Edwards gets boost from caucus poll
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The buzz among callers to Monday’s “Talk of Iowa – Dr. Politics” radio program was Sunday’s Des Moines Register Poll, and its surprise first-place showing for Democrat John Edwards.
“It was the first shot in the (2008) war for the White House, and he came out looking good,” Iowa State University political scientist Steffen Schmidt, aka Dr. Politics, told the Charlotte Observer. “He got a lot of good will last time, and that good will is still floating around.”
Eighteen months before the nation’s first 2008 contest, presidential politics are well under way in Iowa. Sunday’s poll, the first barometer of the state’s caucuses, is widely seen as a boost to North Carolina’s former U.S. senator and his party’s vice-presidential nominee in 2004.
The poll showed Edwards favored by 30 percent of likely caucus-goers, ahead of fellow hopefuls, including Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and John Kerry of Massachusetts, as well as Iowa’s own governor, Tom Vilsack. Two years ago, Edwards finished second to Kerry in the caucuses.
Edwards, who turned 53 over the weekend, continued a swing through the state by campaigning Monday for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chet Culver in Iowa City. It was Edwards’ fifth visit of the year, and ninth since leaving the Senate in 2005.
“That’s one of the advantages of not having a job – that you can give Iowa the TLC, you know, the special attention they need,” said Charlie Cook, editor of the Washington-based Cook Political Report. “And that’s something he can do and Hillary Clinton cannot do.”
National polls have shown Clinton with wide leads over would-be Democratic rivals. She has corralled some of the party’s biggest donors and fundraisers, even though many Democrats don’t believe she can beat a Republican. Clinton has downplayed any presidential aspirations to focus on her re-election campaign.
“It’s like there’s two brackets,” Cook said. “One is the Hillary Clinton bracket and the other bracket is everyone else. And they’re all competing to be the alternative to Hillary Clinton. This (poll) basically establishes Edwards as definitely in the mix to be the alternative.”
While other candidates are tied to Washington or to their own re-election campaigns, Edwards has been free to travel and keep his own visibility high.
As director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at UNC Chapel Hill, he’s traveled the country from his North Carolina home pushing higher minimum wage laws and other anti-poverty measures.
Today he travels to Hawaii to take part in a union campaign for higher wages. He’s also helped raise money for other Democrats – more than $6 million, according to an aide. And he has visited places such as Israel and India.
Schmidt, whose public radio program is carried across Iowa, said much of Edwards’ good will stems from the fact that while other candidates criticized each other in 2004, he generally stayed above the fray.
“In a way, what he’s got going for him was he was the only one last time around who never went negative,” said Schmidt. “In 2008, or 2006, I think people are getting really tired of this food fight in Congress and of this really negative mudslinging that’s going on.”
Cook said the Des Moines poll was good news for a candidate who’s been finding himself out-headlined.
“The last three to four months, (former Virginia Gov.) Mark Warner has been the flavor of the month,” he said. “Before that it was (Sen.) Evan Bayh (of Indiana). Edwards has had a real challenge to stay relevant. He needed a boost. And this was a good boost.”