Pols, Hogs, and Hawkeyes
DYERSVILLE, IOWA—At the 124-year-old Palace Saloon on 1st Avenue, Tim Tutton and Jerry Smith, friends for a half century, ordered a hamburger and a tenderloin sandwich and settled in to catch up on each other's lives.
They do it every year, and more frequently if Smith, who lives in Alabama, needs a haircut, joked Tutton, a barber and genealogist in their nearby hometown of Manchester, Iowa.
Regardless that last week Iowa was the center of the universe for presidential candidates wooing voters by projecting heartland "authenticity," the men were casting a bemused eye at the spectacle of pork chop flipping at the State Fair and baseball tossing at the nearby Field of Dreams movie set.
"Well, I'm a Republican," said Tutton, when asked his preference in the presidential sweepstakes. "I guess I like Huckleberry." Huckleberry, his friend reminded him, was a game they played as kids; "Huckabee" is the Republican candidate. The men laughed.
But the importance of the first-in-the-nation Iowa presidential caucuses in January can't be overestimated. Even as states like Florida and South Carolina rejigger their primary dates to have more influence, Iowa has vowed to stay first. And that means voters here will remain vital to sorting out who will get their party's nomination.
"They're tested here in person," says Des Moines pollster J. Ann Selzer, who conducts the venerable Des Moines Register Iowa Poll. "There's a give-and-take here.... They can skin their knees, brush themselves off, adjust, and keep going."
But with eight Democrats and 10 Republicans vying here (counting expected-to-announce Fred Thompson, who put in face time at the State Fair last week) and this month's confluence of the GOP straw poll, the fair, a Democratic debate, and stifling heat, the quadrennial quest took on a sticky sideshow quality.
How many candidate jokes about hogs and pork-barrel spending can these Hawkeye State fairgoers tolerate? Can a five-minute photo op at the Iowa Pork Producers' grill really convince voters you're a genuine guy—or "girl," in Sen. Hillary Clinton's own parlance? (Well, it's better than a photo of the candidate windsurfing, à la John Kerry, one politico observed dryly.)
And had residents had enough of the rural-hick-Iowan-meets-city-slicker-candidate stories favored by some in the national media? "Oh, god, yes," groans Drake University political science Prof. Dennis Goldford, who had just spoken to a breakfast group in Des Moines on that very subject. "To save the candidates and the press a lot of time, I've suggested they set up a hangar at the airport with a farm family, a cow, a horse, a pig, a chicken, a bale of hay, and a pitchfork," he adds. "Then they can get their stories and head right home." Never mind that more than half of Iowans now live in urban areas.
But Goldford noted that the patronizing doesn't seem to come from the candidates themselves. In fact, sideshow aside, there have been legitimate recent political developments out of Iowa: Mitt Romney won the circuslike GOP straw poll, Tommy Thompson dropped out after a poor showing, and "Huckleberry"—former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee—made hay out of his distant but surprising second-place finish.
As the weather finally cooled ("Iowa air—chew it before you swallow," one John Edwards supporter said during the midst of the heat wave), a debate heated up between Romney and Rudy Giuliani over immigration, a big issue in Iowa, where Hispanics accounted for one third of the state's growth in the '90s. Clinton launched her first ad here—reminiscent of her husband's "I feel your pain" theme, and, in competing bus tours, John Edwards ("Fighting for One America") and Barack Obama ("Road to Change") crossed the state and engaged in a back-and-forth over whose motives are purer when it comes to refusing lobbyists' money. Even Sen. John McCain brought his campaign to the State Fair, proving that no matter how beleaguered the effort, there is no avoiding Iowa in August.
Back at the Palace, Tutton and Smith contemplated the day that stretched before them. About 3 miles away, a tourist walked that baseball field made famous on the silver screen—now an Iowa mecca for candidates searching for the elusive sheen of genuineness.
But this time of year, if you're looking for authenticity in Dyersville, join folks like Tutton and Smith and order the four-napkin juicy hamburger made from local beef. Now that you can't fake.
This story appears in the August 27, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.