NORTHWESTERN IOWA — It really is striking how many undecided voters the average, slave-to-GPS reporter stumbles across in Iowa. Here’s the story of one former Herman Cain supporter still looking for a new political home.
On Friday, three people I picked at random to talk to at Mitt Romney’s big event with Chris Christie in West Des Moines hadn’t made up their minds even after being jokingly threatened to get behind Romney by the certified GOP rockstar governor of New Jersey.
Four hours or so away in northwest Iowa, I ran into Curtis Jacob and his family coming out of the Ron Paul event (you can read what Jacob thought about Paul’s warning about coming in the violence in the streets here.) He used to back Cain and said it’s possible he won’t make up his mind about who to caucus for until the process starts Tuesday at 7 p.m.
He knows who won’t get his support: “I know who I’ve ruled out. Romney for sure, Huntsman for sure,” he told me in the lobby of the Sioux Center public library.
But getting to yes for someone else is a trickier question, he said. Jacob said he thinks undecideditis is an epidemic in his region of the state, which he described as Mike Huckabee country. Jacob backed the former Arkansas governor in 2008 and described how he drifted around after Huckabee decided not to run.
Then came Cain, who Jacob and several of his Huckabee-backing friends got behind. Then came the Cainpocalypse and Jacob was set adrift again. Now he’s down to three: Paul, Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum. Of those three, Santorum is the only one he hasn’t seen in person, but he showed no sign of leaning one way or the other.
Here are some extended chunks of our chat. Obviously Jacobs is just one guy and it would be silly to say he speaks for all undecided Iowans or even former Cain supporters, but I think the conversation really encapsulates what many Iowans are going through.
Most of us, I think and I think the last election proved this with numbers, voted for Huckabee last time in this area. And so who do we want this time that matches similar to what we thought of last time. And unlike last time there are several that are close to that and we’re all definitely mostly against a particular one or two. So how do we decide on that last one when there are several more that are similar?
At the same time, since he didn’t get in and decided not to, then who did we go for? I think several of us who I talked to in my area were going for Herman Cain. And when he dropped out, that was, ‘ok, now who?’ And with only two months to go, ‘ugh, we gotta decide again.’
That’s the backstory. Here’s the part where he talks about how hard it’s been for him to make a new choice.
It’s been tough, because I think social aspects — even though it’s not getting the play in the issues that are coming up — is what a lot of people in this area of Iowa still are deciding on, and since there several of them are really similar, it’s ‘ok, now, who’s going to be the best [in terms of] electability.’
And that’s why the yo-yo in the polls, because, ok, we think this is what we want, is electable then they get beat up and we think, ‘oh, maybe not.’ So then we go for the next one. …
I’ll have to decide Tuesday as far as ‘when.’ As far as ‘how,’ it’s been trying to get, to feel, how the candidates are in person. I’ve been able to meet most of them now. But there’s still a couple I haven’t. and I think that helps because you get an idea of, ok, is this person real? — are they the same in person as opposed to the speeches they give or whatever. That helps me decide — helps me decide against more than for.
So what does this mean? Everyone knows the caucuses can be fluid and weird things can happen in them. And this year, county GOP chairs and state party officials I’ve spoken with are expecting a huge turnout. The whole thing could end up being really boring (read: exactly what the polls predict) in the end, but if a good chunk of the people who turn out to caucus Tuesday are like Jacobs, just about anything could happen.
