DES MOINES — Charlie Cook of National Journal was
talking to Gwen Ifill of PBS in the back yard, and Carl Cameron of
Fox News was in the front yard, while reporters from the San
Francisco Chronicle and the Philadelphia Inquirer
milled around among the guests at the home of a local businessman
here. They were all awaiting the arrival of the guest of honor at a
fundraiser for the Polk County Republican Party. When Mitt Romney
finally did arrive, TV camera crews, photographers and reporters
rushed down to the street where they encircled him in a moving
scrum as he made his way across the lawn to the front door.
The former Massachusetts governor hasn’t visited Iowa very
often this year, and his rare visit Wednesday was occasioned by the
same event that brought so many big-name journalists to town:
Thursday’s televised debate, two days before Saturday’s Republican
straw poll at Iowa State University in Ames. But while the national
media turned out in droves to cover the Des Moines visit of the
GOP’s national front-runner, these reporters and pundits from out
of town aren’t eligible to vote in the straw poll, and few Iowa
Republicans are expected to cast their votes Saturday for Romney.
Four years ago, Romney made a strong effort in Ames and won the
straw poll, but the big headline from that event was Mike
Huckabee’s unexpectedly strong second-place showing, and Huckabee
subsequently beat Romney in the 2008 Iowa caucuses. Romney’s name
will be on the ballot Saturday, but he hasn’t organized heavily in
Iowa this year — he reportedly has only three staffers in the
state — and most observers don’t expect him to finish better than
sixth place in the straw poll.
The questions surrounding the Ames ballot are still
awaiting answers, and tonight’s debate (9 p.m. ET, Fox News
Channel) could have a crucial influence on those answers, because
many Iowans who will vote in Saturday’s event say they are still
undecided. “The debate is going to be an opportunity for people to
make one last assessment before they show up on Saturday,” said
Donald Racheter, a former university political science professor
who is now head of the Public Interest Institute at Iowa Wesleyan
College.
Norm Pawlewski says he has narrowed his choices down to
four candidates — Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, former
Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty
and Atlanta businessman Herman Cain. And he says Thursday’s debate
will be a big factor in deciding which one gets his vote in
Saturday’s straw poll. “There are a lot of people who don’t have
their mind made up, like myself,” says Pawlewski, a lobbyist for
the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition. “It will depend on how free
the debate is, so that the candidates can really express what
they’re thinking and their real core values. There’s a real
opportunity there for someone to sway me.” Like many other
conservative activists here, Pawlewski has already met all four of
the candidates who are on his short list — and he has also met
most of the ones who didn’t make the list, including
Romney.
Regarding prospects for Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s push to
get write-in votes in the Ames straw poll, Pawlewski said, “That’s
hard — you’ve got people like Bachmann and Pawlenty who’ve got a
lot of boots on the ground. They’re working their phones and
they’re working their personal contacts, and they’re going to have
people coming out. It’s kind of hard just to jump in this late in
the game and expect people just to write your name in.… I’d be
surprised if he came in anywhere in the top five”
Nine candidates will be on the ballot in Ames: Romney,
Pawlenty, Bachmann, Cain, Santorum, former House Speaker Newt
Gingrich, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and
Michigan Rep. Thad McCotter. However, due to the debate rules
decided by Fox News — requiring candidates to show at least one
percent in national polls to qualify — McCotter won’t be on the
stage Thursday. McCotter has complained about his omission from the
TV debate, but some have seen Fox’s debate rule as the only way to
exclude Fred Karger, a gay man running a sort of stunt campaign for
president.
Thursday’s debate may be decided by what Racheter calls
the “foot-in-your-mouth factor.” He recalled Gerald Ford’s 1976
debate blunder against Jimmy Carter when Ford claimed that Eastern
Europe was not under “Soviet domination.”
“If somebody makes a big faux pas, makes a big mistake… it
makes people say, ‘Oh, this guy’s not smart enough to be president
of the United States,” said Racheter, a veteran observer of Iowa
politics. “You know the mainstream media are going to magnify any
mistake that anybody makes, because they hate Republicans. They
don’t want us to be successful. They want Obama to get re-elected.
And you know, he makes mistakes all the time, and they never say
‘boo’ about any of his mistakes.”
Obama’s mistakes haven’t gone altogether unnoticed,
certainly not by Romney. Speaking to the crowd at Wednesday’s
event, Romney recited a list of the president’s failures and said,
“You’ve got a lot of people in this country who are hurting, who
are suffering by virtue of the president’s policies. You may ask,
‘What did he do that was so bad?’ My answer is, well, almost
everything.”
That line got a laugh from the Republicans gathered at the
McKinley Avenue home of businessman Nick Van Patten, but while many
of the guests wore the candidate’s blue and white “Romney: Believe
in America” stickers on their lapels, several others privately said
they were still weighing their votes in
Saturday’s straw poll. And the national front-runner’s name wasn’t
on their short lists.
