americans.  

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) was quoted by the Financial Times as saying,

“The Obama plan relies heavily on the current employer-based system, which leaves workers at risk of losing their healthcare if they lose or change their jobs,” said Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator for Oregon. “It also puts US companies and workers at a disadvantage in the long term when they have to compete in a global economy against overseas companies whose workers get their healthcare paid by their government.”

California nurses' advocate Shum Preston slammed Obama's plan in a diary posted at MyDD:

This is the worst of all worlds.  On the one hand, we will continue to see patients abused by insurance industry execs–the very same abuse SiCKO documents.  On the other hand, insurance companies continue to run their plans–meaning we will continue to see astronomical medical inflation, bankruptcy, heartache, and repeated denials of care–BUT the federal government will find themselves on the hook for the sickest and most expensive patients.

I know some Obama fans read this blog. What do you think of the plan? Were you disappointed that it is not universal, or do you think Obama's critics are being too harsh?

I believe that the next president is going to have to make health care a priority, and should start with a universal plan. Perhaps it couldn't all get through Congress in one go, and you'd have to do some reforms piecemeal.

But I worry about Obama's decision to propose a plan that's less than universal. Your starting point for negotiations shouldn't be the reasonable compromise you think Congress might pass. 

This taps into my biggest concern about Obama, my sense that in his devotion to “consensus,” he would give half the game away before negotiations with Congress even begin. The president needs to aim high.

Yesterday I put up a diary on MyDD and Daily Kos called Hey, bloggers! Get active on newspaper sites, about the need to participate in online forums created by traditional media.

We cannot cede this ground to the Republicans, because many active voters will never venture into the political blogosphere. They may log on to their local newspaper's website to read up on the news, however.

I urge all active Democrats to register and comment occasionally on at least one or two local media websites.

After the jump I am posting web links for the major newspapers in Iowa. Local tv should not be ignored either. 

Remember to be respectful; some rants that might amuse regular blog readers would just be offensive to others. 

It's been years since I watched Meet the Press. Partly this is because we have a no-tv rule in our house when children are awake, but it even predates that rule, because I cannot stand Tim Russert. His whole M.O. is so dishonest. One “gotcha” question after another when he's interviewing a Democrat, while Republicans lie with impunity, knowing that he will never ask a decent follow-up.

The least surprising tidbit to emerge from the Scooter Libby trial was that the VP's office would send Cheney to Meet the Press whenever they had a particularly good talking point they needed to get out in the public discourse. Russert is the last journalist in Washington who would ever speak truth to power.

So I didn't catch Bill Richardson on Meet the Press yesterday. I heard from my brother that he had a rough ride. It was the usual Russert game of trying to catch a Democrat in contradictions, and it sounds like Richardson wasn't that well prepared for the ordeal.

I don't care enough to watch the replay on MSNBC's website, but if you care to, here is the link.

One thing caught my attention, though. My brother e-mailed me this:

It was also funny to hear Richardson say that he was a life-long Boston Red Sox fan, yet Russert then pulled out Richardson's book and read a passage in which Richardson said that his favorite team was the New York Yankees.

I haven't watched a Major League Baseball game on television in a couple of seasons. To humor my brother, my husband let our pre-schooler watch about a half-hour of the World Series last fall. 

Which is to say, I am not a big sports fan.

But even I know that you can't say the Yankees are your favorite team if you are a lifelong Red Sox fan. Maybe you grew up in New England and now live in a new city, and you're a fan of your town's team in addition to the Red Sox. I can see that. But it's unlikely that another team could ever become your favorite if you are a lifelong Red Sox fan, and especially not the Yankees.

Even if a lifelong Packers fan settles down in the Twin Cities, I'll bet he will never say that the Vikings are his favorite team.

What I really want to know is, why would Richardson write in a book that the Yankees are his favorite team if he's really a Red Sox fan? And if he's not really a Red Sox fan, why would he claim to be, knowing that a journalist could open his book and read a reference to the Yankees?

My husband's theory is that the book was ghost-written, and Richardson either didn't know or forgot that there was a reference to the Yankees in there.

Political Wire linked to this Boston Globe story on Richardson's dual loyalties, quoting him as saying, 

“I've always been a Red Sox fan. But I said if I weren't running for president, I would like to be No. 7 — Mickey Mantle — playing center field for the New York Yankees.”My favorite team has always been the Red Sox,” he said, then added, “I'm also a Yankees fan. . . . This is the thing about me. I can bring people together.”

On one level, this baseball team business is trivia. But anyone who wants to be the Democratic nominee better be able to handle a tough television interview from Russert or anyone else.

Fortunately for Richardson, I don't think many Iowans were watching yesterday, and if they were, they probably didn't care. (Dean also “bombed” in his first Meet the Press appearance, which didn't stop him from catapulting to the front-runner spot in the summer of 2003). 

Tom Vilsack has long perplexed me. He's a talented politician who pulled off a couple of impressive election victories–especially 2002, when he had a moderate opponent in a terrible year for Democrats nationwide. What's more, he's an incredibly smart, hard-working guy. But I never could figure out his priorities as governor.

Why did he go to the mat for the “Values Fund,” corporate welfare masquerading as an economic development plan? Why did he not do more for the environment? And in particular, why was he always pushing biotech and “pharma-crops” that could contaminate food grown in Iowa and destroy the markets that Iowa farmers depend on? Why was he nowhere on any of the policies sustainable agriculture advocates have been calling for, which would be great for local economies and family farmers, as well as easier on the land?

I just didn't get it.

Then he started running for president. I took his candidacy at face value–like many senators and governors, he thought he could do a good job as president and figured, why not try, even if it is a long shot? I even defended him on some of the blogs when people would accuse him of being nothing more than a stalking horse for Hillary Clinton (trying to take Iowa out of play or at least weaken Edwards here).

Vilsack talked a good game when he was running for president. I liked what he said about a lot of issues, including Iraq. The joke in my circle of friends was that Vilsack was sounding a lot better as a presidential candidate than he had as governor. I settled on Edwards as a candidate, but a few progressives I know, including my husband, were considering Vilsack.

When Vilsack dropped out early, I thought he did the honorable thing by giving his staff opportunities to get good jobs with the other campaigns. And I agreed with what he said about the role of money in politics, even though I thought he came pretty late to that party. I don't recall ever hearing him talk about public financing or clean elections reforms as governor.

Cynics immediately assumed that Vilsack would endorse Clinton–a done deal. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. But boy was I disappointed. For someone who staked his campaign on getting us out of Iraq immediately, he found it amazingly easy to endorse the Democrat with the worst positioning on the Iraq issue. If Hillary Clinton has said or done anything to help us start withdrawing troops before March 2009, I don't know what that is.

And if Vilsack really cares about the influence of money in politics, why did he turn around and endorse the favorite candidate of corporate lobbyists and low-lifes such as Rupert Murdoch?

Reading reports of his campaign appearances with Clinton, I felt disappointed and just tired of his song and dance.

The Des Moines Register ran a big story talking up Vilsack's role in the Clinton campaign. But guess what? He didn't have coat tails when we repeatedly failed to retake the Iowa House and Senate during his governorship. And Clinton hasn't been gaining in the Iowa polls following Vilsack's departure from the race.

My hunch is that Iowans are going to prove one more time that endorsements don't win the caucuses.  

But here's the part of the article that bugged me the most:

Their personal connection through Christie Vilsack's late brother, Tom Bell, and Vilsack's loyalty to Clinton for campaigning with him at a key point in his 1998 long-shot bid for governor, were key to a decision aides described as automatic.

If his friendship with the Clintons and ambition for the VP slot or a cabinet post are that important, then he shouldn't have wasted other people's time and money on his presidential bid. Everyone has known for a long time that Hillary was running for president. Vilsack just wasn't serious about taking her on, and it makes all of his presidential campaign rhetoric–especially on Iraq–look empty.

Reminds me of why I voted for Mark McCormick in the 1998 gubernatorial primary. 

Note to the campaigns: if you want to publicize any debate-watching parties you have planned, feel free to put up a diary, or e-mail me:

desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com

Closer to the time, I will post information on the debate-watching parties going on in Iowa.

Anyone out there planning to attend the Hall of Fame dinner in Cedar Rapids on June 2? I won't be able to make it, and it would be great to hear some first-hand impressions after the fact.

I forgot to post event details in advance of Hillary Clinton's visit to north-central and northwest Iowa this weekend. According to the Des Moines Register, she didn't sound like a candidate planning to skip the caucuses:

“I'm going to spend so much time in Iowa, I'm going to be able to caucus for myself,” she said.

The comment sparked chuckles from audiences in Mason City, Charles City and Algona. But it was as close as she came to acknowledging the dust-up last week over campaign strategy.

Clinton is in a bind. She is unlikely to win Iowa and may come in third or worse, if Richardson were to make a move and Obama continues to gain strength.

But announcing that she is going to skip Iowa makes her look weak and reinforces the idea that she would not run well in the swing states. What state carried by Bush in 2004 would she win, if she is afraid to compete among Iowa Democrats?

So the best strategy for her would be to publicly make a play for Iowa while quietly trying to reduce Iowa's influence. And the obvious way to do that was suggested by her deputy campaign manager, Mike Henry, in the memo that advocated skipping Iowa. As summarized by TPM Cafe's Sunday election roundup, the salient fact is that

before Iowa and New Hampshire even vote, potentially millions of absentee ballots will already have been sent out in the larger states voting on February 5. “Iowans will not be the first to vote … We must fund an expensive paid communications and a vote by mail/early vote program in these mega-states,” Henry wrote.

This is in my mind the biggest current problem for Edwards and Obama as they try to derail the Hillary inevitability train. They have to hope that she drops in the national polls well before the end of the year. Otherwise she could rack up a big lead in early voting in places like Florida, Calilfornia, and New York, helping her compensate for potentially poor performances in Iowa and New Hampshire. 

John and Elizabeth Edwards will be in eastern Iowa this weekend. Here's the scoop, along with a web link and a phone number for those who want to RSVP for the events.

If you catch one of these, please consider putting up a diary to let us know what you thought.

UPDATE: John Deeth liveblogged Edwards' appearance in Washington county today–read all about it here.

UPDATE 2: Nate Willems describes Edwards' event in Buchanan county here. 

UPDATE 3: Noneed4thneed caught Edwards in Marengo; click here for the write-up.

And Essential Estrogen posted this account of Edwards' stop in Vinton.  

All the details are below. To learn more or to let us know if you plan to attend, click here:  www.johnedwards.com/iowa/events

FRIDAY, MAY 25TH, 2007

 8:15 AM
 John Edwards to hold a community meeting
 Comfort Inn
 6169 Reve Court
Fort Madison, Iowa

 10:30 AM
 John Edwards to hold a community meeting
 Hotel Manning
100 Van Buren Street
 Keosauqua, Iowa

 12:15 PM
 John and Elizabeth Edwards to hold a community meeting
 Fairfield Public Library
104 W Adams Ave
 Fairfield, Iowa

 2:00 PM
 John and Elizabeth Edwards to hold a community meeting
 Midwest Old Threshers Museum
 405 E Threshers Road
Mount Pleasant, Iowa

 5:45 PM
 John and Elizabeth Edwards to hold a community meeting
 Washington County Fair Building
2223 250th Street
 Washington, Iowa

SATURDAY, MAY 26TH, 2007

 9:15 AM
 John and Elizabeth Edwards to hold a community meeting
 Marengo Public Library
1020 Marengo Avenue
 Marengo, Iowa

 11:45 AM
 John and Elizabeth Edwards to hold a community meeting
 Vinton Public Library
510 2nd Avenue
 Vinton, Iowa

 1:45 PM
 John and Elizabeth Edwards to hold a community meeting
 Independence Middle School
1301 1st St West
 Independence, Iowa

 5:15 PM
 John and Elizabeth Edwards to hold a community meeting
 Wartburg College Saemann Student Center
 100 Wartburg Blvd
Waverly, Iowa

SUNDAY, MAY 27TH, 2007

 11:00 AM
 John and Elizabeth Edwards to hold a community meeting
New Hampton Community Center
112 E Spring Street
 New Hampton, Iowa

 1:00 PM
 John and Elizabeth Edwards to hold a community meeting
 Hotel Winneshiek – Steyer Opera House
104 Water Street
 Decorah, Iowa

 3:30 PM
 John and Elizabeth Edwards to hold a community meeting
 The Dancing Lion
110 S. Frederick Avenue
 Oelwein, Iowa

 5:15 PM
 John and Elizabeth Edwards to hold a community meeting
 Delaware County Fairgrounds Community Center
200 E. Acers Street
 Manchester, Iowa

 These events are free and open to the public. Please let us know if you plan to attend by clicking here:

www.johnedwards.com/iowa/events

 For more information visit www.johnedwards.com/iowa/events or email iowa@johnedwards.com or call 515-288-0766.

Joe Biden's got a lot of Iowa events scheduled during the coming week. He is covering a lot of ground, so there may well be an event near you. If you catch one, put up a diary and let us all know what you thought.

They are definitely trying to get a big crowd for his Tuesday lunch address in Des Moines. I got an invitation in the mail and a personal phone call. Unfortunately, with my two young kids it doesn't work out for me to head downtown for an hour on Tuesday at lunchtime. 

I got these events from the public calendar on Biden's campaign website:

Saturday May 26, 2007
 
1:00 PM                     SEN. BIDEN TO HOLD IRAQ TOWN HALL WITH COUNCIL BLUFFS DEMOCRATS
 
                                    National Guard Armory
                                    2415 East Kanesville Boulevard
                                    Council Bluffs, IA
 
4:00 PM                     SEN. BIDEN TO MEET WITH CARROLL COUNTY DEMOCRATS
                                   
                                    Sam’s Sodas and Sandwiches
                                    127 W 5th St
                                    Carroll, IA
 
7:30 PM                     SEN. BIDEN TO MEET WITH BOONE COUNTY DEMOCRATS
 
                                    Boone County Historical Center
                                    602 Story Street
                                    Boone, IA  
 
Sunday May 27, 2007
 
12:00 PM                   SEN. BIDEN TO HOLD IRAQ TOWN HALL WITH STORY COUNTY DEMOCRATS
 
                                    Iowa State University
                                    Campanile Room
                                    Ames, IA
 
3:30 PM                     SEN. BIDEN TO DELIVER KEYNOTE ADDRESS AT JOHNSON COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY
                                  EVENT
 
                                    Upper City Park, Shelter 2
                                    1 E. Park Road
                                    Iowa City, IA
 
7:00 PM                     SEN. BIDEN TO HOLD IRAQ TOWN HALL WITH CLINTON COUNTY DEMOCRATS
 
                                    Lion Train Depot
                                    #56 25th Avenue North
                                    Clinton, IA
 
Monday May 28, 2007

8:45 AM                     SEN. BIDEN TO ATTEND A MEMORIAL DAY BREAKFAST WITH WAR VETERANS AND THEIR
                                  FAMILIES AT AMVETS POST 49
 
                                    Amvets Post 49 Hall
                                    20 Irving Street
                                    Cedar Falls, IA

10:30AM                    SEN. BIDEN TO ATTEND WATERLOO MEMORIAL DAY PARADE AND CEREMONY
 
                                    *Parade Start Location:
                                    Commercial Street (Between West Fifth And Sixth Streets)
                                    Waterloo, IA
 
                                    *Memorial Ceremony:
                                    Veterans Memorial Hall
                                    West Fifth Street
                                    Waterloo, IA
 
1:00PM                      FORMER STATE REP. BOB OSTERHAUS AND ANN OSTERHAUS TO HOST SEN. BIDEN AT
                                  A HOUSE PARTY AT THEIR HOME
                                   
                                    Home of Former Rep. and Mrs. Bob Osterhaus
                                    216 Austin Ave.
                                    Maquoketa, IA
 
4:00PM                      MS. ANN HEINZ TO HOST SEN. BIDEN AT A HOUSE PARTY AT HER HOME

                                    Home of Ms. Ann Heinz
                                    3150 Asbury Road
                                    Dubuque, IA
 
7:00 PM                     REP. MARK DAVITT AND AMY DUNCAN TO HOST SEN. BIDEN AT A HOUSE PARTY AT THEIR
                                  HOME
 
                                    Home of Rep. Mark Davitt
                                    611 West Ashland
                                    Indianola, IA
 
Tuesday May 29, 2007
 
11:30 AM                   SEN. BIDEN TO DELIVER KEYNOTE ADDRESS AT NATIONAL SECURITY NETWORK LUNCHEON
 
                                    The Temple for Performing Arts
                                    912 Walnut Street
                                    Des Moines, IA
 
5:30 PM                     SEN. JACK KIBBIE AND KAY KIBBIE TO HOST SEN. BIDEN AT A HOUSE PARTY AT THEIR HOME
 
                                    Home of Sen. and Mrs. Jack Kibbie
                                    112 Oakwood Place
                                    Emmetsburg, IA
 
Wednesday May 30, 2007
 
12:00 PM                   SEN. BIDEN TO ATTEND A LUNCHEON WITH WEBSTER COUNTY DEMOCRATS
 
                                    Marvin Gardens
                                    809 Central Ave.
                                    Fort Dodge, IA
 
6:00 PM                     SEN. BIDEN TO DELIVER KEYNOTE ADDRESS AT BLACK HAWK COUNTY DEMOCRATIC 
                                  PARTY EVENT
 
                                    Olsen’s Boat House
                                    Center Street (north of the river)
                                    Cedar Falls, IA

Thursday May 31, 2007
 
8:00 AM                     SEN. BIDEN TO ATTEND A BREAKFAST WITH BENTON COUNTY DEMOCRATS
 
                                    Kirkwood Community College
                                    111 W. 3rd Street
                                    Vinton, IA
 
Saturday June 2, 2007

5:30 PM                     SEN. BIDEN TO ADDRESS THE 8th ANNUAL IOWA DEMOCRATIC PARTY HALL OF FAME
                                  DINNER
 
                                    Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel
                                    350 1st Avenue
                                    Cedar Rapids, IA

Senate 2008 Guru has posted the May Senate approval numbers from Survey USA. Click through if you want to see how the senators up for reelection in 2008 are doing. I want to note that Tom Harkin's approve/disapprove numbers were 56/36, holding steady since last month and up a bit from his numbers last November (53/40).

Republicans always trick themselves into thinking Harkin is vulnerable, and maybe now that he has introduced the Guantanamo Closure Act of 2007 they will decide it's time to take another shot at the old liberal.

But remember, Harkin is going to have a major hand in crafting the new farm bill between now and the election. Plus, he's made himself a lot of friends around the state over the last three decades.

Somehow, I don't think he will be quaking at the thought of a challenge from the Des Moines businessman who ran the Vander Plaats gubernatorial campaign. But I'll let Polk County Republican Party Chairman Ted Sporer make the case for Troy Cook:

Troy certainly showed his ability to maximize the benefit of minimal resources in the 2002 gubernatorial primary. Troy would be a very articulate and aggressive young candidate if he were to run.

As the incoming President of the Iowa Association of Health Underwriters Troy’s background in healthcare financing would give him a unique understanding of the better solutions for America’s health care financing problems.

Troy’s an old football coach and I know he’d be a bulldog.

Please, Republicans, put lots of resources into defeating Tom Harkin in 2008!

Conventional wisdom says that women voters are naturally drawn to Hillary Clinton, but Barack Obama and John Edwards are in no way ceding this ground to Hillary.

Both campaigns have established “Women for Obama” and “Women for Edwards” groups, and both Michelle Obama and Elizabeth Edwards are helping their husbands target women voters. On May 15 John Edwards held an Iowa women's town hall in Des Moines, the same day that the campaign released a list of 1,500 Iowa women who have pledged to caucus for Edwards.

Tuesday's Des Moines Register included a story about Michelle Obama's event the previous day at a coffee shop in the suburb of Waukee.

This passage caught my eye:

Nancy Bobo, a Des Moines Human Rights Commission member, attended the Waukee event. She said Barack Obama has her caucus vote.

“I don't think there's any other candidate that on Inauguration Day can get up and speak to the world and immediately the world knows it's a new day in America,” Bobo said. “We're electing a president, not just for Americans, but for the world. … We need someone that will really bring people together.”

I remember Nancy Bobo from the last caucus campaign. She was one of the key organizers of Women for Kerry, which held regular breakfasts for professional women and other events. After the 2004 campaign, Bobo and other organizers continued to hold these events, renaming the group Women for a Stronger America.

Among Iowa Democrats, Nancy Bobo is not as well-known as Clinton supporter Bonnie Campbell or Edwards supporter Roxanne Conlin, but this is still a big catch for the Obama campaign, in my view. A lot of professional women in Des Moines and the suburbs know and respect Nancy Bobo. Her backing may well persuade others to give Obama their serious consideration, or to give him another look if they had been leaning toward a different candidate.

Ever since Tom Vilsack dropped out of the presidential race, I have thought there was a big opening in Iowa for Bill Richardson, the only governor and the only candidate with extensive legislative, executive and diplomatic experience. What I didn't know was whether he would make a serious play for this state.

The last few weeks have settled that question. First Richardson went up on the air with some well-received tv spots. Then he started visiting the state more frequently, holding small events that gave voters an opportunity to see him up close. He's been moving up in the Iowa polls, reaching 10 percent in the latest Iowa poll commissioned by the Des Moines Register.

Over at Iowa Independent, Douglas Burns covered Richardson's recent trip to southwest Iowa. Part of his piece reminded me of something I find intriguing about Richardson's strategy:

In Red Oak and Denison, Richardson highlighted his international experience.

Diplomacy shouldn’t be viewed as a “reward” for good behavior, he said.
“Even bad guys need something,” Richardson said. “You can hold a carrot in one hand and a big stick in the other.”

Richardson said he has the resume and track record to stare down America’s enemies, to reach accords that prevent the nation from sending troops to combat except as a last resort.

“I stood toe-to-toe with the world’s bad guys, Saddam Hussein, North Korea, the Sudan, Fidel Castro, (Omar) al-Bashir (Sudan),” Richardson said in Denison. “President Clinton used to say, ‘We have problems in our foreign policy. There are bad dictators. Bad people like Richardson so we’ll send him there.’”

Playing up his diplomatic background is not surprising, but I find it interesting that Richardson is not afraid to highlight the fact that he has negotiated with dictators.

His first tv ad, the biographical one, included a still photo of himself with Saddam Hussein. His ad about Iraq, in which he stands in front of a wall, alludes to the tough diplomatic work that will begin once we get our troops out of Iraq. In his “job interview” ad, the interviewer mentions Richardson's experience negotiating with dictators.

The Republican Party has tried for decades to make Democrats look weak on national defense, to the point that some Democrats feel continually compelled to prove they are tough enough to support war, even pre-emptive war.

Conventional wisdom has called for Democrats to show that they would not hesitate to use the armed forces to defend America. John Kerry was mocked for stating the simple fact that fighting the “war on terror” requires law enforcement and not just military force.

Yet here is Bill Richardson, not afraid to say that it's often in our national interest to negotiate with dictators, not afraid to mention that he stood “toe to toe” with Saddam Hussein.

I like it. Time to treat the voters like grown-ups who can understand that our foreign policy needs to be about more than dropping bombs and talking about an “axis of evil.”

Richardson is too conservative for me when it comes to domestic policies, and I don't see enough substance behind some of his campaign promises (e.g. providing universal health care).

But I am impressed that he is making a case for diplomacy as a foreign policy tool. Too many Democrats (Joe Lieberman is the most egregious example) play into right-wing frames that imply negotiating makes us weak.

Richardson's next trip to Iowa will be in early June, when he will speak at the Democratic Party's June 2 Hall of Fame Dinner in Cedar Rapids. I usually try to make it to that event, but this year I can't. If you are able to attend, please put up a diary afterwards with your impressions of the candidates and the feeling in the crowd. 

It's no secret to anyone who has read my diaries on how the Iowa caucuses work that I am no fan of the caucus system. Give me a primary any day.

The Iowa Republican Party's caucuses are slightly less undemocratic, in that they do not have a 15 percent threshold in each precinct. Instead, every individual's vote is counted toward the candidate of his or her choice.

That's an improvement, although it doesn't erase the other problems of the caucus system: no secret ballot, no absentee voting, shift workers get screwed, the huge time commitment involved drives down turnout, etc.

Does the GOP run the Iowa caucuses better than Democrats because Republicans are more interested in fair procedures and representative democracy? Before you jump to this conclusion, I recommend that you check out this article from the Des Moines Register's Monday edition, on the embarrassing spectacle that is the Iowa Republican Party's presidential straw poll in Ames.

This is where the candidates spend lots of time and energy and money preparing to bus supporters to Ames from all over the state (and in some cases from out of state). It's supposed to show who has the strongest organization, but mainly it shows who can afford to bribe more voters with free tickets, buses, food and drink, etc:

Dan Pero is one such critic. The campaign manager for Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander's 1996 presidential campaign also said the straw poll is a costly diversion of campaign resources that had no bearing on the nomination.

“The caucuses are real. The straw poll is a beauty contest,” Pero said. “I think they are meaningless and bad for the campaign. It takes a lot of money to organize for something that has no permanence on the outcome of the election.”

John McCain called it a “meaningless exercise” in 1999 when he bypassed campaigning for the caucuses during his first campaign for president.

Former Iowa congressman Jim Nussle, a top consultant for Giuliani, described the straw poll during a television interview last month as “kind of an 'American Idol'-style circus” and “meaningless.”

It should come as no surprise to longtime observers of McCain that Mr. Straight Talk has completely changed his tune and will aggressively compete to win the straw poll, which is scheduled for August 11.

I'll be interested to see whether Giuliani blows off this contest and risks the wrath of loyal Iowa Republicans who seem to enjoy the event.

The Sunday Register has a new Iowa poll.

The big news on the Republican side is that Romney leads. On the Democratic side, things look like this:

Edwards 29 percent

Obama 23 percent

Clinton 21 percent

Richardson 10 percent

Biden 3 percent

Kucinich 2 percent

Gravel 1 percent

Dodd less than 1 percent

not sure 11 percent

As with every poll, I think this understates the percentage of undecideds. My best guess is that 30 to 40 percent of the caucus-going Democrats I talk to are undecided.

I am not at all surprised to see Obama in second place, even if his lead on Clinton is within the margin of error. I have long argued that Edwards and Obama would finish ahead of Clinton in Iowa. 

Looks like spending money on tv ads was a smart move for Richardson. It helped that they were unusual and memorable tv ads. They've certainly got a lot of people talking. 

The poll claims a 4.9 percent margin of error. If you want to know more about the methodology, including the wording of the questions asked, click here.

The latest Iowa poll conducted by Research 2000 for KCCI-TV (the CBS affiliate in Des Moines) shows Clinton leading with 28 percent, Edwards within the margin of error at 26 percent, Obama with 22 percent, and Richardson with 7 percent.

It's a big change from the last Research 2000/KCCI poll, which was in December and showed Edwards and Obama tied at 22 percent, with Tom Vilsack in third place with 12 percent.

Click the link if you want to read the details.

If this poll is accurate, there has been a massive surge in support for Hillary Clinton over the past six months. I don't get that sense, but what are you hearing?

It looks like Richardson's early tv ads have raised his profile in Iowa quite a bit. He only had 1 percent support in the December poll.

In this poll, Obama does slightly better in head-to-head matchups with the Republican front-runners than Edwards, while Edwards does slightly better than Clinton.

I wonder what the likely voter screen is on this poll. In talking to Iowa Democrats who actually participated in the 2004 caucuses (as opposed to people who didn't but claim that they plan to participate in the upcoming caucuses), I have trouble finding Clinton supporters. I really do. I was just talking to a Clinton leaner yesterday, but even she said, without prompting from me, that Clinton has a lot of baggage, and she's just not sure if she could win.

I found the Bush approval numbers from this poll interesting. Approve/disapprove numbers for all respondents are 30/68.

The numbers for Democrats are 8/90.

The numbers for independents are 29/70.

Even among Republicans sampled, Bush's approval was only measured at 56 percent; disapproval was 42 percent. Those are shockingly poor numbers. 

Update (Thurs., May 17): The Mills County event has been canceled and will be rescheduled at a later date. – Chris

Over at Iowa Independent, Chris Woods posted details about Bill Richardson's planned visit to Iowa this weekend. In keeping with his new “job interview” television ad, which calls attention to his impressive resume, Richardson is calling his campaign appearances “job interviews” instead of town-hall meetings: 

Friday, May 18th

 Keynote Address to Young Democrats of America Spring 2007 National Conference 7 P.M. @ Marriott Hotel 10220 Regency Circle, Omaha, Nebraska

Saturday, May 19th

 Montgomery County Presidential Job Interview 10:15 A.M. @ Kate & Lainie?s Coffee House 322 E. Coolbaugh, Red Oak, Iowa

 Fremont & Page Counties Presidential Job Interview 12:00 P.M. @ Depot Deli and Lounge 101 North Railroad Ave., Shenandoah, Iowa

 Mills County Presidential Job Interview 2:15 P.M. @ Log Cabin BBQ 204 Sharp Street, Glenwood, Iowa

 Pottawattamie County Presidential Job Interview 4:15 P.M. @ Residence of Kevin Burr 540 Coronado Circle, Carter Lake, Iowa

If you can attend one of these events, put up a diary afterwards. I haven't had a chance to see Richardson yet in person, and I'm interested to know how he does with a live audience.

I've been meaning to link to this page on Iowa Politics, which goes through the candidates' 1Q reports filed with the FEC and pulls out a lot of information on money being spent in Iowa. I encourage you to click the link, because there is a lot to learn there.

A couple of things jumped out at me. First, Obama has spent a huge amount of money here (over $630,000), far more than any other contender. True, some of this money seems to be for consulting related to events held in other states, but Obama also has the largest staff in Iowa so far ($152,966 in payroll for 52 Iowa staffers).

A while back I heard that Obama was planning to open 12 field offices in Iowa, which would be costly, but then again, it looks like he's not going to have to worry about penny-pinching.

Not surprisingly, Edwards spent the second-largest amount in Iowa during the first quarter, with  more than $188,000 total, including $87,850 in salary for 20 staffers.

Clinton spent over $123,000 in Iowa during the first quarter, including $68,550 in salary to 15 staffers.

The page at Iowa Politics also includes info on GOP candidate expenditures in Iowa. Click through if you're interested–Romney spent the most, followed by McCain and Tommy Thompson.

Another way to measure how hard the candidates are campaigning here is to look at the time they spend in Iowa. Jerome Armstrong put up this post at MyDD yesterday, tracking the number of events each Democratic presidential candidate held in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina during 2007 so far, as well as the number of days each candidate has spent in those states this year.

I recommend clicking the link to look at the table Jerome put together.

Some interesting tidbits: Obama's 13 events in Iowa were geographically dispersed, and he spent 10 days in the state. I think this is smart for him–he knows he can't win the caucuses by racking up huge numbers in a few counties.

Edwards has held 15 events in Iowa, spending 8 days here, mostly in central Iowa. I was a little surprised by this, because Edwards was quite strong in central Iowa in 2004. I expect him to spend more time in the medium-sized cities of eastern and western Iowa later in the year.

Clinton has held 18 events in Iowa, more than anyone else. Most of these have been in the eastern and southeastern parts of the state, which makes sense, because that's where so many votes and delegates are. Dodd has also spent a lot of time in eastern Iowa, while Biden has focused primarily on central Iowa up to now. 

To refresh everyone's memory, here are the eleven largest counties in Iowa in terms of delegates to the Democratic Party state convention. These eleven counties will account for more than half (1,336) of the 2,500 “votes” (state delegates) in Iowa next January. The population center of each county is in parentheses:

County – Delegates
Polk (Des Moines) – 357
Linn (Cedar Rapids) – 202
Scott (Davenport and Bettendorf, the Iowa side of the Quad Cities) – 142
Johnson (Iowa City, University of Iowa) – 137
Black Hawk (Waterloo) – 117
Dubuque (Dubuque) – 90
Story (Ames, Iowa State University) – 76
Woodbury (Sioux City) – 68
Pottawattamie (Council Bluffs, across the river from Omaha, Nebraska) – 55
Clinton (Clinton) – 46
Cerro Gordo (Mason City) – 46

I forgot that there was a GOP candidates' debate scheduled for tonight, so didn't tape it.

Did I miss anything interesting? Let me know in the comments.

Des Moines Register political columnist David Yepsen's take is here. He calls Romney the overall winner, thought Giuliani had some good moments but that McCain was stronger in the first debate.

Noneed4thneed posted his reaction over at Century of the Common Iowan. He wonders why Huckabee isn't getting traction (no money, little media coverage, I'd say). He also thinks Giuliani and Tancredo did well.

Polk County Republican Party chairman Ted Sporer weighs in at his blog. I'm not going to summarize–click the link if you care what he thinks.

Don at Cyclone Conservatives gives his take here. 

Polk County Democrats passed along this e-mail from the Dodd campaign:

Please join Senator Chris Dodd as he brings his campaign for president back to Iowa to hold a statewide discussion on How to End the War in Iraq and Foreign Policy.  
 
Senator Dodd will exhibit the proven, bold leadership that he would bring to the White House as he lays out the only real and responsible way to end the war to a statewide audience.
 
There is only one way to end the war and that's for Congress to fulfill its constitutional obligation and utilize the “power of the purse.”  We can no longer give the President a blank check and expect him to bring the troops home.
 
This week in Washington , D.C. , Senator Dodd is planning to join Senator Feingold in cosponsoring an amendment on the floor of the Senate to end the war by immediately beginning to redeploy troops and bring an end to the war by March 31st, 2008.  Senator Dodd’s plan is the only plan by a Democratic candidate for president that sets a concrete deadline for total troop withdraw and redeploys the troops in a safe and responsible manner.
 
The hour-long forum will take place at Pomerantz Stage on the first floor of the Olmsted Center at Drake University at 12:00 PM this Friday, May 18th.  Groups gathered around the state will also participate in the forum by listening in via conference call or a live internet feed.  Polk Democratic County Chair Tom Henderson will moderate the event in Des Moines will ask Senator Dodd questions submitted by the audiences in Des Moines and across the state.
 
This is a unique opportunity to take part in a statewide event and directly ask a presidential candidate how he would actually end the war.

I checked the Dodd campaign's website and couldn't find any other events listed for this Iowa trip, but I will update if I learn of others he is planning to hold in the state.

Also, don't forget to check out Dodd's new tv ad running in Iowa and New Hampshire. You can find it in Matt Browner-Hamlin's diary on the right side of this page.

John Edwards has a new campaign website for Iowa, and I found details about these upcoming events there:

Edwards Town Hall Meeting

May 15, 2007 – 11:15 am

Des Moines Central Library

1000 Grand Ave., Des Moines, Iowa

If you plan to attend, go to this page where you will find a link to click to RSVP.

Or, you can RSVP by phone at 515-288-0766.

Update: Polk County Democrats have just sent out an e-mail saying that Tuesday’s town hall meeting is going to focus on “issues important to women.”

Second Update: Edwards campaign press release says the candidate will make “a significant new announcement about the organization and strength of the campaign in Iowa and discuss his detailed plans for improving the lives of women at work and at home.”

In other news, David Bonior, longtime congressman from Michigan who is Edwards’ campaign manager, will be in Dubuque on Thursday:

May 17, 2007 – 5:30 pm

Congressman Bonior will speak at the Dubuque County Democratic Party Hall of Fame Dinner

Happy’s Place

Rockdale Road

Dubuque, IA

If you can attend either of these events, please feel free to put up a diary afterwards. These first-person accounts are often more informative than the media coverage of the event.

I wasn’t a fan of Tommy Thompson as Health and Human Services secretary, and I didn’t think he stood out in the first GOP candidates’ debate. But I feel like defending him after reading Don’s post at Cyclone Conservatives about Thompson’s campaign stop in Le Mars on Thursday.

I always enjoy reading first-person accounts of campaign visits, so I appreciate Don’s efforts. However, I had to laugh when I read this:

Where I strongly disagreed with Thompson is when he talked about social security. He said that social security is not in crisis and that it isn’t headed for bankruptcy and seemed in suggest that anybody that says differently is lying. I actually was pretty unhappy by those comments and he seemed to think that just tweaking the current system would solve it. I couldn’t disagree more. This was the only downside to an otherwise steller event for Tommy.

This reminded me of a moment in Jon Tester’s debate with Senator Conrad Burns last year in Montana. Burns had what he clearly thought was a “gotcha” moment, noting that Tester agreed with his position on some policy (I think it was immigration, can’t remember).

Tester smiled and said something like, “Even a Republican can’t be wrong all the time.”

Tommy Thompson is of course correct that Social Security will be solvent for decades with only minor tweaking. Even two years ago when Bush’s big privatization push was in the news, Republicans were warning that trouble was looming for the Social Security trust fund as early as (gasp) 2037.

Notice that since Congress rejected privatization plans, you don’t hear Bush or anyone else warning about the looming Social Security “crisis.” It was primarily a PR ploy to bring about changes desired by Wall Street money managers and Republican ideologues who have never liked Social Security in the first place.

Medicare is where the real crisis awaits us, and Thompson surely understands this. In less than a decade we are going to have major problems funding Medicare, unless we make some big changes.

Bush and Congressional Republicans made matters worse by adding prescription drug benefits to Medicare while prohibiting Medicare from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug costs (as the VA has done quite successfully).

Reading Don’s post, I felt sorry for Thompson. Here is he, mouthing almost every line conservatives demand to hear from their presidential candidates. Then he goes and makes them angry by speaking the truth on Social Security.

Just look at this anonymously posted comment under Don’s post:

If he can’t be straight with people about SS then he doesn’t deserve serious consideration. If he won’t call it the unworkable socialist Ponzi scheme that it is then Tommy can take that line of politician senior citizen panedering back to Wisconsin.

Voters of my generation aren’t buying that crap anymore. We know the score and we aren’t interested in being taxed to death paying for someone else’s retirement.

Never mind that the “unworkable socialist Ponzi scheme” has been functioning for many decades and is on track to keep working for decades longer.

Don and this anonymous commenter would do better to worry about the huge deficits that Bush and several Republican Congresses created with their unsustainable “tax cut and spend” policies. But no, they’ll stick with false GOP rhetoric suggesting that Social Security is the real fiscal problem facing the U.S.

I’ll be interested to see whether Thompson can get any traction in Iowa.

Greg Sargent had a great catch today at his TPM political blog Horse’s Mouth. He spotted an amazing article in the Journal-Eureka, based in Anamosa, Iowa (Jones County).

I would link to the original article, but the newspaper’s site appears to have crashed from all the attention Sargent’s piece generated.

Click through to read Sargent’s account, but here is the short version: Deb VonSprecken, who farms with her husband, donated to Giuliani and got a call from his campaign asking if they would host an event for him at their farm. They were excited and started preparing the event.

Then they were asked to call Giuliani’s campaign office in New York, where someone asked about their assets. They own a small farm. Afterwards, Tony Delgado at Giuliani’s Des Moines office allegedly told Deb VanSprecken, “I’m sorry, you aren’t worth a million dollars and he is campaigning on the Death Tax right now.”

The event was called off.

Sargent contacted Deb VonSprecken directly, and she confirmed the details of the story.

Great way to treat a supporter, Giuliani campaign staff! I hope you get hired by whoever does get the nomination (I can’t imagine that it could possibly be Rudy).

The new Bill Richardson “job interview” tv ads are the talk of the blogosphere today. If you haven’t viewed them yet, check them out at his campaign’s website.

Richardson used humor in some of his commercials when he was running for governor, so he’s apparently comfortable trying something out of the box.

I welcome the experiment, because I’ve long thought that humor is an underutilized weapon in political advertising.

The first “job interview” ad is going up on the air in Iowa. The second one has only been released online for now, and the campaign is soliciting feedback.

The merits of the ads were discussed at length in this packed thread at Daily Kos.

Over at Political Animal, Kevin Drum is unconvinced, saying the ads don’t address the problem of people having no idea where Richardson stands on the issues, but his commenters mostly disagree, saying the publicity will benefit Richardson when these ads “go viral.”

My undecided husband who is considering Richardson liked the first ad–funny and memorable. He didn’t think the second ad was effective as a way to communicate the high points of Richardson’s record. If this is any guide, the campaign was smart to hold off on running the second ad on tv for now. It will be interesting to see if they alter it significantly before airing.

They’ve got to do some kind of follow up, because the first “job interview” commercial ends with the words “to be continued” on the screen.

What do you think? Do these ads work? Or will they just attract a lot of attention without building support for Richardson?

John Edwards has put up his first television commercial in Iowa this cycle. The ad uses the same script as an ad his campaign put up in Washington, DC, last week, but it features Iowans speaking.

Noneed4thneed posted a youtube of the ad over at Century of the Common Iowan.

Meanwhile, Essential Estrogen liveblogged a media conference call with Edwards today. Click the link to read how he answered questions about the ad and his stand on Iraq generally.

If you’ve watched the ad, what did you think? I think it’s a good use of his money. Since he has campaigned so much in Iowa before, he has the luxury of not starting his advertising campaign with a biographical spot.

I’m late to the party, but I want to add my voice to those who detested the formats used in the first televised debates involving the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. There were so many questions on so many different issues that it was hard to compare the candidates, and hard for them to answer any question in depth.

I thought most of the Democratic and Republican candidates did fairly well, given the dismal format. A particular tip of my hat goes to Ron Paul, who managed to project the most coherent ideological frame on the Republican side, despite the short amount of time he was given to speak.

How can these debates be improved? David Yepsen takes a stab at answering the question in his latest column, published in today’s Des Moines Register.

These are the points Yepsen makes that I agree with:

1. Hold fewer debates, and schedule them later in the season, when more people are paying attention.

2. Allow candidates to ask each other questions. (I think each candidate could be given one or two questions to ask any competitor.)

3. Limit the topics, so that each debate is focused on one issue area (e.g. foreign policy, economy, health care, environment).

4. Make the debates 2 hours instead of 90 minutes. With eight Democratic candidates and at least 10 Republican candidates, this makes sense.

5. Get better moderators. As Yepsen says,

Debates should be about the performance of the candidates, not the celebrity or actions of the moderator. Each candidate should be asked similar questions, and they should be kept short and simple.

Here’s where I disagree with Yepsen:

1. He wants to hold more radio debates so people will be less focused on how the candidates look. I would prefer debates to be televised and simultaneously broadcast on radio to reach the widest possible audience. Of course, if they do this it would help for the moderators not to ask questions beginning with, “Raise your hand if you think…”

2. He wants to allow opening or closing statements. He makes a valid point that candidates may be more responsive to questions if they know they will have a chance to state their top points in opening and closing statements.

However, I’m going to have to side with the majority of debate organizers who think these are a waste of time, especially with both parties’ fields as large as they are. I also think that candidates will continue to be non-responsive to some questions, because that’s a basic point of political communication: answer the question you want to answer, even if that’s not the question you were asked.

3. He wants to have separate debates for the top-tier candidates. If we had done this last cycle, Howard Dean probably never would have broken into the top tier.

Also, there may be a candidate who is top tier in some early states but not in others.

I think it’s a good thing to force the top tier candidates to make the case about why they are better than all the other alternatives. Let the viewers or listeners decide based on the full range of options.

4. Yepsen calls for using polls “to determine the issues people most want the next president to address, and then the candidates should be asked about those questions. Otherwise, moderators and candidates can easily get sidelined into the latest gaffe or news development in a campaign.”

But we don’t need to take a poll to know the important issues the next president will need to address. If the debate topic is health care, the important questions suggest themselves (covering the uninsured, reducing costs, providing prescription drug coverage, expanding preventive care, etc.). The same goes for the other big issue areas.

All we need is for moderators to show some intelligence and restraint.

Brian Williams and Chris Matthews both did poorly in selecting questions to ask, but that doesn’t mean that professional journalists couldn’t come up with better questions without relying on polls.

I feel compelled to defend Chris Dodd after reading this post on Radio Iowa. (Hat tip Deeth).

Radio Iowa notes that Dodd keeps telling the same joke at every campaign stop about being the only guy in the race who gets mailings from both the AARP and diaper services. After seeing Dodd speak before a group of young Democrats, Radio Iowa had a chance to ask a question:

As Dodd was walking out of the restaurant where he had just given his 20-minute speech, followed by about 20 minutes of answering questions, I began asking about the joke.  “You always tell that joke about the AARP and diaper services,” I started.

“They hadn’t heard it,” Dodd quickly interrupted, referencing his noon-time audience.

“But I’m wondering how a guy tells a joke like that, obviously exhibiting that he has the coin for a diaper service, and how he squares that with his discussion of how the middle class is being pinched,” I continued.

“It was a joke,” Dodd said.  He laughed and walked away.

Cut the guy some slack–every candidate gives basically the same stump speech, including the same jokes, at every campaign stop.

I must have heard Chet Culver’s joke about his daughter and the letter-carriers’ endorsement half a dozen times last year. (Short version: Chet is tucking in his daughter, going through the bedtime ritual of talking about something nice that happened that day. Chet mentions that he got endorsed by the Letter-Carriers’ association. Daughter asks what that means. Chet says it means the people who deliver the mail are going to vote for him. Daughter asks, “Even the guy who delivers Nussle’s mail?”)

John Edwards has talked about being the son of a mill worker so many times that he added a joke to his stump speech about how the audience may have heard once that he is the son of a mill worker.

Now, if Radio Iowa’s complaint is that people in Iowa don’t use diaper services and can’t relate to the joke, that’s partly true, at least concerning young voters. As a mom of two kids in cloth diapers, I can confirm that there are no cloth diaper laundry services in Iowa (only some cloth diaper sellers, like this one and this one).

If Radio Iowa’s complaint is that someone who can afford a diaper service may seem out of touch with middle-class concerns, I disagree. People who remember the days of diaper services could tell you that they were affordable for middle-class families. It wasn’t a luxury service that only the wealthy used.

On the contrary, wealthier people were among the first to start using disposable diapers when they became more widely available in the 1960s. Plenty of parents from an older generation have told me that they couldn’t afford disposable diapers when their kids were babies.

But I digress. Please don’t hassle candidates for telling the same jokes over and over this year.

And if you’ve got babies or are planning to have babies in the future, be aware of the environmental and health benefits, not to mention the cost savings, of using cloth diapers. If you want to learn more, click here for the Real Diaper Association website.

Or, if you live in central Iowa, e-mail me at desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com and I will tell you when and where the monthly “cloth diaper crowd” meets.

I already posted information about Biden’s town hall meeting in Ankeny this morning, Here are more details about his scheduled appearances in Iowa over the next couple of days:

Saturday, May 5

10:30 AM  SEN. BIDEN TO HOLD IRAQ TOWN HALL MEETING WITH ANKENY AREA DEMOCRATS

  Ankeny Area Historical Society
  301 SW Third Street

  Ankeny, IA

1:30 PM   SEN. BIDEN TO ATTEND HOUSE PARTY IN FRANKLIN COUNTY

  Home of Mildred and Ben van Hove
  121 Windsor Boulevard

  Hampton, IA

4:30 PM   SEN. BIDEN TO ADDRESS IOWA BROADCAST NEWS ASSOCIATION’S SPRING CONVENTION

  Best Western Holiday Lodge

  2023 7th Ave. North

  Clear Lake, IA

7:00 PM   SEN. BIDEN TO HOLD IRAQ TOWN HALL MEETING IN CERRO GORDO COUNTY

  Borealis Gourmet Ice Cream Palace
  316 North Federal Ave

  Mason City, IA

Sunday May 6, 2007

12:00PM  SEN. BIDEN WILL ATTEND A HOUSE PARTY FUNDRAISER WITH STATE SEN. JEFF DANIELSON 
  IN BLACK HAWK COUNTY

  Home of Nick Powers

  3335 Santa Maria

  Waterloo, IA

2:30 PM  SEN. BIDEN TO HOLD IRAQ TOWN HALL MEETING WITH STATE SEN. BRIAN SCHOENJAHN AND  FAYETTE COUNTY DEMOCRATS

  Dancing Lions Dance Hall

  110 S. Fredrick

  Oelwein, IA

5:30 PM  SEN. BIDEN TO HOLD IRAQ TOWN HALL MEETING IN LINN COUNTY

  Longbranch Hotel

  90 Twixt Town Road
  Cedar Rapids, IA

Monday May 7, 2007

6:15 PM  SEN. JOE BIDEN TO ATTEND BBQ DINNER HOSTED BY STATE SEN. JOE SENG

  Home of State Sen. Joe Seng

  901 Treemont

  Davenport, IA

If you attend any of these events, please consider putting up a diary afterwards with your impressions, or just attach your thoughts to the comments section below this post.

The Des Moines Register reported on Friday that Florida’s decision to move its primary to January 29 (the same date that the South Carolina primary is scheduled) may prompt New Hampshire to schedule its primary a week earlier.

Since Iowa and New Hampshire have agreed that the Iowa caucuses will be held eight days before the New Hampshire primary, that means the caucuses would be held on January 7, instead of on January 14 as tentatively scheduled.

As a precinct captain, I hope that this does not happen. You can’t do any serious GOTV work during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. People will be returning home on January 1 or 2, or going back to work, or recovering from holiday stress. It’s a hectic time, and I don’t imagine it being a time that people would welcome phone calls or door knocks from volunteers trying to get them to vote.

My husband pointed out that very few college students would be back in time for the Iowa caucuses if they were held on January 7. That’s got to be bad news for Barack Obama, but possibly also for John Edwards, since he is likely to have strong support on college campuses as well (I expect Ed Fallon to help his campaign with this crowd).

Of course, even on January 14 there may be quite a few college students who are not back from their winter breaks.

I’m sympathetic to Chris Bowers of MyDD, who has advocated this calendar instead:

December 10th (Monday): Iowa

December 18th (Tuesday): New Hampshire

January 19th (Saturday): Nevada

January 29th (Tuesday): South Carolina, Florida, Michigan

February 5th (Tuesday) National Primary

He sees the advantages as follows:

New Hampshire and Iowa placated. They still get to go first–in fact, they get to go a lot earlier relative to other states in the current calendar. There is no way any state moves into a window that includes the holidays.

New Hampshire and Iowa reduced. The two “traditional” states will take place so much earlier than any other state, that whatever “momentum” candidates derive from those states will be significantly muted over five weeks later.

Diverse groups play important, early role. Nevada, South Carolina, Florida and Michigan will effectively function as a second set of early contests to immediately precede Super Tuesday. This will allow for significant, early state voting representation for African-Americans, Latinos, union members, Jews, and ever region of the country.

Frontloading significantly eased. In this calendar, the primary / caucus season lasts for fifty-eight days, instead of twenty-three. This will give voters more time to decide, and give candidates more time to build up a national operation. In 2004, Kerry was severely lacking in nationwide staff after his early victories, including in states like Ohio and Florida, and this deficit might have cost him the election. At the same time, the primary season was over pretty much the same day it began in 2004, but with this calendar, from the start of the campaign until Super Tuesday voters would have a lot more time to make up their minds.

Almost everyone gets a voice: The national primary on February 5th will give more people a real say in determining the nominee than at any nomination process in two decades.

Nominee still decided early. With nine months between Super Tuesday and Election Day, there is plenty of time to rally around the eventually nominee.

This has a lot going for it, except that I wouldn’t look forward to working my precinct right after Thanksgiving. People get so busy in December with shopping, holiday parties, kids’ programs and recitals. I think it would be even harder to talk marginal voters into coming out for an hour on a Monday night.

It’s too late to fix this cycle, and perhaps Iowa will never get to go first again, so it won’t matter. But I would support pushing the start of the primary season way back to mid-February, like it used to be in the 1980s. I don’t like the idea of holding the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary during or shortly after the holiday season.

We don’t turn on the tv until after kids are in bed, so I’ll need to watch later.

Who screwed up?

Who did well?

Who scared you?

Who made you roll on the floor laughing?

Updated with more information about Chris Dodd’s campaign events.

Friday, May 4

8:30am  Ottumwa Community Kitchen Table
  Location: Riverside Family Restaurant
  1317 E. Mary Street

  Ottumwa

12:00 Noon   Mt. Pleasant Community Kitchen Table
  Location: Hy-Vee Lunch Counter
  1700 E. Washington

  Mt. Pleasant

2:30pm  Tour of the Tri-City Energy Biodiesel Plant
  With Mayor David Gudgel

  Location: Tri-City Energy
  410 Johnson Street

  Keokuk

5:30pm   Jobs and Energy Town Hall Meeting
  Location: Iowa Hotel
  Common Room

  401 Main Street
  Keokuk

Saturday, May 5

9:00am   Burlington Community Kitchen Table
  With Senator Tom Courtney
  Location: Laura’s Restaurant and Dairy Bar
  1717 Summer Street

  Burlington

12:00 noon  Cinco de Mayo Celebration
  Location: Ron-De-Voo Park
  Third Street (Downtown)

  West Liberty

1:15pm   Renewable Energy Town Hall
  Location: Hoover House
  102 W. Main Street

  West Branch

4:15pm   Meet & Greet
  With Representative Nate Reichert
  Location: Strawberry Farm Bed & Breakfast
  3402 Tipton Road

  Muscatine

A while back I linked to noneed4thneed’s call for people to ask the candidates where they stand on permanent bases in Iraq.

Tim Tagaris of the Dodd campaign sent me this link, which contains a write-up from an interview with Dodd, as well as an audio link. Dodd is firmly against permanent bases in Iraq.

So if you get a chance to ask him a question this weekend, you might want to focus on a different issue.

John Deeth says he will probably cover one of Dodd’s events.

If you are able to attend any of them as well, please put up a diary afterwards. First-person accounts are always interesting.

Just got this e-mail from the Biden campaign.

Town Hall on Iraq with Senator Joe Biden

Senator Biden will be making his fifth trip to Iowa since announcing his candidacy for President in January, and as part of this trip he’s coming to Ankeny this Saturday, May 5th for a Town Hall with local Democrats. All of the details are below, and hopefully you will be able to attend.

Senator Biden Attends an Iraq Town Hall

Hosted by the Ankeny Area Democrats

Saturday, May 5, 2007

10:30am-11:45am (Doors Open at 10:00am)

Ankeny Historical Society, (515) 965-5795

301 SW Third Street, Ankeny

They’d like RSVPs either by phone to Gary Schmidt, (515) 333-4184 or by e-mail to TimEmrich AT JoeBiden.com.

If you live near Ankeny and can attend this event, please put up a diary afterwards. My Saturday is packed already.

I hate it when journalists ask politicians stupid questions. No matter what they pick, journalists will try to make it fit whatever script they are pushing about the person (too elitist, too dumb, too wonky, whatever).

However, this was too amusing not to pass along.

The Associated Press asked the presidential candidates what item he or she would most like to have if stranded on a desert island. Political Wire has the candidates’ answers here.

I won’t spoil the punch line, but I have to agree with Kevin Drum, who writes, “Oddly enough, Tom Tancredo gave the best answer.”

I’d put in a word for Brownback’s answer as well.

Joe Trippi’s addition to the Edwards campaign already is having an impact.

Check out this new ad: We the People

This kind of creativity gets people involved, brings in money, and generates free media coverage. This is the type of innovation that Trippi is known for.

As we’ve seen in the latest polls, Edwards is surging in New Hampshire and is well-positioned to capitalize on a big win in Iowa.

American Research Group has just released new polls of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina .

Click through if you want to read about the results from the other states. The new ARG Iowa numbers are:

Edwards 27 percent

Clinton 23 percent

Obama 19 percent

undecided 16 percent

Biden 6 percent

Richardson 5 percent

Dodd 2 percent

Kucinich 2 percent

Gravel and Clark, less than 1 percent

You may recall that in December and January ARG released polls showing Clinton way ahead in Iowa. No other polling firm ever found Clinton ahead of Edwards in Iowa.

Now ARG’s results are more in line with the other firms. I don’t know if ARG changed its likely voter screen or if Edwards has just gained a lot of ground on Clinton since January.

ARG notes that Edwards leads Clinton among women in Iowa, 32 percent to 26 percent. This is not at all surprising to me.

The undecided figure still “feels” low to me. I talk to a lot of Democrats, and I think way more than 1 in 6 tell me they don’t know yet who they will caucus for.

Click through if you want all the Republican numbers for Iowa, but the highlights are:

McCain 26 percent

Giuliani 19 percent

Romney 14 percent

Fred Thompson 13 percent

undecided 12 percent

Seems like Romney’s numbers are not moving in Iowa, despite his early tv ads and the DVD he mailed out to 70,000 Iowa Republicans. Click the link if you want to read the Cyclone Conservative analysis of that DVD.

UPDATE: Check out rob’s diary at the right for more info about these polls. One figure jumped out at me. ARG’s sample in Iowa was taken from “600 completed telephone interviews among a random sample of likely Democratic caucus goers living in Iowa (475 Democrats and 125 no party (independent) voters).”

Now, we had a few independents change their registration on caucus night 2004 so that they could participate. But does anyone really think that 1 in 5 people attending the Democratic side of the Iowa caucuses next January will be registered independents?

I haven’t even watched the debate yet–we videotaped it and will watch after the kids are in bed.

If you watched, what were your impressions?

Take the poll and comment.

As you may know, the first Democratic candidates’ debate is tomorrow evening. I just got an e-mail from the Polk County Democrats, who passed along a release from the Edwards campaign:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 25, 2007

CONTACT:

Dan Leistikow

515-288-0766 (office)

515-508-9965 (cell)

JOHN EDWARDS CAMPAIGN TO HOST DEBATE WATCH PARTIES ACROSS IOWA ON THURSDAY

Des Moines, Iowa – As Senator John Edwards participates in a presidential debate in at South Carolina State University on Thursday, April 26th, the John Edwards for President Iowa Campaign will host debate watch parties across the state.

These parties are open for both supporters and undecided caucus goers to watch the debate and discuss the issues facing America.  Afterward, participants will get an update via phone from National Campaign Manager David Bonior.

  The debate will be broadcast live from South Carolina State’s Martin Luther King Jr. Auditorium on Thursday, April 26, at 6:00 p.m. CST with live coverage on MSNBC.

  All events are open to the press. For members of the media seeking more information, please contact Dan Leistikow with the John Edwards for President Campaign.

  Details of the debate watch parties are:

  Des Moines

John Edwards for President Campaign Office

712 E 2nd St

Suite A

Des Moines, Iowa

Cedar Rapids

Home of Judy Ahrens

124 24th St SE

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Davenport

Home of Camellia Pohl

1216 N Concord St

Davenport, Iowa

Waterloo

Home of Bill Draper

941 Wendy Road

Waterloo, Iowa

Sioux City

4th Street Bar & Grill

1107 4th St

Sioux City, Iowa

All events are open to the press. For more information, please contact Dan Leistikow at 515-288-0766 or 515-508-9965.

Please post information about other candidates’ debate-watching parties in the comments section.

Sadly, I won’t be able to attend any of these parties, and I won’t even be watching the debate live, because we have a rule about not turning on the tv when our children are awake. So I’ll have to settle for recording the debate and watching it after the kids are asleep.

Bill Richardson is running tv ads in Iowa and New Hampshire, and you can view them here at his campaign’s website.

There’s a 60-second biographical ad and a 30-second ad on foreign policy. My favorite line: “I approved this message because being stubborn isn’t a foreign policy.”

We don’t watch much tv aside from The Daily Show and Colbert Report, so I have no idea how often these ads are running. Anyone out there seen them on tv? Hear anyone mention seeing them? Do you think they will be effective?