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  US Presidential Campaign Heats Up: Battle in the Corn Fields

US Presidential Campaign Heats Up Battle in the Corn Fields

By Klaus Brinkbäumer in Iowa

Part 2: 'Of Course I Inhaled'

"I never pardoned a murderer," says Huckabee's opponent Mitt Romney. "These are the usual dirty tactics," says Huckabee during an afternoon appearance in Des Moines, the capital of Iowa. "It's the sort of thing people do when they're behind. But being the target of negative campaigning is better than no attention at all." Of course, the affable Mr. Huckabee has also proven to be adept at slinging mud with the best of them. "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus Christ and the devil are brothers?" he asked rhetorically in the New York Times Magazine. And then he issued an apology, yet another element of the modern election campaign: the public apology as the perfection of the perfidious.

A candidate who apologizes comes across as morally superior. By apologizing, a candidate manages to focus attention on himself, and to take advantage of the moment to repeat the insult -- all the while emphasizing the apology, of course.

Hillary Clinton's campaign played it nice for a while, when their candidate was still safely at the head of the Democratic pack. The only candidates who can afford to be pleasant in American political campaigns are the clear frontrunners and those who are hopelessly behind. But Clinton's nice days are over. A campaign manager recently reminded Democratic voters that Barack Obama smoked marijuana and snorted cocaine in his youth ("Of course I inhaled," Obama said, "that was the idea"), and that he was even naïve enough to have admitted to doing both. The Republicans, the Clinton campaign manager pointed out, would eventually use Obama's naiveté against him in 2008.

Of course, Hillary was quick to apologize that a member of her staff had discussed Obama and cocaine without her permission. And, of course, her apology put the words Obama and cocaine back in the same sentence -- and in the headlines. "I think we've made it clear," said Clinton campaign manager Mark Penn, "that the subject of cocaine isn't something our campaign would bring up in any way, shape or form."

"He said cocaine!" Joe Trippi exclaimed at an evening appearance in Iowa. Trippi is the campaign manager for John Edward, another of Obama's rivals.

No One Knows What America Thinks

"I think you just said cocaine," Mark Penn repeated one last time. The remark was met with diabolical smiles and congratulatory handshakes, as the Clinton campaign team boarded a helicopter to their candidate's next appearance in yet another of Iowa's election districts.

It seems that the cards are currently being reshuffled in the Democratic camp. After months of Hillary Clinton being touted as the country's first female president, Obama has caught up in several states, has even moved ahead of Clinton in Iowa and is still in second place nationwide. But both candidates face tough challenges in the American electorate. Will male voters in mid-America, in places like Wisconsin, Texas and Iowa, allow a liberal woman from New York to run the country? Will voters in the South elect a black president?

According to most opinion polls, the answer to both questions is yes, but no one knows how honest America is.

The differences between the Clinton and Obama platforms are minimal. Hillary is more radical when it comes to healthcare reform. Obama is more radical on the issue of Iraq. He is more credible on Iraq, because Senator Clinton voted for the war in the first place. But aside from these differences, the two leading Democratic candidates are offering voters similar concepts and are both adept at presenting their ideas eloquently and in similar terms. Both Clinton and Obama are skilled communicators, skilled at the art of conversing, and both are clearly enjoying the experience.

Because of these similarities, Democrats have been paying more attention in recent weeks to the aspiring candidates' personalities. Obama emphasizes change and new policies. He rarely goes on the offensive and remains consistently calm. He has his message and sticks to it. But what does this mean? That he is too nice to be president? Or does it mean that he is at peace with himself, much more so than the ambitious Clinton? But, then again, isn't 46 too young to be president, and aren't 35 months in the Senate too little experience? Does America need Obama's freshness or Clinton's experience? And which of the two could reunite and lead the country? These are the questions Democrats are asking themselves.

Relatively Low Profile

For Oprah Winfrey, the answer is clearly "Obama."

Oprah Winfrey is an American force. Books she recommends on her top-rated talk show shoot to the top of the best-seller lists within hours. And when she appeared next to Obama on a stage in Iowa early last week, 30,000 people came to hear him speak.

Suddenly Obama was a rock star. And when Oprah Winfrey said that she had given a lot of thought to which of the candidates she could trust, which of them ought to be taken seriously in this election, the applause was so deafening that it all but drowned out her response: Barack Obama.

The Clinton team kept a relatively low profile during those two days. But she was back, of course, and of course she continues to fight, and of course she has too much money, power and ambitious to simply continue as if nothing had happened.

For months Clinton portrayed herself as the stateswoman, as being above the fray, the only adult in a contest with a dozen adolescent boys. But then, suddenly, in a television debate in late October, Clinton faltered. She delivered a long, confusing response to a question about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's proposal to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, and when she was asked to name her favorite baseball team she replied that it was the New York Yankees. Then she paused and said: "And the Chicago Cubs." It was as if Kurt Beck, the leader of Germany's Social Democrats, were to announce that he supported rival German football teams Bayern München and FC St. Pauli. It was the most opportunistic of all possible responses, the sort of mistake a candidate in this election campaign should avoid at all costs.

Perhaps Mrs. Clinton had simply let her guard down, perhaps she had underestimated her opponents or perhaps she had failed to notice that the men's club on the debate stage had it in for her. The television debates since then have followed the same general pattern, as the men on the stage jockey in an everyone-get-the-girl mode.

Warm-Hearted After All

Anyone who spends a few days with Hillary Clinton today will experience a candidate who takes the time to shake hands, to look her potential voters in the eye and to engage in brief conversations with people who approach her after her appearances. It is afterwards that Hillary Clinton shows her softer side, her ability to listen -- and that she can be a warm-hearted woman, after all.

And yet when she speaks, Clinton reveals a new toughness. She talks about how her father set himself three goals in life: a small business, a family and a house -- and about how her mother added a fourth goal: Their children would go to college. The family, she says, achieved all four goals.

Then Clinton announces her own four goals. She tells her audience that she wants to reestablish "America's leadership role in the world," because the "days of cowboy diplomacy are over." It's a sentence she repeats again and again, day after day. She wants the American middle class to prosper once again, her second goal. And she wants the government to place qualified people in the right positions. Finally, her fourth goal: "How about securing our children's future?"

"Iowa, the entire country and the world will be watching you," Hillary Clinton tells her audience at the end of her speech. Her Iowa campaign is called the "Every District Counts" tour, and she is traveling the state by helicopter. She calls this final spurt, this show of strength, her Blitz, and the reference to the word "Blitzkrieg" is clearly no accident. She is accompanied by her mother, actors and other "people," as she says, "whose lives I've changed."

The Real World

This last push in this segment of the campaign was Bill Clinton's idea. It's not enough to come across as superior and competent, the former president told his wife. The magic word in this first election campaign after Bush, he said, is "change." Hillary, taking his advice, now says that the American people will face a choice among those who talk about change (a reference to John Edwards), those who fervently hope for change (Obama, naturally) and, finally, Hillary Clinton, a woman who has learned to be tough after fighting many battles, a woman who has spent her life changing the lives of others -- for the better, of course.

A preliminary decision -- nothing more, nothing less -- will be made here in Iowa on Jan. 3. The real race begins after that. Besides, making it through this sort of a campaign -- surviving the line of fire, spending 16 hours a day, day after day, in the limelight -- is all just a test, and yet it has little to do with what happens after victory in November.

That's when the real world starts.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan