ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 28, 2004

WASHINGTON - - The following is a conversation I had with John Kerry shortly before his victory in New Hampshire and shortly after his victory in Iowa.

Q: Before Iowa, you were counted out. The polls in New Hampshire had you
losing by incredible percentages. You were even behind in your home state
of Massachusetts. Did you ever feel you were washed up?

Kerry: I always believed I would win Iowa. I can’t say the “prevailing
wisdom” didn’t provide a hurdle. It made winning harder. The polls in New
Hampshire caused people to miss what I was doing in Iowa.

But I felt confident. I am confident about who I am. I thought if I could
get out there with my message, people would listen.

I have the strongest and longest record of anyone in this field of taking
on powerful special interests and fighting for change and for values that
make a difference. And that is what this race is about. People want
somebody who is on their side, who is fighting for them.

Q: Why are you connecting now?

Kerry: Because I am really talking from my heart and gut. That’s what
people want. They want something that is real. They are tired of the
politics of broken promises. I believe politics can be the noble profession
that John Kennedy called it when he summoned us to it. And I am frustrated
by it because right now it is a trail of broken promises and empty hollow
rhetoric. And of partisan divisiveness.

Q: But what is working now that didn’t work before?

Kerry: You have to show people your heart.

Q: It can’t be faked?

Kerry: People are very smart. People are absolutely penetrating in their
ability to know whether it’s authentic or not.

Q: How did you make the decision to shift resources to Iowa?

Kerry: Common sense told me to spend time and resources in Iowa. It was
like my decisions to shake up the campaign. You had to change the dynamic.
That is what leadership is about - - making decisions. I had a great sense of
confidence in what I was saying and just go and talk to people personally.

Q: It was a surprisingly large victory.

Kerry: I won the colleges. I won every college but one or two. I won anti-war
voters. I won what people would have thought were improbably demographics
by getting out and getting the message out.

He (Dean) spent two years there. I always believed it was possible to win,
but that doesn’t guarantee an outcome, but it motivates you. I believed in
myself. I believed in my candidacy. I believe it now. I believe I can win
this nomination. I believe I can beat George Bush.

Q: What led you to believe you could win?

Kerry: The response I was getting from people was there was a disconnect
between (the polls) and reality. That gave me confidence. People were
coming up to me and saying, "I was for Howard Dean, but now I am for you.'

Q: You think there is nothing wrong with being a “Washington Democrat,” a
national legislator?

Kerry: I respect the knowledge and legislative skills of most of my
colleagues. Some don’t.

Q: The Vietnam war is a big part of your campaign and a big part of your life.

Kerry: No. The Vietnam War is not (a big part of my campaign), my life
experience is. Vietnam is one part of it. But I also offer up and talk
about my experiences as a prosecutor, as a lieutenant governor. The theme
is delivering to the American people, making government accountable, making
it work for people.

Q: Both you and John Edwards have been talking about two Americas, the
haves and the have-nots. Is that the same as Al Gore’s “people vs. the
powerful” message?

Kerry: I talk a lot about the excessive power of the special interests.
But I don’t like (Gore’s) framing of it. It is too divisive and a
little bit shrill. But I do believe that most reasonable business people
concede the excess of influence that money has in American politics. But
there are certainly powerful people who also fight for the right things.

The simple word is: Yes, there are powerful special interests that have
worked their will on legislative process by throwing a lot of money around
Washington and they have undermined the legitimate interests of the broad
base of America.

Q: Will Bush be a better campaigner this year than he was four years ago?

Kerry: Absolutely. He’s been president for three and half years, he is
well briefed and he has had a lot of practice. He has the cocoon and power
of the presidency. And it is not inconsiderable. But I still have confidence I
can beat him. He’ll have money; they have money. We have ideas and the
people. That is a powerful countervailing force.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 26, 2004

NASHUA, N.H. - - This is how primaries are supposed to be: Knock-down and drag-out and the last man standing wins. They are supposed to tell us who has a glass chin and who can come back from a body blow. They are supposed to be testing grounds, crucibles, trials by combat. Like getting old, running for president is not for sissies.

“Part of running for president is just slogging on,” John Kerry told me at the end of another long campaign day, sitting in a darkened bus that was hurtling through the snow-covered forests of New Hampshire. “Running for president is a tough, long, hard process. And before you get in it, you should know that part of it is a test. When the going gets hard, can you remain steady? People want to see that. That is the watchdog role that the people play. They want to see if you really can do it.”

People have become an almost forgotten part of the campaign process. In the early months, there are only polls and pundits, strategy sessions and staff work. It is easy to forget voters actually exist.

But Iowa reminded everyone.

Howard Dean’s fall from atop his front-runner perch was stunning. Having campaigned relentlessly in all 99 counties of Iowa for months, having spent millions of dollars, and having assembled what he said was a ground organization without peer or precedent, Dean won exactly two counties and tied in two others, coming in a poor third to John Kerry.

Candidates have lost Iowa and gone on not just to win the nomination, but also the presidency. But the Iowa loss made Dean look mortal. It reminded people that he could bleed, that he was not a god.

Moreover, the loss kicked two legs out from under the three-legged stool of the Dean campaign: the first leg was Dean’s promise to bring new voters to the Democratic party. Far from bringing new voters to the party in Iowa, Dean couldn’t even hold on to his old ones.

The second leg was the promise that Dean could turn out a vote and not just assemble bloggers and Internet contributors. Dean failed that test also, garnering only 18 percent of the vote to Kerry’s 38 percent.

Dean’s campaign stool still has one leg left: his message of opposition to George Bush. Dean’s bashing of Bush earned him early notice, early money and early support. But in politics imitation is the sincerest form of thievery and Dean’s message has been co-opted by the other candidates.

All of them are against the war to one degree or another and the entire Democratic pack is now relentlessly against George Bush and eager to tap into the rage that Democrats have felt ever since Florida was awarded to him by the Supreme Court in 2000.

In crowd after crowd, the plea from Democratic voters is the same: We just want somebody who can win. Electability trumps issues. So the Democrat who looks like he can actually beat Bush has a good chance of getting the nomination.

When Dean was sitting atop the polls and on a mountain of money - - a record $41 million raised - - the other candidates had a hard time getting their message into the media. Not any more. Now Dean is just another candidate, he has only one leg of his message left and the mad scramble is on.

It is possible to sit atop a one-legged stool, but one’s balance has to be perfect and Dean’s election night “I Have A Scream” speech in Iowa has placed his balance in question.

Day after day Dean has been bogged down trying to explain how he was just “trying to have a little fun” in Iowa. “I did it. I own it. I'm not perfect. It's done, I'm not a perfect person," an uncharacteristically subdued Dean said after Iowa. "My attitude is that it's done. And now we gotta get back to running for president." If he can.

Though he will not say so in public, Kerry believes that the dominoes will soon begin falling for him as he enters a gaggle of contests on Feb. 3. The key races that day may be South Carolina and Missouri and though Kerry is not particularly well-organized in either state, he believes early victories will give him the “waves under his bow” to sail through to the nomination.

But if Kerry becomes the new front-runner, won’t the pack attack him like it attacked Dean? Won’t the others try to bring him down? Yes, but Kerry believes Dean was unprepared for the attacks, that Vermont politics hardly prepared him the way the rough-and-tumble politics of Massachusetts have prepared Kerry.

“Dean spent two years in Iowa and I beat him there,” Kerry said on his bus. “I won the colleges. I won the anti-war voters. I won people nobody thought I would win. I could tell there was a disconnect between the polls and reality. People were coming up to me and saying, ‘I was for Howard Dean, but now I am for you.’ ”

At the beginning of his campaign Kerry felt showing off his grasp of the issues and the depth of his experience was the key to victory. He knows better now and believes that while his brain is important, his other organs are more useful.

“Now I am really talking from my heart and gut,” he says. “That’s what people want. They want something that is real.”

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 21, 2004

NASHUA, N.H. - - I think I know why the other night Howard Dean screamed like a squirrel who had just lost his nuts: He had just been told that New Hampshire voters were even more discerning than Iowa voters.

It is not merely that Howard Dean came in third in Iowa with only 18 percent of the vote.

No, the magnitude of his defeat is far more stunning than that: Dean campaigned in all of Iowa’s 99 counties. He was organized in all them, had precinct captains, staffers, volunteers, and the whole kit and caboodle of modern, high-tech campaigning in all of them.

Dean ended up winning two.

He won two counties and tied in two others. Out of 99! That is a staggering defeat.

I spent part of the weekend before the Iowa caucuses at Dean headquarters in Des Moines. Large groups of kids wearing orange stocking caps and carrying backpacks and laptops wandered in and out. Boxes of cell phones lay on the floor. Volunteers sat at tables making call after call.

I went to the inner sanctum: the second floor office of the Field Operations Group where I was solemnly assured that “Dean is first or second in all but six counties in Iowa.” I was give a Top Secret color-coded map, which proved - - absolutely proved! - - that Dean could not lose.

The numbers, I was told, were unbeatable: more than 2,000 volunteers arriving in Iowa in a single day. More than 200,000 doors to be knocked on. Each committed Dean voter to be contacted personally each day by a Dean volunteer.

“It’s about personal contact,” a top Dean aide told me. “Our precinct captains have a personal relationship with each voter.”

So what happened? I bet Howard Dean is asking himself that today.

First, how closely did we examine those groups of orange-hatted kids? How many were actual human beings and how many were holographic projections?

Just kidding. Let’s not blame the volunteers. Make no mistake: The failure of Dean in Iowa was not about his organization; it was about him.

I was as surprised as anyone. I should not have been. Last March I wrote an entire story on presidential politics and likability.

“While there are certainly other, and perhaps better, reasons to elect a president,” I wrote, “likability continues to be a major concern with candidates and the media as the 2004 presidential race gears up. Though likability is highly subjective, one could argue that from the election of Reagan to the present, the more likable nominee has won the presidency each time.”

And how likable was Howard Dean in the last weeks of his Iowa campaign? How likable was he when he shouted down a questioner at one of his speeches? How likable was he when he ran negative ads attacking his fellow Democrats?

And if you were attracted to Howard Dean because he was a new, fresh, non-Washington face, how likable was he when he went grubbing after the old, stale, and very-Washington endorsements of Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin and Al Gore?

And even if you don’t like the news media, how likable was Dean on election day snapping at journalists because they had the audacity to show up at one of his public events? Or slapping away the microphone of a radio reporter because the reporter had the temerity to try and do his job?

I don’t think the Dean staff lied to me. I just think they were drinking their own Kool Aid. I think they were so deep into the mechanics of the campaign, they were ignoring the big picture: And the big picture was that voters who once liked Howard Dean no longer liked him.

The voters weren’t going to say that to the earnest volunteers who came to their doors in the cold. No, the Dean voters simply went to the polls and voted for candidates they liked, candidates who were not Howard Dean.

“Angry Howard” has gotten Howard Dean quite far. It has gotten him $41 million, a first place ranking in the national polls and a huge organization.

“Angry Howard” did not get him Iowa, however. And one reason he has been acting so goofy lately is because he is terrified it will not get him New Hampshire, either.

Dean is not just a candidate in search of a new message. He is a human being in search of a new personality.

In the end, campaigns are not about machinery or color charts or phone banks. In the end, campaigns are about campaigning.

In the end, campaigns are about a candidate who has something to say and knows how to say it.

In other words, Howard Dean has his work cut out for him.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 19, 2004

DES MOINES - - If Howard Deans looks like he has been taking some lumps recently, it may not be politics, it may be his suit.

Dean wears the same suit day after day on the road, because he travels only with one suit. If he brought along a second suit, he says, he would have to carry a suit bag and he will not carry a suit bag.

Since the suits are not that great looking to begin with - - Dean says his clothes “ferment” in his closet at home - - his staff has one imperative: Protect the fabric.

After a tarmac event in Little Rock, barbecue was served, a wind came up and half-filled paper plates of food began flying through the air. Dean’s staff immediately surrounded him, holding up file folders, papers, posters, anything to keep the food from landing on him. “On the Dean campaign, saving the suit is Job One,” a staffer said.

But what happens if his suit does get stained and he still has six days to go before he returns home? “In that case, I will be wearing a suit with a stain,” Dean says.

Even clean, however, the suits often look a little lumpy. The pockets bulge and not with notes or policy papers. The candidate likes to hide cookies in there. He has a formidable sweet tooth (his personal pledge to lose 12 lbs over the holidays appears to have had all the success of an unfunded mandate) and though he claims that his favorite food is strawberry milkshakes, his secret vice is gumdrops.

When he was governor of Vermont, the reception desk outside his ceremonial office in the capitol had a small drawer in which Dean hid is private gumdrop stash. He would go out to greet visiting dignitaries, slide open the drawer and pop a few in his mouth. One day, to his horror, he found the drawer empty. To the amazement of everyone, the governor stood there dipping his finger in the left-over sugar crystals and then licking them off.

His other obsession these days is quarters. Some suggest his entire campaign for president is a ruse to collect the new “State Quarters” from each of the 50 states. To date, he has every one that has been released except Arkansas. (The last quarter won’t be released until 2008, when Dean will be either running for re-election or licking sugar off his fingers in obscurity.) He never collected coins as a child and says he is doing this “just for fun.”

A mint condition 2003 Arkansas quarter is available on the internet for 57-cents, but anyone who thinks Howard Dean would pay 57 cents for a 25-cent piece, does not know Howard Dean.

“I am the cheapest S.O.B. you ever met,” he says proudly.

How cheap is he? He will not buy cable or satellite TV, even though this means his wife, Judy, must traipse down to his campaign headquarters in Burlington to watch him debate. (Sometimes she, like most of the rest of America, just skips them.)

He paints his own house. No big deal, you say? Consider that the very first union that endorsed him was the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. So in the future might he actually go out and hire a painter? “I doubt it,” his campaign spokesperson, Tricia Enright, told me.

He fixes his own toilet and mows his own lawn (Judy tells people how she awoke one morning at 6:30 a.m. to see him out there mowing because he had promised to do so before getting back on the campaign trail.)

He is also a rabid recycler. He can often be found at his campaign headquarters, digging through the garbage and taking out the soda cans and newspapers that should have gone into the recycle bin.

At the end of a recent commercial flight, when the flight attendants were collecting armfuls of discarded newspapers, Dean asked them if they were going to be recycled.

No, he was informed, they were going to be tossed out.

So Dean took the newspapers, traveled around the country with them for the entire campaign trip, and then carried them back to Burlington where he recycled them.

He does not believe in fancy hotels. (His press corps, which is on expense account, does. This is yet another point of contention between them.) He doesn’t order from room service. If you want to catch a glimpse of him, go down to the lobby of his hotel early in the morning. You will see him get off the elevator in a sweatshirt and sweatpants and go over to the newsstand as soon as it opens so he can get his morning papers.

He does have his fun side, however.

“I usually wake up at 4 in the morning,” he said recently, “and think about politics for three hours.”

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 14, 2004

DES MOINES - - Just a few months ago, the conventional wisdom about the Democratic presidential campaign, was, well, conventional.

It was called the Good Neighbors Theory: Dick Gephardt of Missouri would win neighboring Iowa. John Kerry of Massachusetts would win neighboring New Hampshire. And John Edwards of North Carolina would win neighboring South Carolina.

The fear was that the party would be fractured and the campaign would be a long and grueling one.

Howard Dean? Oh, yeah, angry guy, shouts a lot, anti-war. Forget it.

Few would have guessed that today the hottest political story would be who is running second to Dean in the national polls and whether Dean can hang onto his lead in Iowa.

And nobody could have guessed that someday Dean would be mulling how he will choose a running mate.

“Geography matters,” he said recently. “Electoral votes matter. And if they are running now, how they were able to attract votes.”

So go through the list: Geography would eliminate fellow-New Englanders Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman. Would Dick Gephardt of Missouri balance the ticket? Well, maybe. But his selection might depend on Dean’s third condition: How many votes Gephardt attracts in the primaries.

And Dean is working hard to eliminate Gephardt in Iowa. Also, the bad blood between Gephardt and Dean seems real. In July, Dean told me: “I worked for Dick Gephardt (in 1988.) I love Dick Gephardt. He’s one of the most decent people I know. And he’s one of the best.”

But that was before Gephardt began attacking Dean both on issues and on character. When I asked Dean recently if he wanted to change his mind about Gephardt, Dean replied, “Yeah.”

Then in a tone more sorrowful than angry, Dean said, “I’m surprised at the bitterness of the attacks, I really am. I don’t think they’re going to succeed, but I’m surprised at it.” (Gephardt says Dean started it all.)

So whom does that leave? Sen. Bob Graham of Florida would give Dean balanced geography and electoral votes.

Wesley Clark (who says he doesn’t want the job) would satisfy Dean’s geography requirement and Clark may very well show impressive vote-getting ability in the primaries. (Clark believes they will be so impressive that he will beat Dean and become the nominee himself.) Ditto Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who has recently been receiving numerous favorable articles in the press.

But there are others, not running for president, whom Dean could turn to if he manages to win, including a choice that would be nothing less than explosive: Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. There is one problem with this, however.

In speech after speech, at stop after stop, Dean berates those “Washington politicians” who voted for the war in Iraq. He says they either lacked judgment or courage or both.

And Sen. Clinton voted for the Iraq war. So I asked Dean if a vote for the war would disqualify a person from becoming his running mate.

“No,” Dean replied instantly. “Absolutely not.”

But will Dean ever get to the point where he actually gets a chance to pick a running mate? He does see a way to beat President Bush.

“Karl Rove (President Bush’s political guru) discovered it, too, but I discovered it independently,” Dean told me recently and added that the theory is embodied in the writings of George Lakoff, a professor of cognitive science and linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. “What you do is crank the heck out of your base, get them really excited and crank up the base turn-out and you’ll win the middle-of -the-roaders.”

The theory is that swing voters share the characteristics of both parties, and eventually go with whatever party excites them the most. “Democrats appeal to them on their softer side - - the safety net - - but the Republicans appeal to them on the harder side - - the discipline, the responsibility and so forth,” Dean said. “So the question is which side appears to be energetic, deeply believing in its message, deeply committed to bringing a vision of hope to America. That side is the side that gets the swing voters and wins.”

This theory dictated a free-wheeling, slash-and-burn campaign style in order to “crank the heck” out of the Democratic base, while also incorporating the thoughts of Joe Trippi, Dean’s campaign manager, who urged Dean to take “this campaign to a higher ground.”

Which is why Dean’s stump speech today is a combination of the two. “I concluded that the only way we can win,” Dean said, “is to really get our base excited: African-Americans, Latinos, trade-unionists, women, and now young people.”

In other words, those Democrats who believed in heading for the center - - by voting to support the war in Iraq, for instance - - were missing the point entirely. If you excited the base, the center would follow. If you headed for the center, you would never get the center because you would appear wishy-washy and weak.

Excite the base, that is still the key to the entire Dean campaign.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 12, 2004

WASHINGTON - - In the beginning, Howard Dean had no intention of winning the Democratic nomination.

In the beginning, he was resigned to being a lower-tier candidate, who would pipe up at the debates and be ignored in between them.

In the beginning, Howard Dean intended to be one of those semi-tiresome aspirants who enter a presidential race in a semi-serious attempt to force the media to consider his pet issues. And his pet issues happened to be health care and early childhood development.

In other words, in the beginning, Howard Dean never intended to be more than a bore.

“There is no doubt in my mind that his motivation to run for president was to raise those two issues to the highest level of debate,” Joe Trippi, his campaign manager, told me. “Pre-Iraq war, that is all he ever talked about. He’s a smart guy, but he was under no illusions that he was going to be the nominee of the party.”

Which gave Dean the freedom to fail. He could do whatever he wanted to do and behave in any manner he wanted. Dean was free to be Dean.

And, at first, those who didn’t know him were shocked. His attacks on George W. Bush were far harsher than conventional politicking dictated. As were his attacks on the “Washington Democrats” who were running against him for the nomination.

Dean gave every appearance of being a candidate who didn’t care whom he messed with and whom he ticked off. Which he didn’t.

“ ‘Hey, I’m not going to win anyway,’ that is how he felt,” Trippi said.

Dean is a logical man and not winning was a logical assumption for him to make. As of Jan. 31 last year, the Dean campaign had a staff of seven people, $157,000 in the bank and 432 supporters. Today, less than a year later, the staff numbers 400, the campaign has raised $41 million and it has 560,000 registered supporters.

The Iraq war changed everything. To a degree few guessed, rank-and-file Democrats, as well as people new to the political process, were against the war and Dean became their rallying point.

But those in the Dean campaign who were political veterans knew mere opposition to the war coupled with a few pet issues would not be enough. Dean, they argued, would have to transform himself from a conventional politician to an inspirational force.

And in a 10-page, single-spaced confidential memo written by Trippi and other staffers to Dean on June 11 last year, shortly before his formal announcement, Dean was urged not to be just another typical candidate “who has a health care plan,” but to become a “transformational leader that rises to the historical moment, and leads a movement to save and restore America’s ideals….”

The memo says: “This is not about issues. It is about values. This is not about differences in health care plans, tax cuts, or Social Security. Its about a fight for our values and our country, who owns it and who runs it….This is not Sgt. Pepper’s Magical Mystery Tour. This is Howard Dean’s Magical History Tour of the Greatest Nation on this Earth. And a call to reclaim what we have lost.”

The memo, which I have obtained, was supposed to crystallize some of the discussions Dean already had with the staff, and outline a blueprint for the future of the campaign. It contains several warnings.

“You are by definition the classic outsider,” the memo says. “But think about the fear and anger you have engendered from the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist think-tank), the other candidates, and many in the Washington establishment. They are not afraid you are George McGovern or Jerry Brown. No, what they are afraid of is that you are Jimmy Carter.”

In other words, the memo was telling Dean he could be a winner. Written at a time when Dean was at single-digits in the polls, it was outrageously, even hilariously, optimistic.

And even those who wrote it probably would not have guessed that seven months later, the hottest political story would be who is running second to Dean in the national polls or whether Dean can hold onto his lead in Iowa as caucus day looms Jan. 19.

In the memo, Trippi told Dean that this was a pivotal moment in American history and “like it or not fate picked you” to step forward.

“We are not going to promise the American people a paradise,” the memo says, “instead they are going to hear a summons to do their duty.”

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 7, 2004

DALLAS CENTER, Iowa - - The snow blows in great gusts over the frozen furrows of the farm fields as Dick Gephardt's van pokes its way slowly through the blizzard.

Though we are just a few miles west of Des Moines, this is rural America, where the houses are few and far between and the tallest building on the horizon is always a grain elevator.

If you are going to campaign for president in Iowa, you campaign in towns like West Dallas, population 1,500. And when the snow comes up and the temperatures go down you hope for the best as far as drawing a crowd is concerned.

There are seven Democrats trying to win the Jan. 19 presidential nominating caucuses here and most of them are hoping for a strong second or a decent third behind Howard Dean.

Dick Gephardt does not have that luxury. He must win here. The gods of political punditry have so decreed it.

Gephardt won the caucuses here in 1988 (though he lost the nomination to Michael Dukakis), he comes from neighboring Missouri and he has a certain Midwestern sensibility that plays well in these parts.

His campaign will be short of money after Iowa, but a win here might give him enough credibility to replenish his coffers.

So everything depends on going from event to event, small town to small town, telling people why he should be president.

Seated in his van, he peers through the frosted-over windows into a world of swirling white. His wife, Jane, suffering from a cold and the loss of her voice, sits one row forward and at one point taps on the window to get his attention and points to some a particularly nice looking farm yard.

Gephardt nods. They seems to share a secret code and sometimes don't even need to speak to communicate.

The van finally pulls into town and rolls carefully over the snow-packed streets to a community center. Gephardt exits the van and faces the moment of truth: How many people will be here?

The crowd applauds as he enters. There are about 50 people sitting on folding chairs, which is not bad at all considering the size of the town and the condition of the roads.

As always, Gephardt begins by introducing his wife. "Dick and Jane," he says, as the crowd laughs. "There's nothing I can do about it."

Gephardt's crowds are old enough to remember the Dick and Jane books from elementary school. A fair share of them look old enough to remember World War II. Gephardt's crowds tend to be older, which could be good news for him: Iowa leads the nation in the percentage of its citizenry over 75. Older people tend to vote (while younger ones tend not to.)

That's the good news. The bad news is that Iowa's caucus system is not only odd, but far more physically taxing than regular voting. It's not like a primary when you can go any time throughout the day, cast your ballot and go home.

In Iowa, everyone must show up at the same time - - 6:30 p.m. - - and publicly declare whom the want (that's right, there is no secret ballot) in a process that can easily take three hours or more.

Since the voting always takes place in winter, it is always dark out, the weather is often bad and some people have to drive long distances to vote. If you are elderly, you have to consider whether it is all worth it.

To some it is, however, and Gephardt is betting his older, experienced supporters, who have been voting in caucuses for decades, will trump Howard Dean's army of young people who have never voted in a caucus before.

Gephardt looks out into the audience where Jane is sitting quietly. "She is the best person I have ever met," he tells the crowd. "Sometimes I choke up when I introduce her because she means so much to me."

Such sincerity can be faked, of course, but I don't think Gephardt fakes it. And every time I hear him say that line, I choke up myself.

Without pausing, Gephardt swings into his stump speech, a mixture of biography, evaluation of present-day America and his plans for the future.

"I am an example of the American dream," he says. "I grew up poor. I went to college on church loans and I worked three jobs. But I had a lot of help. I didn't do it on my own. I'm out here because I believe in my heart we can solve these problems. You've got to be optimistic."

Dick Gephardt says he is optimistic about his chances of winning Iowa. He better be. Because if he doesn't win here, he probably won't win anywhere.

For most candidates, Iowa is where things begin. For Dick Gephardt, it could be where things end.

ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 5, 2004

DES MOINES - - It is Fish in the Barrel time, that period in the world of politics when the candidates for president crowd together in one state. For the next two weeks that state is Iowa, which holds its presidential nominating caucuses on Jan. 19.

You might be wondering why Iowa is bothering to hold caucuses since Howard Dean has already won the Democratic nomination

Well, the media got together and decided that even though Dean is leading in the polls, leading in money contributed, leading in volunteers signed-up and leading in profiles done of his campaign manager, actual citizens ought to be allowed to vote.

It is a nostalgia thing, I guess. Once upon a time in America the outcomes of elections where not known months in advance. (Back when George Washington promised wooden teeth to all Americans as part of his national health care plan citizens had to wait months and months for the votes, some of them on pieces of bark, to be counted.)

So we are going to let people vote in Iowa, first because it is the democratic way and second because it allows us political reporters to stay in fancy hotels and order cashews from room service.

We also will write a few stories along the way with headlines like “Can Dean Be Stopped?” and “Who Can Stop Dean?” and “If Dean Does Get Stopped, Who Can Stop the Guy Who Stopped Him?”

Of the nine Democratic candidates for president, seven are competing in Iowa and it is possible to cover several of them in a single day. On Monday, for instance, some reporters woke up and drove out to a Dick Gephardt morning event and then drove over to a John Kerry luncheon speech and then to a John Edwards afternoon rally.

At each event, reporters asked the candidate the same question: “Why aren’t you Howard Dean and what are you going to do about it?”

My rule of thumb for covering candidates is easy: If their events are on the skywalk, I go and if they are not, I watch it on C-SPAN.

The skywalk is a climate-controlled walkway system that stretches miles through downtown Des Moines and allows you to go from building to building without ever breathing fresh air.

It is very popular because the fresh air on many days in winter here is below freezing. Hotels, restaurants and other businesses are all connected by the skywalk. NBC had a debate in Des Moines several weeks ago and while the debate was on the skywalk, NBC toyed with the idea of making reporters leave the skywalk, go outside and enter through a separate press entrance.

This idea lasted for about five minutes, as reporters expressed the opinion that leaving the skywalk is like leaving the womb: Yes, you may have to do it some day, but you don’t have to be in a hurry about it.

As I type this, it is 5 degrees in Des Moines, with the low tonight expected to be minus 2.

Fortunately, Howard Dean’s hotel is on the skywalk and I was able to walk over there on Sunday and interview him in the lobby. At the end of the interview, he invited me to follow him around for the rest of the day.

Follow him around as in “outside” as in “out in the fresh air” as in “off the skywalk.”

So who says Dean is humorless?