Exclusive Iowa Coverage: Biden/Kerry - Republicans Carrying Out “Cover-Up”
NORTH LIBERTY, IOWA - Two days out from the Iowa Caucuses, former Vice-President Joe Biden is making the case that he’s the candidate in the Democratic primary who can unseat Donald Trump.
”I will beat him like a drum,” Biden promised as his supporters echoed the slogan back to him.
Biden goes into the caucuses as the establishment choice, the backing of most mainstream Democratic operatives, and now the endorsement of Iowa’s labor unions. In the caucuses there are many routes to a win, including taking on an insurgent stance as an outsider, a claim to helming a political revolution, and an adherence to conservative values. Biden’s claim to labor and Democratic tradition occupies two of the possible routes.
The organization, however, is a bit behind. Insurgents in the Democratic field have always prospered from a lackluster part operation in Iowa while the dark horses win by crafting their own machines. Biden’s team here in Iowa isn’t as focused, technologically-savvy, or as extensive. This is a lot of older, traditional organizing that lacks the scope and ambition of what Warren, Sanders, and Buttigieg have assembled.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t without its strengths. Biden was preceded today by the head of Iowa’s firefighter union (the unions typically serve as their own machines outside the DNC’s) and Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer. Accompanying Finkenauer was former Secretary of State and past Iowa caucus winner John Kerry. Kerry was fighting a cold, but took his turn after Biden and jumped into right into the fray.
Echoing Biden’s characterization of Senate Republicans as being engaged in a cover up of Trump’s crimes, Kerry, a former senator himself, said their unwillingness to call witnesses was a fear of the truth. He recalled the misinformation campaign that his past presidential opponent George W. Bush had used to undermine his record as a war hero, saying that Trump, with his Ukrainian conspiracy theory, was “swift-boating” Biden.
In the crowd was an odd smattering of attendees, including several who told me they had been diehard Republicans before Trump took over the party and members began enabling him. One, from Cedar Rapids, said he’d participated in politics at the local and state level for twenty years. Trump’s crimes, his petty feuds, his blatant disregard for the good of the country, drove him to switch registration. “I didn’t leave the damn party,” he said. “The damn party left me.”
Another man told me he was still a Republican, still a diehard Trump supporter, still convinced the president should be acquitted of impeachment, but Republicans voting against witnesses had been “a bridge too far” and was making him reconsider.
“If you don’t have anything to hide, why’re you hiding it? Just what’re you doing?”
The man said he wasn’t in a hurry to support Biden, but the obvious miscarriage of justice drove him to come to hear Biden speak and see what he had to say.
Asked what he thought, he shrugged. “There’s a lot to consider. And maybe it’s time to consider.”