Obama Campaigns — Almost Iowa Style

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has been the brunt of some Iowa grumblings for his tendency to downplay events of “only 20 people,” including the one in South Carolina that provided the campaign’s trademark “Fired Up” chant. In Iowa, 20 or 30 people in a basement or living room is not only how presidential hopefuls have traditionally campaigned, but the way the most staunch of Iowa caucus-goers believe campaigning should be done.

The exercise in contrasts — a candidate capable of drawing thousands to an event versus traditional Iowa caucus campaigning — hasn’t been easy for the Obama or some other campaigns to manage this election season, and, much to the consternation of the national press and its appetite for political bickering, the campaign hammered out another of their compromise events on Friday at Kirkwood College in Cedar Rapids.

Following a few opening remarks about his latest white paper entitled “Barack Obama’s Plan to Reclaim the American Dream,” Obama sat at a table with five eastern Iowans — all of whom were already campaign supporters and a few of whom also served as volunteer organizers. Family and friends of those at the table were given chairs in the audience, not that they could necessarily see what was happening up front. Placed between the audience and the table with the candidate stood a rope line of no less than 20 large video cameras. Still photographers meandering here and there between them while a host of print and online journalists alternated between standing behind the camera operators and sitting at folding tables with their computers. Members of the press easily out-numbered those at the table, those in the audience and campaign staff in attendance.

“As of those of you who have been following us around know, we try to do these [roundtable discussions] at least once a week,” Obama said. “I get a chance to talk with Iowa voters… about some of the issues that have been going on in their lives. It allows me to spend time not just talking, but also listening.”

The five supporters gathered at the table provided personal stories of economic hardship. Obama listened and, on occassion, provided detail of how his plan would help.

“There’s been a lot of talk in this campaign by me about the politics of hope,” Obama said before sitting down at the table. “The politics of hope doesn’t mean hoping that things come easy. It’s the politics of believing things unseen. Believing in what this country might be and standing up for that belief — and fighting for it when it is hard.”

Difficulty and hard work is nothing new to 22-year-old Cedar Rapids college student Katherine Marcano.

“I work night shift so my days start at 1 a.m.,” she told Obama. “That’s when I get up every morning. I never go to bed before 10 p.m. because I’m raising my two siblings.”

Marcano says she is able to function on an average of three hours of sleep each night by drinking coffee and energy drinks. One of the most looming issues in her life is health care because one of the relatives she is caring for is restricted to a wheelchair because of cerebral palsy and her employer’s health care plan refuses coverage.

“Right now, you just can’t pay the fees to get through the process of naturalization for her?” Obama asked and Marcano responded with a nod. “In the meantime, she is a legal resident, but because she is a legal resident, she doesn’t qualify for government benefits. So, basically, any help she needs in terms of her medical care — if she was going to get it — would have to be paid for out-of-pocket.”

Marcano agreed that this is the situation she and her family faces.

“You are doing heroic work,” Obama said. “I’m worry about you because I don’t know if you should be drinking that Red Bull all of the time. In the meantime, there are a couple things I think we should do. Number one is: I’m a strong believer that people who are legal immigrants should be getting basic health care. That is something I think is important. These are not illegal, undocumented workers. These are legal immigrants… they should get care.

“Obviously, in terms of school, helping you pay for your college education is very important.”

Springville resident Liz Loney, 36, came to speak with Obama about both the cost of education and health care.

“I’ve had extensive health care bills and been through a lot medically so I’ve personally seen what that can do to a family financially,” she said.

Loney, who has two children currently attending high school, suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2002. She was able to maintain her job following the original incident, subsequent recovery and a second surgery and recovery period, but lost her job after a third surgery.

“Then came the Social Security fight that for the past three years I’ve been fighting,” she said. “They won’t let me go back to work because they say there is too much stress. So, I’ve had to fight for Social Security disability.”

In order to obtain benefits, Loney had to hire an attorney. She has recently began to work her way through the Medicare system as well. Her 16-year-old daughter has recently started working in order to put money back for higher education.

Mary Paige, a Cedar Rapids senior citizen and insulin-dependent diabetic, came to speak to Obama about Social Security and the cost of prescription medications.

“I have several friends who are getting, I think, something like the minimum from Social Security,” she said. “That doesn’t really help you very much when it comes to paying your bills and giving you security… A lot of seniors don’t have savings because they’ve been busy raising their children, paying off their bills and their homes and so-forth.”

Paige’s thoughts and concerns about the cost of medicines for older Americans were echoed by Ruthie Polansky, a Marion senior.

“I have a lot of prescription drugs I take all the time,” Polansky said. “I raised two boys by myself from the time they were [ages] two and five. I didn’t have a lot of money to save.”

Medical bills and prescription costs became a problem in her life, she said, once she retired and there was confusion over what Medicare or her private insurance would be paying. In order to keep the bills current, she payed for them with credit cards.

“Since I’m on Social Security and a small pension, this is a big concern for me,” she said after noting that one of her medications, a bi-weekly injection, costs over $400, with 20 percent being an out-of-pocket expense.

Brian Davidson, a 35-year-old transplant into the Cedar Rapids community, was also concerned about the cost of health care and education.

“I’m in the middle of a career change,” he said and noted that he is in his third semester of one of Kirkwood’s agricultural technology programs. “A large worry of mine is how to pay for this training.”

Because Davidson is a non-traditional student who found financial success in a previous career, he doesn’t qualify for financial aid or work study programs.

“The dream that my parents fought for and their parents fought for — I’m finding it harder and harder to obtain,” he said. “I feel, at 35, that I’m so far behind. I don’t believe in keeping up with the Joneses. I’m happy with my life and I’m happy with the decisions I’ve made, but I have one more semester here and then I’m out in the real world again. Now I’ve got additional credit card debt that I’m not comfortable with, but that’s how I’ve had to finance my college — credit cards and a part-time job.”

Throughout the majority of the discussion, Obama did very little talking and spent most of his time listening. When specific aspects of his plan would directly affect the situations described by the participants, he would speak to that — always qualifying his statements with a nod to it being an aspect of the plan that he would enact, if elected.

Obama’s “American Dream” white paper calls for a middle class tax cut of up to $1,000 for working families, elimination of income tax for senior citizens making less than $50,000 a year, guaranteed paid sick days for workers, expansion of the Family and Medical Leave Act, doubled funding for after-school programs, reduction of health care costs by $2,500 per family and lowered college costs of $4,000 by tax credit at time of enrollment.