Straw poll afterglow

Report from Iowa

August 19, 2007
Fred Hutchison, RenewAmerica analyst

Summer sunset in the Iowa countryside is often a brilliant red-orange and trails behind it a long twilight afterglow. During the Iowa Straw Poll, I stayed at the small farm of a man of literature, philosophy, and politics, and we enjoyed spectacular sunsets and twilights.

The farm next door is owned by a lady poet. I asked her if smelling a handful of rich Iowa soil, and digging her toes into the sod, inspires her to write a poem. She smiled and said "yes." Another neighbor is an Amish man and his family. The man leisurely drove his horse and buggy down the narrow gravel road running through the endless cornfields.

This bucolic scene could not be more different from the pandemonium of the straw poll — the ultimate demonstration of American enthusiasm for politics and noisy hoopla. Yet, the memories of the straw poll drifted back to me as an afterglow — like a tranquil evening on the farm watching the twilight and listening to the contented barnyard animals settling down in the cool of the evening after escaping the blazing sun of an August day.

Success comes unexpectedly

The night before the straw poll, my host gave me a book by Karl Popper. Popper said that learning always comes as a surprise, because it is impossible to predict a learning moment. When one first realizes that he has learned something new, it is too late to predict the event of learning.

In the afterglow of the straw poll, I surmised that success is like that. Success sometimes overtakes one so softly that one scarcely notices what is happening. In a similar way, one can be led by a divine hand without knowing it.

Success sometimes comes when it is least expected. I was footsore and limping through the restless crowds and could not find a place to sit down. As I struggled under the blazing sun of the 97 degree Iowa inferno, I noticed I was bathed in sweat. I could not drink fluids fast enough to hold at bay the early warning signs of dehydration. This was the least likely moment for success to come, or so I supposed. However, the Apostle Paul said, "...I take pleasure in my infirmities...for when I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10).

An angel smiled on me

Then I saw smiling eyes glowing at me and beckoning me forward. The booth with a radiant girl was the first of a series of booths of Christian organizations in Iowa. I had been unsuccessfully trying to get in touch with some of these. In each case, the director of the organization was standing in front of the booth. I met and shook hands with all the directors. I asked for an interview with three of them, and they all immediately said a hearty "yes!" I expressed a measure of interest to all the other groups, and they all responded positively. The interviews will occur during a future trip to Iowa.

I may have felt like a soaked and feverish zombie, but everything I asked for was joyfully granted. The girl with the shining eyes smiled as though to show approval and gracefully turned to greet others. I was subsequently distracted — and never saw her again. When I felt like a zombie, an angel smiled on me! Whether she was a human being who momentarily acted like an angel or a celestial being, I cannot say.

My thoughts turned towards finding a place to sit in the shade. Then I saw in the distance a tent with a colorful ensign that said "Huckabee." The tent seemed to whisper, "the festival is over here." Not knowing if these were the hallucinations of dehydration, I hobbled forward through the searing waves of heat across a large field.

Huckabee

I stumbled into the Huckabee for President tent like a refugee from the Kalahari Desert. Huckabee was finishing a speech about character and commitment to principle. His typically jovial demeanor was gone, and he was in deadly earnest. He finished and stepped into the crowd. He took brief notice of me as I skulked at the periphery of the crowd. A small group of people gathered around him to seek his autograph. I waited my turn and soon had Governor Huckabee standing before me.

Huckabee stared at me with a gaze so intense that it was almost hypnotic. He has the laser eyes of an evangelist. I told him that I had done some preaching in my youth and got into politics late. Then, I discovered that a smile was slowly spreading over my face as I said, "I want to do a story about a man who was a preacher who is now running for office" (namely Huckabee). He instantly exclaimed "Let's do it!" and sent me to see his press coordinator.

I do not know which was the greatest miracle — that Huckabee immediately said yes — or that I knew what to say in spite of fried brains and dried mouth — or that I was able to smile in my debilitated condition.

Huckabee did so well in the straw poll that he is the toast of the cable news shows. I may have to wait a while for my interview. His staff is overwhelmed. I am keeping after two of his top people so that they do not forget me.

A woman for all seasons

The fictional character Sherlock Holmes was so impressed by a beautiful Duchess that he called her "the woman." I have a blonde Christian actress friend in England who I address as "my princess." She calls me "Sir Fred." The knight-errant fantasy of adoring the fair lady in the castle from afar appeals to my medieval streak and appeals to her dramatic flair. Then there is Bay Buchanan, the campaign manager of Tom Tancredo's presidential campaign, who I have dubbed "A woman for all seasons."

Bay Buchanan was the Treasurer of the United States under Reagan, political commentator for CNN's Inside Politics and CNN's The Situation Room, and campaign manager for her brother Pat Buchanan's three campaigns for president. Bay was president of The American Cause and chairman of the Team America PAC. She was a senior advisor to Tom Tancredo's presidential campaign and is now serving as campaign manager. I have taken more interest in Tancredo's campaign since Bay became campaign manager because she is a colorful figure, and because I tend to think better of a candidate who has Bay's enthusiastic support.

A second reason why I have revised my opinion of Tancredo is that a learned friend of mine recently decided to support Tancredo. He heard Tancredo during the debate say unequivocally that he was a born again Christian and followed the Lord Jesus Christ. Other candidates of faith watered down their testimonies a bit for fear of offending someone. Tancredo is not ashamed of the gospel and does not care who knows it. His candor, courage, and grit are refreshing in this era of compromise, spin, and pandering.

Enthusiasm and comfort

I went over to the tent to find Tancredo and found Bay Buchanan instead. She was extremely enthusiastic, but I found her presence to be comforting. Enthusiasm and comfort joined together — very rare. She looked me over and moved up close. Did she find my presence to be that of a kindred spirit? Hard to say. It would be very surprising considering my debilitated body and sweaty disheveled look.

I had to stand there for a while before my interview started because Bay was thronged with people. She treated me like a member of her team. If she needed a pencil, she snatched it out of my pocket. If she was floundering as she tried to help someone, I stepped in to assist.

As I interviewed Bay, she displayed a dichotomy of both calm and excitement. Vivacity and peace are two prized feminine qualities. However, Bay, a woman of all seasons, can do both at the same time.

Red meat for the lions

I said to Bay that Tancredo consistently gets the loudest cheers. He can set the crowd on a roar — which reminds me of the earthshaking sound of an Ohio State touchdown at the Michigan game. I asked Bay why Tancredo, as the best crowd pleaser, is not doing better in the polls.

She said that polls measure broad support. Tancredo's support is deep, but not broad. What an excellent answer, I thought! "Tancredo is the opposite of Romney," she said, for Romney's support is broad, but shallow. Tancredo says exactly what he believes and means what he says — but is short on money. Romney has lots of money — but never means quite what he says or says exactly what he believes.

I said, "Tancredo throws red meat to the hungry lions." Bay liked that saying.

I asked her how, from the perspective of campaign manager, she knew the campaign was on track. She answered, "The message is getting out." I asked her how she could tell that. "Excitement in the grassroots." Bay was clearly excited about her candidate, and the crowds in the coliseum listening to Tancredo were enthralled and enraptured.

But it is not clear that the grassroots are excited. The farmers of Kalona who I visited a few weeks before never mentioned Tancredo. Would marching through town beating a drum and speaking through loudspeakers do the trick? No. Romney cannot be beaten at these tactics. Was it the news media that was blocking Tancredo's red-meat conservative message? Tancredo's only hope is to visit the editors of all the small town newspapers in Iowa and to send a flood of press releases to Iowa reporters. However, these are my reflections. Let's get back to Bay.

I asked Bay why Tancredo was bolder and less inhibited than the other candidates. Was it his faith? His fidelity to truth? Was he angrier than the other candidates? Bay hesitated when she heard such questions. Before she could frame an answer, we were inundated by the demanding throng.

I am working on the details of a second interview with Bay that I hope will include three parts: (1) the Bay Buchanan story, (2) the role of the modern campaign manager, and (3) Tom Tancredo as candidate.

Alan Keyes for President

One agreeable experience was to see my editor, Stephen Stone, standing in front of a large "We Need Alan Keyes for President" banner. Although Keyes has not announced he is running, Stone has organized a We Need Alan Keyes for President movement and is testing the grassroots support for a Keyes candidacy.

I usually think of Stone as a literary authority who has done a crackerjack job of tweaking my essays, adding pictures and publishing the essays. But he seemed perfectly at home in the hyper-political environment of the straw poll, advocating for the inimitable Dr. Keyes.

Next to Stone's table was the Fred Thompson table. My name is Fred, and the Thompson guys permitted me to have a "Fred 2008" button, and a "Fred Head" button that I later wore to my home Bible study as a joke.

The dysfunctional press

The ceremonies in the coliseum were splendid. I was dazzled by the special effects and was emotionally overwhelmed during the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem.

But where was the press? A ten-foot barricade was erected across the middle of the ground floor. TV cameras were placed on top of the barricade. Scores of reporters from many news services were sitting at tables behind the barricade that blocked their view. They could see the podium through large digital screens, but few looked up at the screens. They were hunched over their laptop computers. What on earth were they doing? Why did they show so little overt interest in the events in the coliseum? Were they playing video games?

My sister thinks that all they wanted was a sound bite or two to send to their editor. A savvy friend said that they are trained to be detached in journalism school and they wanted to display their detachment in the coliseum.

Maybe only the senior journalists are allowed to go out and meet candidates and hold interviews. However, the senior reporters only seemed to show up during feeding frenzies — surely the most worthless of all journalistic enterprises. I saw only one reporter using the serendipity and carpe diem approach that I used.

Young journalists who had not yet "paid their dues" were reduced to the level of flunky, scraping for sound bites, sending e-mails, playing video games, and demonstrating their detachment. Such a waste of young talent! Such a stifling of the potential of young professionals! The mainstream media is in a state of ruin.

After I returned from Iowa, I heard talking heads on TV wondering why the quality of political dialog was so poor. One of the pundits said that even if the candidates improved their communications skills and talked about interesting ideas, it would still be filtered through the press and come out as sound bites. That is exactly what I saw in the coliseum!

The brain-dead press that plays video games instead of listening to the speeches adores shallow, flashy sound-bite candidates with broad but shallow support like Romney. In their cold detachment, they ignore candidates with powerful messages and deep support but lack the broad superficial appeal that shows up in polls.

Conclusion

The dysfunctional press has severely damaged American democracy. Is there a way out of this trap?

In the afterglow of the straw poll, I recall that success comes when you least expect it. I recall 1964, when the Republican party was shaken to the core and renovated when it was least expected.

Beginning with the New Deal and continuing for thirty years, the eastern Republican establishment, backed by big money and the media would anoint a "me too" candidate and stage manage his nomination. Whatever the Democrats wanted, the bland Republican would say "me too." Serious conservative challengers would be thrust aside by superior organizations and dirty tricks, as happened to Senator Robert Taft of Ohio in the Republican Convention of 1952.

Then, in 1964, the young Phyllis Schlafly wrote "A Choice Not an Echo," which sold 6 million copies. In the 1964 Republican convention, the delegates, stirred up by Schlafly and an actor named Ronald Reagan, rebelled against their eastern establishment masters. The press and the establishment had decreed that Nelson Rockefeller was to be the nominee. The conservative rebels nominated Barry Goldwater instead. That was the end of the left of center eastern establishment domination of the Republican party — until now.

Now we have Mitt Romney, the darling of the mainstream media and the big money masters of the eastern establishment. Rockefeller is back! The new wrinkle is that in order to prevent a Goldwater-style rebellion by conservatives, Romney must pretend to be a conservative. In Iowa, it seemed to be working.

At the straw poll, Romney spent upwards of $2,000 per vote. His tents, stages, dining areas, registration booths, and exhibits took up four times as much space as did the other candidates'. The noisy demonstrations performed by his army of volunteers exceeded the demonstrations of all the other candidates combined. Romney won big.

Phyllis Schlafly and Ronald Reagan came out of nowhere in 1964 to reclaim the Republican Party from the Eastern establishment. Sudden success came to the conservative movement when it was least expected. If the seemingly invincible Rockefeller train could be derailed by such unlikely saboteurs, the Romney juggernaut can be stopped by equally unexpected factors today.

In some ways, the conservative candidates today are much stronger than was Goldwater in 64. Republican primary voters are more conservative today. Romney's Academy Award performance as a conservative can be easily exposed.

Conservatives, take heart. As the 2008 election unfolds, you may well have a choice, not an echo.

© Fred Hutchison