Giving Iowa a try: Gephardt vs. Dean, amid the corn

National Review, Jan 26, 2004 by Byron York

Nevertheless, Dean is acting like a man who knows he'll win. In an appearance in Ankeny, just north of Des Moines, on December 28, he not only says he will win the White House--all candidates say that--but adds, "We're not going to stop at that." Dean then describes a program in which "we're going to target the 20 or 25 closest House races ... to try to help them so that we can take over the House." Before the first vote has been cast, Dean is thinking coattails.

A less serious example of Dean's confidence comes later the same day, when he visits a place called Stella's Blue Sky Diner in a strip mall in the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale. Stella's is known for its milkshakes, and the owner, a man named Piers Plaskitt, gives Dean a bright blue, 1950's-style soda-jerk smock. Ignoring the first rule of political propriety, which is never to don any clothing or headgear that makes you look silly--or, in this case, like a (soda) jerk--Dean happily puts it on. "Should I do my speech in my soda outfit?" he asks. Someone suggests that perhaps he shouldn't.

After his speech, Dean, again ignoring the rules, takes part in a Stella's tradition. Putting his soda outfit back on, he holds an empty glass on his head and smiles while a waiter pours a freshly-made milkshake into it. Another candidate might fear that a photo would appear in the national papers and make him look like an idiot. But Dean doesn't worry, and his campaign in fact posts the photo on its website.

As Dean laughs and drinks milkshakes and raises money for congressional Democrats, Dick Gephardt plods along. A few hours after Dean's raucous scene at Stella's, Gephardt is in the southwest Iowa town of Red Oak (pop. 6,197) speaking to a tiny group, about 35 mostly retired people, gathered in the local fire station. He tells them, as he always does, that he will try to protect American jobs by raising employment standards all around the world so that companies won't send jobs to low-paid workers overseas. The audience sits quietly--no applause, no response, no nothing. Gephardt tries to exhort them, to build a little enthusiasm. "This will be fun!" he says. "This will be good! This will be optimistic!"

No one says a word.