From the Trenches

TPM Reader TF reports from on the ground …

You are absolutely correct (“Kicked Ass, Will Travel“) about Iowa (Republicans) being tailor-made for Huckabee. As an observer of R politics in this state, it has been years since the fundamentalist right seized control of the party. This has some downsides for their party—we had several prominent former Republicans caucusing with us (including a former legislator).

Not so correct about Iowa Democrats. Jessie Jackson did very well here in 1988. On the whole, Iowa Democrats tend to be more progressive than the average Democrat and extremely open-minded (and sometimes naïve about our opponents). My own observation (as an Edwards supporter) is that the Obama campaign was extremely-well organized and figured out how to turn out new caucus attendees. (The former Republicans at our caucus generally supported Obama.) Our precinct went from a prior high of just over 300 attendees to 523. From a quick view at the paper this morning, our caucus was not alone.

But central to this is that Obama would never have run into problems with Iowa Democrats because of his race, any more than Clinton would run into problems because of her sex. I failed to pull over a number of Democrats who agreed with everything Edwards said, liked him a lot, but did not want to pick the white male candidate in this field. Whether Obama can pull in Republicans is a different question (given the people who are left in that party, it is unlikely), but relying on a large number of independents, he certainly showed a major draw and tapped into resources that no one has tapped into in Iowa in my political experience (which goes back to about 1978, even though I could not vote that year.) This will be good for our party; one of our new County Central Committee members was the Obama precinct chair and has never been involved in party politics at this level before (I’m not sure she ever caucused before.)

I’ll add a more general observation. I know a lot of Democrats who have nothing against Hillary Clinton, but they can visualize the Republican attack because they remember the attacks on Bill Clinton. I don’t think those same Democrats visualize the attack on Obama, if he is the nominee. With the Republican “scare” issue moving from gay marriage to immigration (and with it, the GWOTTM), and the base of the Republican Party what it is, the race against Obama (if he gets the nomination) could be one of the most miserable experiences in modern politics. I picture a racist, xenophobic campaign that will bring out all the worst America can be. The upside is that Senator Obama is up to the challenge and if he is nominated and wins, the mere act of winning could transform our country and the Democratic Party. I support Edwards because of his policy positions, because I think his economic diagnosis and solutions are the best. I believe he already improved the race by forcing our other candidates to seriously address health care, the environment and poverty. I am also not convinced that Obama’s coming together message will work or that he can lead the country from that position without getting run over by the Republicans. But if Senator Obama can do nationally what he did here, watch out for him—he will be a potent political force.