After JJ Hoopla, Edwards Gets Folksy

Far from the national media, loud music, hoopla and sign wars of Saturday night’s Jefferson Jackson dinner, John Edwards stepped into a quintessential Iowa caucus setting Sunday afternoon.

A lone acoustic guitar player was playing Eagles songs at the Eagles Lodge in Iowa City in front of a bingo board at a fundraiser for two courthouse officials who’ve endorsed Edwards – Supervisor Terrence Neuzil and Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek.  Sara Baird of Iowa City sported a Neuzil sticker, but not one for Edwards.  “I’m wavering between six candidates,” she said, and that’s still a common comment.  Postal worker Mel Stahmer of Coralville was an Edwards supporter in 2004, but is undecided this time.  “I was disappointed in his debate with Cheney” as the `04 vice presidential candidate, and he wishes Edwards – or anyone – would join Dennis Kucinich in backing single payer health care. 

An Edwards sign is taped to the Eagles’ podium – it’s labeled PRESIDENT vertically – as Neuzil introduces Pulkrabek. 

Joe Trippi talks with Edwards before the speech.

Joe Trippi, the Edwards adviser who seems to be traveling with the candidate more and more lately, notes Barack Obama’s good reviews.  “I think most people would agree that Obama and Edwards did really well,” Trippi tells me.  I note that from my seats, just in front of the Hillary Clinton gallery, her supporters seems rock solid, and ask how Edwards can peel those people off.  “It’s way too early to make that kind of judgment.  You and I would have said the same thing about Howard Dean right now,” he says, bringing up a painful memory for both of us ex-Deaniacs.  “Even if they look like rocks right now, you still have to make your case.”

Neuzil is a member of a large Johnson County political tribe that’s well known for putting on a good feed, and though the food at 3 p.m. was only snacks, it was plentiful, filling, and meat-oriented.  Some supporters of other presidential candidates showed up as a sign of support for the two local officials (including State Senator Bob Dvorsky, an early and enthusiastic Obama backer). But most of the crowd was either Edwards or uncommitted.

As a whole Edwardians though well of their candidate’s JJ performance, but they also offered surprising, unsolicited praise of Barack Obama’s speech.  No one volunteered any praise of Hillary Clinton.

The sheriff, first elected in 2004, is a very popular figure among the hell or high snowdrifts party activists who are guaranteed caucus goers.  His predecessor openly shunned the party – in 14 years, I never saw him at a party event – and the sheriff before that was a Republican, the last Republican elected to anything in Johnson County.  So Pulkrabek is the first sheriff in three decades who’s active in the Democratic Party.  His endorsement is a big get, and he gets the privilege of introducing the candidate.

I’m at a loss for ways to describe the Edwards speech, having heard it three times within 24 hours.  Latest health bulletin: Elizabeth is still fine.  Other than the introductory reference, included in almost every Edwards speech where she is not present, the only other references comes late in the speech.  Edwards briefly describes the bad medical news, says he and Elizabeth decided together “to keep fighting for what we believe in,” and then he mentions other women who don’t have health care who have discussed their own cancers with him and Elizabeth.  Edwards supporter Aletia Morgan, a former school board member, wonders how that plays.  On the one hand, she muses, it may look like a play for sympathy, but on the other hand Elizabeth Edwards is popular in her own right.  After the speech, some of the autograph seekers hold Elizabeth’s book, rather than one of John’s.

The Speech works well toned down from last night’s oratory for 9,000 to the afternoon’s more intimate crowd of 200.  After speaking, Edwards shares the stage with Neuzil, Pulkrabek, and Neuzil’s brother Wayne, a classically trained opera singer who leads the crowd in a Veteran’s Day “God Bless America.”

A different dynamic is developing around Edwards.  Earlier in the cycle, as people approach candidates, they are often trying to squeeze in that question that just didn’t get covered in the Q & A session.  But even though there was no Q & A Sunday, no one was trying that.  Instead, people just wanted their moment – a handshake, a trophy photo.  Not quite the touch the hem of the garment dynamic you see around Clinton and Obama, but you can sense people imagining him as president and telling the kids about the day they met him.

Edwards departs to applause, the local TV crews leave and the music resumes with “American Pie.”  Family patriarch Ralph Neuzil, himself a former county attorney, urges everyone to eat more and take home leftovers.