DES MOINES, Iowa — Highway 193 runs nearly flat and straight
some 60 miles southeast from the state capital in Des Moines to the
Mahaska County seat of Oskaloosa, where the monument in the town
square honors the tribal chieftain for whom the county was named.
Chief Mahaska “lived at peace with the white man and was slain by
an Indian in 1834,” a plaque at the base of the statue explains to
visitors.
There were many visitors in the Oskaloosa town square
Thursday for the “Sweet Corn Serenade,” the annual festival
celebrating the region’s most famous product. And this being Iowa
in the summer before an election year, one of the visitors was
running for president.
Herman Cain didn’t stay long enough to sample the corn —
roasted in the husk and served with a pork sandwich for $3 a plate
— but he did shake hands with residents and talk with several of
the vendors before adjourning to the Smokey Row Coffee Shop on
Market Street for a meeting with two dozen or so of his local
supporters. “Happy to be here,” the retired Atlanta businessman
began his presentation, “because I like to get out and meet people
and talk to people.” He quickly segued into a variation of his
standard stump speech, emphasizing his background as an executive
— “a problem-solver, not a politician” — and his plan to boost
economic growth. And given that the Dow Jones Industrial Average
had just lost more than 500 points in the aftermath of an unpopular
compromise debt deal in Washington, Thursday was a good day to be a
non-politician with a pro-growth economic message.
Less than ten days before the Ames Straw Poll on Aug. 13,
Iowa is swarming with Republican presidential candidates, nine of
whom will appear on the straw-poll ballot. Rightly or wrongly, the
vote in Ames is seen as a make-or-break test for some of the
hopefuls, especially former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who has
practically become a full-time Iowa resident in recent weeks. The
strategic logic of Pawlenty’s campaign was to position him as a
respectable conservative alternative to former Massachusetts Gov.
Mitt Romney. Whereas Romney is seen as nearly certain to win the
New Hampshire primary, Pawlenty’s Midwestern credentials were
expected to make him a heavy favorite in the Iowa caucuses. That
campaign calculus has so far failed to work out.
The first shock came three months ago in Greenville, S.C.,
when Pawlenty turned in a lackluster performance in the first
televised debate of the 2012 campaign and Cain was immediately
proclaimed the big winner. The second shock came five weeks later,
in a June debate in New Hampshire, when Pawlenty was again
upstaged, this time by his fellow Minnesotan, Rep. Michele
Bachmann. Reports of bad blood between Pawlenty and Bachmann have
circulated widely and he has even lashed out at her directly on
occasion. During an appearance last month on NBC’s Meet the
Press, for example, Pawlenty said of Bachmann that “her record
of accomplishment in Congress is non-existent.” Bachmann, however,
is using her congressional record to advantage now. Her latest TV
ad in Iowa touts her vote against the debt-ceiling deal: “Somebody
needs to say no.” Considering that the entire Iowa congressional
delegation also voted against the bill, that message is likely to
resonate here. And the contrast between Bachmann’s new ad and
Pawlenty’s more generic campaign commercial is highlighted by the
fact that the two ads often run back-to-back on local
TV.
But while the Bachmann-Pawlenty battle has drawn attention
for weeks, another ad that recently began airing in Iowa threatens
to upstage both the Minnesotans. “What if we had a
candidate for President with a real record of creating jobs?” the
new TV spot asks. “A conservative with proven leadership in tough
times. The leader of a state that created more jobs in the past two
years than the other 49 states combined.” Funded by a PAC called
“Jobs for Iowa,” that ad promotes a Republican whose name won’t be
on the Ames Straw Poll ballot: Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
If Perry enters the 2012 race — as most political
observers are nearly certain he will — it would drastically alter
the Republican landscape, not only in Iowa but nationwide. At this
point, however, the Texan’s prospects are merely a hypothetical, as
are those of another GOP big name: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
The same people who are almost certain that Perry will run are
beginning to be quite nearly certain that Palin will not. While
Palin has not yet ruled out a 2012 presidential campaign, her
supporters have assembled nothing to match the “Jobs for Iowa” PAC
that’s supporting Perry.
At any rate, neither Perry nor Palin will be on the
straw-poll ballot at Ames on Aug. 13, nor will they be on stage for
the Aug. 11 debate — also at Ames — to be televised by Fox News.
One who will be on hand for both events is Herman Cain, who created
a small stir yesterday by saying he hopes to finish among the top
three in the straw poll. While it is notoriously difficult to
predict the outcome of that vote, a third-place finish for Cain at
Ames would likely put him ahead of Pawlenty. At least one longtime
Iowa GOP operative has said that, given how much Pawlenty has
already invested in this state, his campaign’s viability would be
in jeopardy if he didn’t place at least second at Ames. If Pawlenty
actually were to place fourth — behind Cain, who wasn’t even
considered a “first-tier” candidate three months ago — that likely
would be seen as a humiliation for the former Minnesota
governor. But that’s a huge “if,” and few Iowa
observers expect Cain to place better than fifth at
Ames.
Hypotheticals and possibilities and predictions are a
difficult proposition here in Iowa, where it is not likely that any
19th-century pundit ever expected that Chief Mahaska — who had
always “lived at peace with the white man” — would be done in by
one of his own. By the time the Ames Straw Poll is over, some
Republicans will probably sympathize with the chief.
