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US Presidential Campaign Heats Up

Battle in the Corn Fields

By Klaus Brinkbäumer in Iowa

Not even three million people live in the US state of Iowa. But on Jan. 3, voters there will determine the fate of those seeking to become America's next president. The battle has begun in earnest.

The United States is a country that likes to explain democracy to other nations. It is also a country that starts wars to bring democracy to the world. It allows the candidates for its highest office, the presidency, to spend a year and a half campaigning, leaving no stone unturned as it delves into their past. Its political mood is gauged on a daily basis by anywhere from 10 to 20 opinion polls.

There are smart thinkers at every medium-sized newspaper in America and astute analysts at every television station and in the campaign offices of each candidate who aspires to be the country's next president. It is a highly intellectual debate that has developed over the fast few months, usually fast-paced, often bold and full of risks at every turn.

And then there is Iowa.

Iowa -- a flat state of corn, cows and the occasional small town. Iowa, a sparsely populated state in the US Midwest, is home to 2,982,000 people, 94 percent of them white.

The Final Run

Astonishing things have been happening in Iowa in recent weeks: Hillary Clinton knocking on the doors of hog farmers and smiling timidly; Rudy Giuliani helping an elderly woman cross the street; Mitt Romney telling a joke; Barack Obama standing in the lobby of a Des Moines hotel whistling a tune; Fred Thompson looking awake.

The American presidential election campaign is heating up. Although the general election isn't until November 2008, Iowa residents of both major political parties will be the first, on Jan. 3, to cast their votes to determine which Democrat and which Republican will make the final run for the White House. Voters in New Hampshire, South Carolina and the rest of the 50 states will follow suit in the days and months ahead.

It could snow on Jan. 3, a Thursday. And there will be football on TV -- both could reduce voter turnout. No more than 100,000 votes are up for grabs for each party in Iowa, and only 3,000 to 4,000 votes will decide whether Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, the two leading Democratic candidates, will win the state's important first-in-the-nation primary election. Winning in Iowa is a traditionally a tremendous boost for a candidate. Conversely, candidates who fail to place a strong second or third in the state are often finished.

Iowa's version of the pre-election primaries is called the Iowa Caucuses. The word "caucus" means, literally, "meeting of voters." Instead of voting directly for a presidential candidate, voters in the state's 1,784 election districts will be picking statewide delegates, who in turn will convene several times after that to select the state's delegates to the parties' national conventions in the summer, when delegates from all 50 states will nominate the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. This proportionate system means that the candidate who wins Iowa isn't necessarily the one who captures the most votes -- or delegates. What America's democracy lacks in fairness it makes up for in complexity.

The current hot-button issues in this election campaign are not Iraq and Iran, but the economic crisis, China's growing strength, health insurance and domestic security. The Democratic contenders are competing over qualities like character and leadership, while the Republicans have taken their fight to a more personal level.

Americans in this presidential campaign are asking themselves questions like: Who believes in the right God? Who pardoned fewer murderers while serving as a young governor? Who would be toughest on immigration?

Unusually Weak Collection

Of course, it is by no means certain that the Democrats will still be ahead when the general election rolls around in just under a year. But it looks that way for the moment, at least, partly because current President George W. Bush is so unpopular and partly because American voters are confronted with an unusually weak collection of candidates for the Republican nomination.

Take Mitt Romney, for example, a Mormon who served as governor of Massachusetts, then worked as a corporate consultant and now portrays himself as a right-wing avenger. But the one impression anyone listening to him speak is left with -- at a recent appearance in Urbandale, for example -- is his lack of warmth and compassion. Romney opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, and he wants to see illegal immigrants sent home.

In this election campaign, the subject of illegal immigration has become a tautology and little more than window dressing. Naturally, most Americans are against things illegal, and Romney has astutely turned the issue of immigration into one of illegal immigration -- of beefed-up border patrols, of erecting tall walls along the border and of sending Mexicans back to Mexico. The fear of foreigners -- of Mexicans and Asians -- is rampant among Republican voters, even here in Iowa, here in the heart of America.

Dark Circles under His Eyes

Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York who came to prominence in the wake of 9/11, portrays himself as a tough and moral leader, and yet his own children and ex-wives describe him differently, and one of his closest associates was a corrupt chief of police. According to opinion polls, Giuliani consistently loses a few percentage points in places where voters have actually encountered him in person.

Fred Thompson, once a shining hope for many Republicans, a senator and former actor on the hit TV series "Law & Order," a man who was touted as a new Ronald Reagan, sits listlessly in a corner in Fort Dodge, waiting to be introduced as "the next president." When he takes to the small stage at this campaign appearance, he tells his audience: "Help is on the way." But he has dark circles under his eyes, his voice is uninspiring, he doesn't look anyone in the eye, and he still refers to Russia as the Soviet Union and says "Nobel Peace Prize" when he means the Nobel Prize for Medicine. All of 50 people have come to hear Thompson speak at what is a decidedly less than glamorous event.

At least he has a sense of humor. When asked what he considers his most precious asset, Thompson says "my young trophy wife" (she is 24 years his junior). And what does he do for fun? "Attend campaign events."

Mike Huckabee probably owes it to the weakness of the current lineup that he is currently leading in all opinion polls among Republican voters in Iowa. Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and a former preacher, is a strong speaker, and his voters believe him when he says that he believes in God. But now that Huckabee is being taken seriously, his adversaries have begun digging around in his past, a past that includes campaign contributions from the tobacco industry and a rapist who was released during his governorship and then went on to commit a murder.