Following the campaign, January 13
From Karin Caifa:
Four-day tour
Kucinich wrapped up a four-day campaign whip through Iowa on Monday, hitting his stride as a presidential candidate for the first time.
He began the day in West Des Moines before about 200 employees and supporters who gathered in the cafeteria of GuideOne Insurance before facing what would be his toughest crowd of the day at the Walnut Creek Alternative School. The students were reluctant to come in from the parking lot on a sunny, warm winter day and had to be corralled in by teachers. One student came in but left his headphones on blaring music for the duration of the presentation.
While Kucinich tried to win over the crowd of 60 or so with stories of how he almost became a dropout and how his own brother attended an alternative high school, only a handful seemed to be genuinely interested in supporting him. "This guy is really good," whispered one student to her friend. "I heard he has this bus with all these hippie kids and they play music and they’re all going to vote for him. That’s so cool."
"The toughest thing we can have to deal with in life is other people’s opinions," Kucinich told the Walnut Creek students. Those and poll numbers, right?
Maybe not. Kucinich told a cub reporter at Ames High School later in the day, where an energetic student organizer packed 100 students into their cafeteria, that he’s not thinking about who his chief opponents are, rather leaving it to the people of Iowa to decide on Monday. If the kids at Ames have anything to do with it, he’ll be a shoo-in. They offered whistles and applause.
There are several reasons why, in my opinion, Kucinich is just hitting his campaign stride a week before the Iowa caucuses. Though Kucinich has been in politics since 1967, he’s never campaigned far from his hometown of Cleveland, the widest reach being in his 10th Congressional District in Ohio. When I first started following the congressman at the Labor Day weekend activities here in Des Moines, Kucinich looked visibly uncomfortable with the traditional campaign handshakes, instead marching down the center of the street for most of the Labor Day parade and merely waving.
Kucinich was also a part-time campaigner for most of the fall months because of his stubborn refusal to miss votes in the House of Representatives. After Congress reconvened in September Kucinich often found himself tailoring his schedule to be in Washington, D.C., rather than Iowa or New Hampshire where his opponents were working it all along. For the candidate who repeatedly registered the least name-recognition in the field, the polls continue to show that losing that time on the trail was costly.
But practice makes perfect and more time on the campaign trail has made Kucinich more effective, though most folks have already pledged their allegiances. Instead of harping on the war with Iraq and finding the weapons of mass destruction in the frenetic manner that won him regular ridicule on Comedy Central’s "Daily Show," he’s become less excitable, integrating issues like health care and tax cuts into the mix. There’s more interaction with supporters, including the Ames High student who engaged him in a post-presentation conversation on North Korea.
Though the die-hard Kucinich supporters will fight their darnedest for their guy on Monday, it’s unlikely the new and improved Kucinich will be able to sway others in the short period of time. A Des Moines cab driver told me Monday that a friend of his heard Kucinich speak this week and jumped on his bandwagon. Perhaps if Kucinich had spent more time in the Hawkeye State getting his name and message out, he’d have convinced a lot more people. The crowds from the last week or so lead me to think he’ll make a better showing here than the polls currently indicate, and that this state will be his best showing. Otherwise, the niche he’s carved just isn’t significant enough.
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