Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

Home › News › Local News

Second-tier GOP hopefuls court Iowa right

M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 16, 2007 at midnight

Text size  

More Local News

More stories »

ODEBOLT, Iowa - Two hundred heads bowed in prayer here Saturday, asking God to lift up a "righteous candidate" to fight the forces of the political left.

It wasn't your typical, premeal blessing, but this was no typical gathering at the community center here. It was a "homecoming" dinner for U.S. Rep. Steve King, the scrappy local kid who has built a Capitol Hill career on fire- and-brimstone speeches and a call for saving the country's "cultural continuity."

His hometown sits in the heart of Iowa's staunchly conservative northwestern quadrant, so it's no wonder that two second-tier Republican presidential contenders, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, paid a visit Saturday to feed "red meat" rhetoric to a crowd still hungry for a candidate to back.

This sparsely populated corner of Iowa represents one of the most critical Republican battlefields in the country.

On Aug. 11, the GOP is expected to winnow its crowded presidential field with a nonbinding but closely watched Republican straw poll in Ames, Iowa.

Polls suggest that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney could run away with the top spot. Two other national figures, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, have said they won't try to compete, even though their names will appear on the symbolic ballot.

So for the next few weeks, the real fight is down on the bubble, where a bunched-up group of second-tier candidates know they had better edge out one another and break from the pack - or else they might as well pack up their souvenirs and go back to their day jobs.

Even without Giuliani, McCain or candidates-in-waiting like former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, King predicted that the straw poll will draw 40,000 to 50,000 GOP die-hards, making it the largest collection of Republicans "in the history of the world."

Whether those numbers pan out, the straw poll is expected to be decided by the most conservative segments of the party's Iowa base. And that's why some of the more conservative second-tier contenders are paying less attention to the front-runners and instead are throwing elbows at one another.

Although they didn't show it Saturday, Brownback and Tancredo have been feuding.

Tancredo, the immigration-reform firebrand, has blasted Brownback's past support for a guest-worker plan he equates to "amnesty" for illegal immigrants.

Brownback has fired back on the hot-button abortion issue, saying that Tancredo should return contributions from a longtime supporter who also has funded a Planned Parenthood group in Michigan.

In separate interviews Saturday night, neither man was backing down, although they didn't openly voice their disagreement before the audience.

"Sen. Brownback knows better," Tancredo said. "I know he knows better. He knows how I feel on the position of life (opposing abortion). It's disappointing. It's not a mark of a campaign with great integrity."

But Brownback called again for Tancredo to return the funds.

"I've had people who've given funds to my campaign (but) when I saw where they were on the issues, I said, 'I don't want to associate with those individuals,' " he said.

After Brownback left the community center, Tancredo threw one subtle jab. Minutes earlier, Brownback had told the audience how one of his goals as president would be to help "end deaths by cancer in 10 years."

Tancredo said that when people ask for so many things from government, they shouldn't be surprised how big the government gets. As president, he said, "I will not be able to cure every disease that you have."

While Brownback's feud with Tancredo simmers, he's in another head-to-head rivalry with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who was a last-minute scratch for Saturday's dinner.

Brownback and Huckabee are the two candidates who most directly appeal to evangelical Christian voters.

Brownback touts his "Kansas values," promises he'd begin each day in the White House on his knees, praying for guidance. He tells crowds he wants to be the president who nominates the U.S. Supreme Court justice who tips the scales against Roe vs. Wade.

Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, is appealing to essentially the same base of religious conservatives.

Huckabee recently told The Gazette newspaper here that "in many ways, a president is a political pastor. That's what you do - you lead, you shepherd, you guide - but you don't tell people what to do. You encourage them to do things, but they don't have to do it."

Besides Brownback, Huckabee and Tancredo, other Republicans hoping for a straw- poll breakthrough include former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and Rep. Duncan Hunter of California.