Out in Greene County, Iowa

At Sam’s Barber Shop in Audubon in SW Iowa, there’s good news for Obama & the Democrats

By CHUCK OFFENBURGER
October 29, 2008
AUDUBON, IOWA

Sam The Barber Kauffman, the sage who runs my sample precinct Sam’s Barber Shop here in this southwest Iowa town, says he expects to be humming the Democratic Party’s anthem “Happy Days Are Here Again!” all of next Wednesday.

“I think Obama’s got it, unless Democrats get complacent and don’t show up,” said Kauffman. “Otherwise, I think it’s a landslide.”

Sure, the 72-year-old Kauffman, a barber here for 54 years and the mayor for 15 years and counting, is a devoted Democrat. But this is one time when the panel of regulars in our barber shop discussions has unanimously agreed with him: It looks like Senator Barack Obama, of Illinois, will be elected president of the U.S. next Tuesday.

The panel of regulars at Sam's Barber Shop in Audubon, Iowa, include Sam The Barber Kauffman (upper left), Kathleen Parris (upper right), Nancy Olsen (lower left) and Dale Edwards (lower right).

Our two Republicans, homemaker Nancy Olsen, 52, and office worker Kathleen Parris, 46, are voting for Senator John McCain, of Arizona. But they acknowledge Obama looks like the winner. Parris, a veteran Republican campaign volunteer, says however that Kauffman’s talk of a landslide is unfounded. “I do think the race is tightening up,” she said.

The barber shop gang, you might remember, had our own maverick before being a maverick was cool. He is Dale Edwards, 84-year-old retired farmer and a wholly unpredictable Democrat.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” said Edwards of his vote, “but I feel like Obama is the man who’d come closer to getting us all to pull together. Electing him would be a good message to the world, too. We’re a country that still lives with what slavery did to us. It’d be good for us to have a black man as president.”

But might he still cast his vote for McCain?

“Oh yeah,” said Edwards, “if I decide he’s got the right ideas. I will say, though, that lady threw me a curve.” He is referring to McCain’s vice-presidential choice, Governor Sarah Palin, of Alaska.

Keep in mind that when you’re taking the public pulse here, you’re in a town of 2,274 and a county of 6,479 that is overwhelmingly white and rural. There’s an even split in the county between Republicans, Democrats and independents.

For our Barber Poll to be showing a strong Democratic leaning – and that was reinforced by a half-dozen haircut customers while we talked – it is significant.

We all agreed that this has been the most fascinating presidential election, at least in the 28 years that Sam’s Barber Shop has been serving as my sample precinct in Iowa.

As the election nears Audubon’s soldiers go on active duty, but generally life is good!

October 29, 2008 AUDUBON, IOWA

As election day nears in this southwest Iowa town, people plan on turning their attention from the campaigns on Thursday, October 30, for a sendoff ceremony for about 65 members of the Iowa Army National Guard’s 1168th Transportation Company based here. The unit is starting a year-long deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the Global War on Terror, and the community will rally around them at the ceremony set for 4 p.m. in the high school gym. They are expecting to be based in the Middle East nation of Kuwait, with about 245 other Iowa Guard soldiers who are members of the 1168th and the 1133rd Transportation Companies. “It’s their second tour,” said Mayor Sam Kauffman, of the Audubon troops. They were deployed 14 months in 2003 and ’04, also based in Kuwait. Otherwise, it’s a good time around the community. The central business district looks especially good, with most of the work now completed on a $1.3 million streetscape project that included attractive new sidewalks, 40 or more trees and neat new lighting. But the real attention-getter in the streetscape project is going to be 430 colorful ceramic panels, each of them two feet square, that are replicas of the prized drawings/prints of birds that were once done by the naturalist John James Audubon, in whose honor the town was named. About 40 of those bird panels are already in place in the new sidewalks, and artist Clint Hansen, an Audubon native now living in Des Moines, is working on the rest of them. Also, this past Sunday, October 26, four new Eagle Scouts were vested by Audubon’s Boy Scout Troop 103, bringing the total number of Eagle Scouts from the community over the years to about 40. The four new ones are Aaron Roberts, Cody Albers, Caleb Rasmussen and Nate Stephens. Guest speaker at their ceremony on Sunday was Charles Manatt, Audubon native who was among the town’s first Eagle winners. He went on to become a lawyer and political leader in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and served as national chairman of the Democratic Party from 1981-’85. He also served as U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republican from 1999-2001. Manatt, a friend of Mayor Kauffman since they were boys, has been back in Audubon with friends from around the nation to do some pheasant hunting from his “Taylor Hill” lodge. “We all have a great time at his pheasant hunting parties,” Kauffman said. “He brings in a lot of heavy hitters from D.C. They pay a lot of money to come out here and schmooze with us local folks.”

Among the group of us, we personally met 10 of the presidential candidates who have been in the race along the way. One of them, Democrat Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, stopped in for a haircut.

None of us supported the two parties’ actual presidential nominees from the get-go. In fact, when we were together in August of 2007, we were predicting a tight race between Republican Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Democrat Hillary Clinton, the former First Lady now a U.S. senator in New York. We agreed then that the main issues in the campaign were the war in Iraq, health care and immigration.

Much has happened since then. But the biggest change, it turns out, is that the sudden national and international economic crisis of the last three months has overwhelmed all other issues in importance in this presidential race.

That economic crisis seems generally to have helped Obama and hurt McCain.

“People had already lost all confidence in Bush,” said Kauffman of President George W. Bush. “He already had terrible ratings. And people look at McCain as being more of the same.”

Parris said that’s unfair. “Anybody who knows the history between the Bushes and McCain know that they’re like oil and water – they don’t mix,” she said. “McCain has been a thorn in Bush’s side for eight years.”

Well, said Kauffman, “McCain has voted with Bush 90 percent of the time.”

Most Audubon Countians opposed the federal bailouts of the banks and financial services firms.

“I just couldn’t believe that the government could peel off $700 billion for that in the blink of an eye,” said Parris. She pointed out that the two members of the U.S. House of Representatives who serve western Iowa – Republicans Steve King and Tom Latham – both voted against the bailouts “and that’s why we like ’em,” she said.

Edwards, however, said that before the bailouts, he was worrying that the banking crisis would eventually trickle down to rural Iowa “and we’d have farmers unable to borrow money at our local banks to put a crop in, and people would be let-go at our industries.”

Sadly, at least in my view, abortion has never been an issue in this presidential race, the group said.

While immigration was a hot topic in the campaigns running up to the Iowa Political Caucuses, we’ve barely heard a peep about it since then.

Terrorism, health care and education are still on most people’s concerns list, but not as high up as the economy.

“I think all the social issues got pushed down in prominence when the economic problems started,” Parris said.

Interestingly, they all say that the economy is strong in Audubon County and neighboring counties.

“There’s not much change here,” said Olsen, “except that haircuts have gone up.”

She was referring to the newly-posted price of $10.70 at Sam’s Barber Shop – that’s $10 for the trim and 70 cents in tax – the first time haircuts have reached double figures. It had been $9.65 for a good long time, Kauffman pointed out.

Meanwhile, farmers in the area are reporting a lush harvest, which is reassuring in this crop year during which grain prices have been so volatile. Corn and soybean prices reached record highs last summer, have dropped by 50 percent since then but are still reasonably strong. Input costs for fertilizer, seed and land rental have so far forgotten to decline proportionately. So, there are smiles that the crop is a robust one.

“Soybeans are coming in at 50 to 60 bushels per acre around Audubon County, and I’ve heard corn reports from 180 bushels right on up,” said farmer Edwards.

Kauffman said he’s heard a report of some corn coming in at 245 bushels, suitably dry, too. “And our average around here must be 200 bushels or better,” he said.

Agriculture isn’t on the candidates’ radar as an issue, the group said.

“We don’t exist in their eyes,” said Olsen, referring to farmers and those in agri-business.

“We sure don’t,” Kauffman agreed.

With McCain adamantly opposed to ethanol subsidies and the new farm bill, Kauffman said, “I can’t imagine why any farmer would vote for him.”

Olsen said one reason they might is their worry “about what kind of environmental regulations there would be if Obama becomes president.”

There are at least three factors in the election – call them wildcards – that there was considerable division about in the barber shop.

One was McCain’s age of 72. Edwards and Kauffman both said that is hurting McCain with the public. Parris said “it’s interesting that the two gentlemen in here who are McCain’s age or older, think his age is a liability, and I really don’t.” Said Kauffman, “Wait ’til you’re 70, and see how you feel.”

Another of those factors is Obama’s race. “It should not be a factor at all, but I’m afraid it is,” said Kauffman. “There are still enough bigots out there that I worry about it.”

And Republican vice-presidential nominee Palin is certainly a wildcard. Haircut customer Wendell Fleming, of Audubon, said he “was a McCain voter but I’m not now because I was disappointed with his VP choice. I’ve been a registered Republican all along, but I’m voting for Obama. Right from the time McCain picked Palin, she just hasn’t rung true to me.” Kauffman called Palin “a cute non-factor.” But Parris said, “Actually, she brought me around. I was going to vote for McCain anyway, but I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about it. But after he named her, and it came out about her being a hunter and an outdoors person, it hit me – she’s me! She’s my daughter! That’s our life! Those are the same things we like to do.” And she pulled out a new photo of her daughter Morgan Parris, 13, with the first deer the girl ever killed with a bow and arrow, earlier this month.

In other political races:

-- The Barber Poll shows that in the U.S. Senate race, incumbent Democrat Tom Harkin will swamp his Republican challenger Christopher Reed. “I’m afraid we’ve got Harkin until he takes a dirt nap,” said Olsen, one of our Republicans. “Or until he retires, whichever comes first,” said Parris, our other one.

-- Controversial incumbent Republican Congressman King will prevail easily in the U.S. House race against his Democratic challenger Rob Hubler. “Unfortunately, the only thing King has to worry about would be a Democratic landslide,” said Kauffman.

-- In more local races, Iowa House member Clel Baudler, a Republican, is being challenged by Democrat Chris Nelson, both of them from Greenfield. State Senator Nancy Boettger, of Harlan, is not up for election this year. And in one wild Audubon County race, four people are running for two seats on the Board of Supervisors.

In a humbling final, general thought about politics right now, Edwards, the senior member of the barber shop panel, said “this election isn’t for any of us talking here today.”

He then pointed over at 15-month-old Emma Brand, the great-granddaughter of Sam The Barber, who was exploring the shop while her mother April Brand took part in our discussion. “This election is about that little girl and what kind of world she’s going to have when she grows up.”


You can write the columnist at chuck@Offenburger.com.