Back to the platform as Leonard Boswell introduces the down ballot folks one by one for their short speeches. I seem to have missed Dave Loebsack, who I have many an occasion to see, and Bruce Braley who I still haven’t seen. Met Chris of Political Forecast fame for the first time; he said uberblogger Jerome Armstrong wanted to meet us locals but I failed to make that happen.
Dave Loebsack with Linn County's Harvey Ross.
Denise O’Brien made one of the few specific mentions of winning votes from independents and Republicans. Mike Mauro, as I noted, seemed to hold audience attention and talking about how important it is for the Secretary of State to actually PROMOTE voting. He played the Ken Blackwell and Kathleen Harris cards to good effect for the partisan crowd.
Patty Judge seemed to hiave gotten bullet point duty:
Seemed like everyone mentioned stem cells. It must poll very, very well. Everybody also used the Nussle Hustle line (except Obama).
My photography skills and equipment stink but this is the basic view from the press box.
A couple noted random observations at this point: The stage décor was hay bales, pumpkins and a Patton-sized flag. And I stumbled over a BETAMAX (!) tape labeled WGN, wonder what kind of equipment THAT goes in. The media scrum was in full effect – Chicago stations, all of central Iowa (though no Eastern Iowa TV), CNN, etc.
Mark Warner was in town and got the same two minutes as everyone else. Just enough for a first impression: fiery, handsome, blatant name ID pitch (no, I’m not the Warner from Virginia who was married to Liz Taylor, but turns it around to praise JOHN Warner for coming out against administration). The short time seemed to focus him. He held attention better than Dodd did last week – of course, Dodd had a lot more time and was the main speaker. Hoping for a better look at Warner later in the week.
At this point they took an attention span break after a half hour of short speeches. The Obama scrum continued relentlessly; I made my first Culver sighting as well. Notice an abandoned Register on the press platform with a big write up on state senator Jack Hatch.
The speeching resumed with the national anthem. Just before that someone shouts “take your hats off.” I always feel awkward at rah-rah moments but I oblige; the network camera guys don’t. I eyeball the crowd and realize my crowd-estimating ability doesn’t go that high. The male speaker uniform appears to be khakis and identical blue shirts; amazingly no one else makes the joke and Obama gets to do it going last. Not even Harkin, on his home turf, is going to risk speaking after Obama.
The green and gold signs wave and I wonder how my Packers are doing (answer: badly.) Governors Old And New are announced with the oompah band plating the Iowa Corn Song; Harkin and Obama get Happy Days Are Here Again; my streak of waiting in vain for “New Day Rising” by Husker Du remains unbroken. It takes all of Happy Days and a whole Mellencamp song for Obama to push to the stage; I was beginning to think it would take the entire Scarecrow album.
Sally Pederson appears wearing more her party chair hat than her lt. Gov. hat. She brags up the Dems voter registration edge and I verbally scoff “it’s because we had a contested primary.” Then I realize that I just referred to the Dems as “we” on the press platform and I feel as good as I always do when I break a foolish rule.
The serious speeching begins with Vilsack. Each speaker has to eat up several minutes welcoming and praising the other speakers, part of the ritual is remembering to do so and finding a way to do so creatively. After honoring the ritual, Vilsack describes a statue in Marshalltown of a man holding a child, using it as a lead in to: “we have a responsibility to show our children a more hopeful America.” Sounds like the Theme for Vilsack 08 here. I notice a little more audience hubbub. Then he hits his stride with some trifecta trifecta trifecta and a litany of Republican policies and mistakes that takes a “doncha' think?” cadence. More conversational and less call and response than such repetitive language usually is.
He does the Victory Tableau (you know – hands clasped and raised over heads) with Chet and hands off. I just saw the Chet Speech last week and this sounds like the same basic one: the Nussle as Bush Clone line, the Fuel the World/Feed The World line. I notice that some of the shirts that say HARKIN STAFF have the same color and font as Hormel SPAM shirts.
Culver gets off a three V’s for Victory get out the vote alliterism (“Vote, Volunteer, Visibility”) and launches a basketball team metaphor (“I’ll play center because I’m the tallest and you get the ball a lot.”) The coach stops the jock metaphor just barely in the nick by starting Harkin at point guard; another Victory Tableau.
Harkin riffs on the trivia tidbit that he’s defeated more sitting GOP members of congress than anyone else in history and gives Yepsen a shoutout for printing this (OK, but Mike Glover showed up at least an hour and a half earlier today)
Ioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioioio
ioioioioioioio88888888455555555555555555555555555555455555555555555555555555555555
The preceding paragraph represents the opinion of Xavier the neglected cat who is wondering why I’m not giving him more attention after being gone all day.
After roughly ten minutes of shoutouts to Culver, Obama, Vilsack, the congressional candidates, and every Democrat in a three mile radius – and that was a lot of Democrats – Harkin gets to business. Over the years I’ve noticed he’s at his best in this type of setting: partisan crowds, longer speeches. There was a lot of Republican bashing through the day but Harkin’s was wittier and his timing was surer. “Folksy, yet reasoned,” say my notes. He notes pro-American rallies in Tehran – in IRAN! – in the days after 9/11 and “Bush has squandered all that good will.” He goes beyond the generic “Nussle Hustle” line and zooms in on Nussle’s role as budget chair. At that point I remember wondering: if the Republicans did not impose term limits on their chairs, would Nussle even be doing this? Why give up all that seniority and a leadership track career for a 50-50 shot at governor? Does he really WANT to be a governor? Or does he figure he can’t beat Harkin in `08 and this is the best rest stop until Chuck Grassley retires?
Harkin talks about brain injuries to troops and talk of fully funding vets’ health care gets biggest applause yet. A couple lines are slightly shopworn; I remember the one about the gut complaining about not getting any rain from trickle down economics and saying “I’d settle for a heavy dew” from back in the 1991 presidential speech. But maybe he retired it for the Clinton years and it became relevant again. Unfortunately.
The speech wraps with a Harkin self-portrait of Iowa values defined as “hard work… integrity… community…” a whole litany of the best of the small town America myth. He has the timing and the wistful tone just right. He’s a master of the form...
...compared to the previous speakers.
But then… then he gets to introduce Barack Obama. That’s in part three.
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