Former Denver mayor Pena pays call on Iowans for Obama

M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 15, 2007 at midnight

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PERRY, Iowa - The audience stood in unison as former Denver Mayor Federico Peña made his triumphant entrance at the local public library.

Both people, that is.

Peña shook a couple of hands, made some small talk and then got down to business telling the "crowd" why Sen. Barack Obama is his choice for president.

"I asked myself, who has the best skill set, the natural ability to bring people together," Peña said. "You don't teach somebody to be a unifier. "

His face lit up when a third local resident sneaked into the room and sat down in the circle of chairs while a larger handful of Obama campaign workers looked on.

Nobody ever said the life of a presidential campaign surrogate was glamorous.

It's a lot of heavy lifting, even in the lightest of crowds. But part of Peña's job as one of Obama's national campaign co-chairs is to look into each face, answer every question and win precious Iowa caucus votes one at a time if that's what it takes.

Peña is just the latest Coloradan to join the campaign trail in Iowa, where January's caucuses will be the first test of the 2008 presidential race. Already, Sen. Wayne Allard and former Rep. Bob Beauprez have done Hawkeye State barnstorming for Republican Mitt Romney.

In Perry, a quaint little town about an hour up the road from Des Moines, Peña, the former mayor and Clinton administration Cabinet member, got a fierce grilling on Iraq and other issues from 84-year-old retired high school math teacher Helen Dewey.

"I mean, obviously they're beaten," Dewey said of U.S. forces in Iraq. "They've been there 4 1/2 years. There's eight miles from the (Baghdad) airport to the Green Zone, and they haven't even been able to secure that with the greatest military in the world. Why the hell don't they just say, 'We can't fight insurgents.' We were defeated in Vietnam."

Peña, 60, said he didn't want to speak for the Bush administration, but he said Obama was a man who opposed the war before it began.

"Barack Obama got it right five years ago when he said this is not the right war, we shouldn't be there," Peña said. "So when I'm asked the question of whose judgment do I trust to get us out, I trust the judgment of the person who got it right the first time. I'm not going to look at the person who made the first mistake and ask them to fix the second mistake."

It was a small triumph for Obama to line up Peña to make that case. As a former big-city mayor who served in former President Bill Clinton's cabinet - first as transportation secretary and later as energy secretary - he is one of the most prominent Hispanic leaders in the country.

"Federico is one of the outstanding public servants in this generation," Obama said in an interview Sunday in Des Moines. "He has served at every level of government. He is a genuine policy wonk in the best meaning of the term."

"When I was talking about him possibly endorsing me, he didn't ask about politics," Obama said. "He asked about my positions on issues. And he has enormous credibility, both in national political circles and in the Latino community - a community where we are still not as well-known as some of the other candidates."

Since Peña worked alongside Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady, and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former ambassador and Cabinet member, in the Clinton administration, he surprised some people by joining Obama's team.

"To be candid, which I am, there were some candidates who were disappointed that I didn't endorse them," he said.

In the end, he said he made the decision, in part, because he thinks the country needs somebody who can solve problems "without any political baggage" from long-standing political feuds.

At the small meeting in Perry - which followed a six-city barnstorming tour the day before - Peña said those past battles would be "an albatross" for other candidates. He didn't name names, but it appeared to be a reference to Clinton, whose fights with what she called a "vast right-wing conspiracy" are legendary.

That prompted a skeptical question from a man in the audience who wondered how Obama would fill his Cabinet if he's so much against establishment Washington figures.

Peña said he would tap "new people who are like him: unifiers."

Just don't expect Peña to be one of them. He said he's content to stay in Denver, where the road to Denver International Airport is named for him and where he is a managing director for Vestar Capital Partners.

"No, no, I'm doing this as a volunteer," he said. "I don't want a job in Washington. I've got a great job in Denver."

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