It hasn’t been the greatest few weeks for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, but he still has my support, and I still maintain that John Kerry looks like one of the tree people from Lord of the Rings. I traveled to Iowa the weekend before the caucuses as part of Howard Dean’s “Iowa Perfect Storm,” to meet up with my girlfriend Esther and a friend of mine. We headed down to Burlington, IA where we were assigned to canvas a town called Keokuk.
Keokuk is a stereotypical rust-belt city near the Iowa-Missouri border, forgotten by the boom of the ‘90s and hit hard by Bush’s recession. Driving into the city, you could tell it had once been a thriving area but was now devoid of industry. Add the cold and dreary weather that day, and you have a rather uninspiring situation.
Our assignment was simple: knock on the doors of all registered Democrats and Independents, and ask them if they were planning to go to the caucus. If they said yes, we would ask if they support Dean. If they were undecided, we would talk with them about Dean’s views, and if they were voting for someone else we would move on. Ahead of time, we had discussed what our tactics would be and tried to sum up Dean’s main campaign issues. We decided to stress employment and health care. However, much of this planning would be in vain as most of the people on our list were not even home. Out of those that were home, many were supporting Rep. Dick Gephardt, or someone else other than Dean. After walking the streets for an hour or so, we were still without any solid Dean supporters. Things were getting rather depressing.
One of the houses on our list was a very run-down house, painted bright green. Or at least, at one time it had been bright blue. The paint was now peeling and falling off, along with the shutters hanging off or missing altogether.
At first, we did not want to approach the house, and were content to move on. There was always that lingering hope, however, that a Dean supporter might live there, or even better, an undecided voter that we could convince to vote Dean. We eventually decided to knock on the door.
Upon reaching the door, we noticed that the storm door had no screen, so we just reached through to knock. There was no immediate response, so we decided to just leave some pamphlets and other Dean literature and move on. But just as we were ready to go, a middle-aged woman came to the door.
She was wearing a Keokuk, IA sweatshirt, which I was very surprised even existed. She leaned forward through the broken storm door to talk with us. We told her we were campaigning for Howard Dean, and that I had traveled from Washington, D.C. to help. She seemed very impressed and mentioned that her son was a Dean supporter and was planning to caucus. She took our literature and listened to why we supported Dean, and wished us luck. We left her house inspired, energized enough to cover dozens more blocks.
On Sunday we headed up to Davenport, Iowa for Dean’s last rally in the Quad Cities. It was in a local high school cafeteria. We left very early in order to secure good spots, as we had every intention to shake the Governor’s hand and possibly get his autograph. Getting there early was a mixed blessing; we were able to get spots very close to the front, but at the same time we had to wait. And wait. And wait. At least we had the Quad Cities’ very own, very loud, and very mediocre “Metrolites” band to entertain us.
Eventually, Iowa’s Sen. Tom Harkin took the stage to rally the troops. He then introduced the guests of honor, Howard Dean and his wife Dr. Judith Dean. The crowd erupted in cheers-this was Judy Dean’s first campaign appearance. Dean gave his standard “Get out the vote speech” and began to work the rope line along with his wife. Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” played in the background as he pressed the flesh with supporters.
As he neared our part of the rope-line, Esther and I got ready to ask him to sign our Dean for America shirts, and our friend got out his copy of Dean’s book. We were able to talk with the Governor, briefly, and shake his hand. He kindly signed both of our shirts (he touched my shoulder!), and I told him that I had voted for him in D.C. He seemed pleased as he continued down the rope line. Our friend got his book signed, and we all left the school elated.
Of course, it was all downhill from there-third place in Iowa, second place in New Hampshire, and no wins this Tuesday. The media has now called Dean’s campaign all but dead-yet from the response of Dean supporters, you would never know. He has still been able to raise approximately $200,000 per day since Iowa and New Hampshire. $50 of that has come from me.
I have not given up hope. While things might look grim, I still have faith in the movement that Howard Dean has built. I am not ready to jump ship to a candidate that the media prefers. Whenever I get down about Dean’s campaign, all I have to do is think about that dreary afternoon in Iowa and then I remember why I believe.
Dave Stroup is a sophomore in the College and the cover and photo editor of The Georgetown Voice. He loves long, romantic train rides.
