Sometimes Barack Obama’s fabled charisma just isn’t enough. On a three-day tour through Iowa to shore up support for his campaign, Obama made a stop each day that turned out to be fruitless.
Day 1: Des Moines.
Obama visited the Iowa State Fair so he could see the fairgrounds’ famous Bud Tent for beers. A great photo-op was set up; Obama buys a round for beer-drinking buddies who can chortle “four more beers!”
But wait; Mike Cunningham II, the third-generation owner, was not happy; the tent had to undergo a full Secret Service sweep of the area, which meant he was out of business for two hours, costing him roughly $25,000 in revenue, which Cunningham called making a “campaign contribution against my will. I wouldn’t have voted for him before. I won’t again.”
Obama wasting other people’s money for a photo-op? Who’d dream of such a thing?
Day 2: A wind farm in central Iowa.
Obama wanted to highlight his support for tax credits for the wind energy industry, which Mitt Romney opposes. Another great photo-op? Well…
Jeff Heil, the owner of the farm, and his son Jarret, who is a registered Republican and former staffer for Sen. Chuck Grassley, quietly stated they weren’t voting for Obama either: “It is important to not get caught up in the president’s glamorous re-election words and remember President Obama’s first term record and rhetoric do not represent Middle America, entrepreneurs, small business owners and farmers,” Jarret Heil said.
Day 3: Davenport.
At the Obama event, which was catered by the Village Corner Deli, the Deli’s owner, Ross Murty, wore a black T-shirt with big, bold white letters that read, “Government didn’t build my business. I did.”
The race in Iowa is a dead heat; RealClearPolitics has Obama up by a single point, and the most recent local Iowa polls show Romney up by two points. Obama currently leads Romney by a single point in the RealClearPolitics Average for Iowa, and the most recent poll here shows Romney leading Obama by two points.
As Meredith Willson wrote in The Music Man, Iowans are nothing if not stubborn, and no amount of charisma is going to impress them. They wants deeds, not smoke and mirrors.
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