Iowa ... for a day

Welcome readers. As a two-timing participant of the Iowa Caucus you get use to seeing Presidential candidates, their surrogates, high level campaign people and talking heads at the local pancake cook-off. So getting to meet a candidate in person is as normal as road rage... oops wrong analogy. Well, yesterday our little corner of the world was better than Iowa.

Political attention when it is focused on the Capital Region is almost always on the White House and Congress, not Montgomery County. In the span of three hours we had John Edwards, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson come for visits. Normally local political junkies need to travel to New Hampshire the site of the nation's first primary to get this close and personal with the candidates, although face time at two of the events cost serious money. So Montgomery County is in play as part of the key first primary: the money primary.

John Edwards and Barack Obama came for fund raisers at private homes in Bethesda and Potomac respectively. Bill Richardson was at a free event sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council and held at Ohr Kodesh Congregation on East-West Highway. Barack's fund raiser was at the home of Josh Rales, the former Democratic US Senate Candidate.

I was able to attend the Edwards event in Bethesda gratis. I have not endorsed Edwards but my choices have been narrowed to either Obama or Edwards. My Illinois roots pine for the hometown Obama; while my most recent past (I supported Edwards in 2004) pulls for the Carolinian.

This was my first time meeting Edwards and he is as charming in person as I expected. He obviously loves people as he worked the room quickly but not so quickly that it resembled a NASCAR race -- more like an Amish buggy race, first gear but focused.

His theme was an unusual one for Presidential politics. Having heard over a dozen Presidential candidates over the years, I expected something about the deficit, health care or bad, bad Bush. His theme was international. But not the obvious war in Iraq. Rather it was how we could be a source of good in the world rather than being viewed as a bully.

He talked about how we could fund free primary schools across the globe, including here for a few billion (yes, billion) but that was pennies compared to what we are spending on the war with the collateral damage of being the aggressor in Iraq. That spending this money would get young Muslims out of the madrases and therefore away from the recruiters of terrorism. According to Edwards, we would not go it alone. (Maybe we would finally have a "coalition of the willing" that was welcomed.) He envisioned an America that was patriotic without the rest of the world staring down the barrel of a gun.

So it was not the red meat type of speech that I expected from someone running for Mayor of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue but I did notice that Edwards connected with his audience. As a trial lawyer, he is skilled at leading folks to a conclusion. Now is this a winning message? Hard to say. Can this be packaged into a 30 second commercial? I doubt it. Should America's next C-I-C be asked what role we should play on the world stage when our credibility has been destroyed by Bush's blind revenge protecting his father? Yes.

I could not make the Richardson event and the Obama event would not open the doors for me like I got from the Edwards camp, so if you attended one of these two events please post here and share with us what you observed.

The politics is warming up and it is not from global warming. It is the money season.