GOP MIA: Democrats pushing harder in Iowa than Republicans

By Charlotte Eby | Thursday, October 25, 2007

DES MOINES — While the Democratic presidential candidates are engaged in a white-hot competition to win the Iowa caucuses, the Republican contenders have spent less time in the state in recent months as they are forced to look at strategies beyond Iowa.

Many of the top GOP campaigns have remained absent from Iowa for long stretches after the party’s straw poll in August and their busy campaign schedules leading up to the event.

Even Mitt Romney, the GOP front-runner in Iowa polls, stayed out of the state for a month. Rudy Giuliani had been absent from the state for several weeks before a return trip to Iowa on Wednesday.

And when AARP hosts its forum Thursday for the GOP presidential candidates in Sioux City, only John McCain and Mike Huckabee are scheduled to attend.

In contrast, when AARP held its debate for Democrats in Davenport, all the major presidential contenders, except Barack Obama, attended.

Cary Covington, a professor of political science at the University of Iowa, said Democrats this cycle are devoting more to winning Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses than Republicans.

Democrats John Edwards and Obama both see their ability to win the nomination as being closely tied to doing well in Iowa and handing Hillary Clinton a setback right away, Covington said.

“On the Democratic side, the two main challengers have made Iowa more or less a make-or-break deal,” Covington said. “On the Republican side, nobody really seems to be operating on the notion that Iowa’s going to be decisive.”

But he doesn’t think the GOP candidates are de-emphasizing the Iowa caucuses.

“I think if you compare their appearances in Iowa to other places, you’ll see that Iowa still gets a lot more of their attention than any other state,” Covington said.

Gentry Collins, Romney’s Iowa campaign director, said the calendar for Republicans is drastically different from the one for Democrats because the of straw poll contest the GOP hosts in August, which he described as a “life-or-death” event.

The time after the straw poll gave Republicans a chance to catch up on fundraising outside Iowa, Collins said. He said Romney has made a much bigger commitment to the state than most and lists several upcoming events that will feature Romney in Iowa.

“You’re going to see us here very regularly,” Collins said.

Jarrod Agen, a spokesman with Rudy Giuliani’s campaign, noted the large crowds at the recent Giuliani events in Iowa.

“Obviously, the supporters are motivated, and he’s going to be back next week, and we’re going to make as many trips as we can to Iowa,” Agen said.

Chuck Larson, an adviser to McCain’s campaign, acknowledges the difficulty of campaigning simultaneously in so many states.

“The campaigns have rigorous fundraising schedules that they need to meet, so it makes it challenging for them to spend as much time in Iowa or New Hampshire as they otherwise would,” Larson said.

Republicans also are calculating what happens beyond Iowa as they look to other states that hold early contests such as Florida, South Carolina and Michigan, said Chuck Laudner, executive director of the Republican Party of Iowa.

But Laudner expects the campaign to heat up in Iowa on the Republican side as the caucuses get closer and debates are held in Iowa in the coming months.

“It doesn’t feel like we’re being shortchanged at all,” Laudner said.

Carrie Giddins, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Democratic Party, has a different take.

She describes a “mass exodus” from the state by the Republican candidates after the GOP straw poll in August.

The Iowa Democratic Party tracks visits from the candidates on a calendar in their office marked with red for visits from Republicans and blue for visits from Democrats.

That calendar showed a very red July and August with blue mixed in before the straw poll and a largely blue September and October.

“This is a state that is competitive in the general election, and you would think that somebody who wants to be the eventual Republican nominee would want to get to know voters across the state,” Giddins said.

Charlotte Eby can be contacted at (515) 243-0138 or chareby@aol.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.