Lost In Iowa: Campaign Trail Questions

This campaign diary is written by Andrew Kirtzman, a veteran correspondent for WCBS-TV in New York City. Kirtzman is the author of "Rudy Giuliani: Emperor Of The City," an account of the former mayor's stormy tenure as the Big Apple's chief executive. He will be writing regularly on the presidential campaign for CBSNews.com.

My first day in this city has provided a humbling lesson not so much in how to cover a presidential race as in how to drive a car. In the process of making my way to a Hillary Clinton event 120 miles west of this city, I've driven the wrong way down a one-way street, traveled in a complete circle in search of a highway and ended up back at my hotel to use the bathroom 40 minutes after my departure. It has been a brilliant start.

I have come to Iowa on a mental vacation. I'm a television reporter seeking refuge in the written word, unburdened by cameras, cameramen, sound bites or satellites. As the Iowa caucuses grew closer, I realized that this was the only place on earth where I truly belonged. And so I've run away to join the media circus.

Yet without the comfort and support of a crew, I am an army of one, and a losing one thus far. For some reason, a higher power is preventing me from getting beyond a 10-square block radius of the Downtown Marriott. A friend from The New York Times will tell me later that the city has been so frenetically re-built in recent years that satellite maps haven't kept up with its changing geography. But on this cold Sunday morning, all I know is that my GPS machine, my electronic beacon, is sending me in circles, and keeps falling on the floor.

The Road

I am trying to get into the swing of things on my first day. So I've downloaded Barack Obama's book "Dreams From My Father" to my laptop and purchased a device that has it playing on my car stereo. As I drive in search of I-235, the voice of Obama himself fills the air, describing in detail an absent father and nurturing mother.

He explains at the outset that his mother passed away a few months after the book's initial publication. He suggests, surprisingly, that her death caused him to wonder if he had written a book about the wrong parent.

"She managed her illness with grace and good humor, and helped my sister and me push on with our lives despite our dread, our denials, our sudden constrictions of the heart.

"In my daughters I see her every day - her joy, her capacity for wonder. I know she was the kindest, most generous spirit I have ever known, and I know what is best in me I owe to her."

I am fighting an increasingly frustrating battle to find a highway, but I suddenly find myself choked up. I've yet to even see Obama here, but he is already having his effect on me.

Soon, I am racing down a highway in a dash to make up for lost time. It is 11:30 a.m., and the Clinton event in Council Bluffs is slated for noon. My GPS gives me momentary hope: It is estimating that I will arrive in 13 minutes.

But as I turn onto I-80 West, the voice of the British GPS lady informs me I have 96 miles to go. I peer back at the gizmo and realize that the arrival screen has been stuck at 13 minutes, 33 seconds for almost 20 minutes.

The jumble of directions and anxiety over arriving late obscures Obama's narrative, and I turn on some gospel music. But my mind meanders back to him. The man is enormously thoughtful, and has examined his search for identity with refreshing honesty. But why is that an asset for a presidential candidate? What good does it do us to have a leader so deeply in touch with his feelings?

All that's terrified us about Iraq and Iran this year has suddenly vanished from view. It may be temporary, but the diminishing of public anxiety has been a disaster for Rudy Giuliani, the protector, and a setback for Hillary Clinton, with all her years at the White House. And it's been a boon to relatively untested candidates like Obama and Mike Huckabee. All the same, though, it would be nice to know that there's a little inner Rudy in whoever becomes our next president, hungry to snuff out the bad guys who'd do us harm.

Does Barack Obama have a killer instinct? Could we sleep soundly knowing he was in charge? I don't care how much momentum he has these days; there's no way he's going to become president if he can't put that question to rest.

On the radio, the gospel choir is singing "We are going to make it!" They're imploring me to push on.

Hillary On The Stump

I arrive in Council Bluffs at 1:29 p.m., hoping after a 120-mile drive that Hillary Clinton is running as late as I am.

The sun is shining on this snowy little town, and two woman are smiling as they leave the high school where the event is being held. I ask if Clinton is still inside. "She's been talking for 40 minutes," one says. "She's wonderful."

And there she is, inside this spectacular indoor setting, speaking in front of a giant American flag hanging from a giant brick wall bathed by sunlight. All the light is giving the place the super-lit feel of a Hollywood set, with Clinton the star.

"I'll take a few more questions," she says. Ten minutes later, after a long disquisition about No Child Left Behind, it's over.

It is, thankfully, just stop one among many, and an hour later the Clinton road show arrives at the Dunlap Livestock Auction, about 40 miles away.

There are pick-up trucks outside, and the barn-like structure smells of manure inside. About 250 locals are gathered around a pen where cattle is paraded around for the inspection of ranchers. It's an odd stage for the most famous woman in the world, but it's the closest thing to a community house this town has.

Last week had been a period of wretched news for Clinton, as everyone knows by now, and the indications out of her camp on this Sunday morning is that she's about to launch a fresh offensive. It's reported that she'll attempt to bump Obama off the reformer's pedestal with calls for "change" and "a new beginning."

She starts off confidently. "I've been to cattle barns before, I've been to sales before in Arkansas, but I've never felt like I was the one being bid on," she says to laughter. "You can inspect me - you can look inside my mouth if you want."

But what follows on this supposedly eventful day is a study in passionless campaigning. Instead of sounding daring, she sounds defensive.

"You hear a lot of talk about change," she says, almost rolling her eyes. "Some people think you get change by demanding it, and other people think you get it by hoping for it. But I think you get change by hard work." The crowd applauds dutifully, but she's managed to make change sound as interesting as doing the laundry.

She sets out to describe all the change she's worked for through the years. It's a tour through her career, fighting for health insurance reform, battling for women's rights, opposing the management of the war in Iraq. It's the resume of an accomplished Democratic public servant, laid out in punishing detail ("then I was fortunate to provide legal services to poor people.")

The questions she gets from the elderly farmers sitting around me all contain some undercurrent of anxiety. A nurse's aide worries that HMOs are jeopardizing her patients. An old man says he's "sick to death" about the national debt. Another complains "everything I buy is made somewhere else."

The woman who would lead them from their problems could empathize with their fears. Instead, the homework comes pouring out.

"There are things we can't compete on, because we can't get the wage differential to really favor us. But if we fix health care so it's not such a big burden on business, that's a way to get a competitive advantage. If we have more energy independence..."

The audience listens respectfully, applauding at the right moments. Taken on its own terms, it's a respectable performance by a serious person, passionate about issues she cares for. But a call to arms it's not.

Why is Hillary Clinton so reluctant to push this crowd's emotional buttons? Any politician who's ever won a city council seat will tell you that voters don't tally up issues on a page before deciding whom to support; they vote with their gut. Who's trustworthy? Who can protect me? Who's going to be sensible with my money? Who represents my values?

By appealing to the mind instead of the heart, the senator is following an odd strategy. This isn't a panel discussion. It's a barn smelling of cow manure.

Back in Des Moines the next day, Clinton is standing before a crowd of union members at a small museum. She looks tired and a little pale, but once she gets going she gives her delivery far more energy. The tone and message of the campaign is clearly in a state of transition this week in response to Obama's surge, and the Hillary Clinton on display today seems different from the inhibited figure of the cattle barn.

The media today is focused on her new efforts to show a more human side. But her depictions of her mother's financial struggles at an early age come and go without effect. What gets her going is an issue she cares about: The plight of the middle class.

"You know what's happening. It's happening in your lives, its happening the lives of people you work with and serve."

The anger in her voice rises. "The average American feels like he or she is standing on a trap door. They're one medical diagnosis, one pink slip, one missed mortgage payment away from falling right through. It doesn't have to be like that!" The audience roars.

After all these years, Clinton still seems a work in progress. Her caution battles her passion; the inner wonk struggles against the politician.

When it's over, I watch her work the crowd at the rope line. An exhausted young aide is walking six inches behind her, simultaneously whispering in Clinton's ear and chatting on her cell phone. Michael Jackson is singing "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" on the sound system.

Clinton could be excused for suffering through this ritual, but her approach is totally immersive. As she makes her way through a throng of star-struck fans, she doesn't just pose for photos; she organizes them, getting strangers to shoot pictures for one another so no one is excluded from a shot. The process seems to take almost as long as the speech she gave, but she seems keenly aware of the feelings of the people around her and is unwilling to disappoint any of them.

As she handles the needs of this unruly throng, Clinton seems a dutiful mom, managing another chore on a busy day. The scrupulously methodical person before me isn't the crusading reformer of her recent incarnation. But there's something impressive about it all the same.

By this point I've been living in Hillary's world for 36 hours. I haven't eaten a meal outside of my car. The union people at the Clinton speech are beyond friendly, and send me on my way with a Styrofoam box with a turkey sandwich inside. A sticker on the cardboard reads "I'm caucusing for Hillary."

By the end of my ride home, the sandwich is on the floor, sitting with a stack of candidate schedules and my GPS.