Boston Globe
11-12-07
By Marcella Bombardieri
Edwards, Obama vie for anti-Clinton vote
Democrats go all out in Iowa
SIOUX CITY, Iowa - Only a half hour after an impassioned John Edwards made
his pitch to a standing-room-only crowd squeezed into a community college
function room, a cheerful Barack Obama took the microphone amid a sea of
voters on a middle school basketball court.
Many of those in Edwards's audience in Sioux City on Friday gave up the chance
to line up for the former senator's autograph, so they could rush to the Obama
event a few miles away in the far west of Iowa, near South Dakota and
Nebraska.
The two men running for president have trained most of their fire on their party's
front-runner in national polls, Hillary Clinton. Obama was especially harsh
Saturday night at the fall's marquee Democratic event, the Jefferson Jackson
dinner in Des Moines, where he suggested that the New York senator has failed
to embrace strong principles.
Yet despite the apparent emphasis on Clinton, Obama and Edwards are
competing most of all against each other to come out of Iowa's first-in-the-nation
caucus, on Jan. 3, as the only viable alternative to Clinton.
The three are more or less tied in Iowa polls, but Clinton is so far ahead
nationally that it is hard to see both of them finishing Iowa with momentum to
challenge her for the Democratic nomination, according to some Iowa political
leaders and analysts.
What is clear from campaign events such as these, analysts say, is that many
voters who do not like Clinton are still divided between Edwards and Obama.
Steffen Schmidt, a professor at Iowa State University, said if Obama or
Edwards were not running, the other would shoot to the top of the pack. "In a
way, they are each other's spoilers," he said.
Among voters interviewed at both Sioux City campaign stops - those who are
undecided or those who are supporting one of the two men - the common thread
was a dislike for Clinton, whom they found too evasive on policy questions such
as Social Security, or too bellicose when it comes to the Iraq war and US efforts
to halt Iran's nuclear program.
Chris Jensen, 60, an adjunct business instructor, has pledged to caucus for
Obama but turned out to see Edwards on Friday.
"I greatly respect Edwards, and any one of them could fall on their face before
he's done," Jensen said.
He called Clinton his "least favorite" Democrat. "I think she is supportive basically
of the war in Iraq and not really committed to getting out."
As both Edwards and Obama struggle to pull ahead in Iowa, Obama has begun
to criticize Edwards for being less than genuine about his passion for fighting
corporate interests.
"John wasn't this raging populist four years ago," during his first run for the
presidential nomination, the Illinois senator told the Washington Post on
Thursday. "He certainly wasn't when he ran for the US Senate. He was in the US
Senate for six years, and as far as I can tell wasn't taking on the lobbyists and
special interests. It's a matter of, do you walk the walk that you talk?"
He went on: "If John wants to make the comparison between the work I did as a
community organizer - or as a civil rights attorney or as a state senator taking on
special interests - to him working as a trial lawyer making millions of dollars, I'm
happy to have that discussion," he said.
But Edwards refused to engage, telling reporters in Des Moines that "The
differences between Senator Clinton and myself are much more dramatic than
the differences between Senator Obama and myself."
Jeff Link, an Iowa political operative who has endorsed Edwards, saw danger in
a confrontation between the two men.
"The number one question in voters' minds will be, 'Do you want Senator Clinton
to be the nominee?' " Link said. "You can't attack two problems at once. First you
have to address that issue, then sort out who else" besides Clinton.
The Iraq war is the subject on which the two candidates have been sounding
most alike on the trail in Iowa; that is, they argue they are more against it than
Clinton. Obama stresses his opposition to the war from the beginning, and
Edwards says he would withdraw more fully than Clinton would, with no ongoing
combat missions or military bases.
Edwards also offered a strikingly unvarnished view of a post-war Iraq while he
was in Sioux City, where a woman asked about his plan to bring peace to the
country. He talked about political compromise and diplomacy, but added that
"anybody that tells you that they know that their plan for Iraq will bring peace, I
don't believe is telling you the truth because there is no way to predict what is
going to happen."
In Sioux City, both men invoked John F. Kennedy. Both turned on their
considerable charm when jarringly interrupted by cellphones.
"That's a great ring," Edwards told the offending phone owner in the front row.
When an older woman a few rows from the front actually answered her phone for
hundreds of people to hear, Obama paused and smiled. "All right, tell Steve you
are going to call him back," he said. "Let me tell this story, sweetie."
In general, though, the two candidates sounded very different notes for how they
would change Washington. Edwards was fervent about corruption and the power
of lobbyists. Obama spoke of bringing people together and not viewing
Republicans as the enemy.
Obama's campaign is trumpeting its organizational skills, which it will need to get
people out on caucus night. It claimed 3,000 of the 9,000 people who attended
Saturday night's Jefferson Jackson fund-raising dinner as its supporters.
Corey Munson, 37, an Obama supporter in Sioux City, described how his 13year-old daughter planned to baby-sit on caucus night so neighbors wouldn't
have an excuse to stay home.
Edwards has visited all 99 Iowa counties, some of them rural outposts with few
people and many fewer Democrats.
"I don't know where they are taking the polls - Des Moines or Council Bluffs," said
the Rev. Richard Moore, an Evangelical minister in Sloan, south of Sioux City,
who supports Edwards. "But you get out into the rural areas and when you get
down to it, people are going to remember that he was there."
Marcella Bombardieri can be reached at bombardieri@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.