Yepsen at Jarding's IOP Workshop - Detailed Notes
[ Below are Mike Walsh’s notes from Steve Jarding’s IOP Workshop at KSG which took place at 4pm on Wed. 2/25/2004. Steve’s guest speaker was David Yepsen, political journalist for the Des Moines Register ]
I have an MP3 recording of the meeting that I will load later today.
IOP = Institute of Politics
KSG = Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government
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Steve Jarding kicks off the meeting.
Administrivia
- No workshop next week Wed. 3/4/2004
- Dave “Mudcat” Saunders will speak on March 11th
Steve Jarding intros David Yepsen as “Iowa's Tim Russert”
Yepsen explains history of the Iowa Caucus. Essentially stemmed from the turmoil surrounding the ’68 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Dems wanted a more democratic way of selecting their candidate… thus was born the Iowa Caucus.
Gary Hart was campaign manager for Senator George McGovern. Carter really put Iowa Caucus on the map with his win in '76 which he was able to convert to a successful run for the presidency in 1976. Yepsen explains the deal that was the cut between NH and Iowa.
Yepsen explains why the Iowa Caucus will probably be around for a long time. There is a tremendous amount of inertia for continuing the system. *RG has already made a significant investment of time in Iowa in anticipation of a run in 2008. Same for Hillary.
Why did Dean lose in Iowa?
Per Yepsen, Dean did not work with locals. Kerry and Edwards did. Too much of Dean’s organization was imported.
What happened to Gephardt in Iowa?
"he was an old face." Dems are ruthless. They will only give a candidate one chance to win. Gephardt already had his chance and blew it.
“the party owes a lot to Dean.”
He really forced Kerry to sharpen his message. Kerry speeches in 2003 sounded like thesis dissertations. Dean forced Kerry to speak English.
Kerry had a significant advantage over Dean in that Kerry had been through the “crucible of Massachusetts politics.” Kerry has learned how to deflect tough questions and/or not say the first thing that comes into his mind.
Yepsen implied that Dean’s “Sit down and shut-up comment” at a small but televised event in Iowa costs him dearly. “Television is a hot medium… you can never afford to lose your temper on TV.”
Dean’s criticisms of the caucus system that were captured on Canadian Public Television tapes also cost him some points.
Per Yepsen, probably the biggest mistake that Dean made was his response to the capture of Saddam. Dean’s statement that he did not believe that the United States was better off as a result of the capture of Saddam just flew in the face of reason. “Iowans just didn’t think that response was very presidential.”
The big issues to Iowans after the capture of Saddam were “jobs, jobs and maybe healthcare” and Dean did not switch his message. He kept on pounding on the war.
Yepsen does not believe that Bush can carry Iowa in 2004. “Trade [ read.. jobs ] will galvanize “White males” against Bush.
Someone asks about the value of endorsements during the Iowa Caucus and Yepsen says that endorsements are “old politics.” The endorsement doesn’t usually get the candidates that many votes and it bumps up the “expectations” for “finishing well.”
The general strategy for running a successful caucus campaign is to save your political ammo for late in the game since most of the caucus goers only make up their mind in the last 2 or 3 days. Peaking early in a caucus campaign is not good.
Yepsen and Jarding then have an interesting back and forth about the sometimes silly games you have to play to “manage expectations.” Jarding ran the Edwards PAC and did some ground work for Edwards in Iowa during 2002.
A student asks “explain Iowa…” I thought the question was a little weird but Yepsen handled it well by shooting down some of the stereotypes. Iowa has 2.9 million people of whom 123,000 participated in the caucuses. The state only has 100,000 farmers so “not everyone wears bib overalls.”
Per Yepsen, attack ads did hurt Dean. He cites the “Sushi eating, Volvo driving, etc “ attack ad that was financed by some conservative group. It was a funny ad and caused people to think long and hard about the “electability” issue. Yepsen questioned the wisdom of the ad from the Republican perspective since it helped to defeat Dean thus promoting Kerry who is a much more viable candidate.
Activists really care about the electability this cycle. Kerry had a great line that played into the electability issue…. “Send a President, don’t just send a message.” Yepsen… “people are very frugal with their presidential vote. They don’t want to waste it on a candidate who can’t get elected.
Kerry used volunteer firefighters brilliantly in Iowa. These guys have a tremendous amount of clout in their communities by virtue of their volunteer work. Dems are now trying to get some of these volunteer firefighters to run for state legislature.
Yepsen predicted that this will be the first election in which Viet Nam vets will play a major role. Most of these guys have turned 50 and now they’re mad. Up until now they were mostly apathetic.
Yepsen… “remember Iowa is a swing state… it has 560,000 registered Republicans and 530,000 registered Democrats.”
Yepsen is very high on the value of the caucus system to organize and reinvigorate the political process. He says you get “goose bumps when you attend one of these caucus sessions and hear your neighbors passionately debating politics.” “Think what a tremendous organizing tool the caucus system is. You have to go out and find the 50 most active Dems in each precinct. In Iowa that’s over 2,000 precincts. That’s a hell of a list.” He says that Richardson of New Mexico is considering introducing caucusing to help organize the state.
Iowans are fairly independent… almost libertarian. “Iowans don’t want you in their bedroom, they don’t want you in their holster and they don’t want you in their wallets.”
Re 2008… Yepsen thinks it could be *RG vs. Hillary. Frist is another plausible Republican candidate if something happens to *RG.
Re running mates for Kerry. Edwards is the logical choice. Richardson, Gov of New Mexico, is plausible because he might be able to deliver the Latino vote. Kathleen Sebilius, Gov. of Kansas, is also another plausible candidate who could attract some women voters to the ticket.
One of Dean’s screw ups in Iowa was wasting good money attacking Gephardt. Kerry and Edwards were the largest beneficiaries of that ad campaign.
RE the gay marriage thing… obviously Bush is trying to sure up his support among the evangelicals. 3 million evangelicals did not vote in 2000. Had they voted for Bush, then he obviously would have won by a large margin.
In the old days, when you won the primaries you dove to the center. Now candidates dive to the extremes to pick up some sure votes and to do some “voter suppression” on the other side of the political spectrum. This is a very corrosive trend in American politics.
Yepsen reiterates that the caucus system is very good for the American body politic. A student highly recommends the C-Span tapes that documented the Iowa caucus process in detail.
Big problem for Kerry now… He’s out of money and he is facing Bush’s $100 million plus war chest.
Yepsen observed that “niche market” ads will be big in 2004 because it allows candidates to deliver rifle shot messages to specific markets. Yepsen recounts his amazement about seeing a Clinton ad in 1995 that ran on ESPN supporting… of all things… the death penalty. Yepsen then figured it out. Obviously, Clinton was playing to a market niche that probably thought he was “soft on the death penalty.”
And finally, the big wild card in this election will be terrorism and the war in Iraq. If there is a new attack, no one can predict whether it will help or hurt the incumbent. If there is a civil war in Iraq, that will most likely hurt Bush. If Osama is captured this will most likely help Bush.
The big untold story of this election cycle to date is….”How Did the Dean Campaign Squander $40 Million.” Yepsen hints that maybe Dean’s financial controls were not up to par. There are rumors about a chocolate shop in Burlington being one of the primary beneficiaries of the Dean campaign. He suggests that the public may not get a full and clear picture until the Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports are filed and then some of the grassroots supporters of Dean might get really outraged.
8:01:24 AM 
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