DES MOINES —
A week before Herman Cain’s announcement on Saturday to drop out of the presidential race, his Iowa campaign headquarters already exuded a telltale lack of buzz.
The few staffers occupying the low-slung building at the edge of a shopping center here on Tuesday had just heard their candidate announce on a conference call his plans to “reassess” his candidacy after yet another woman stepped forward with allegations of personal misconduct.
Campaign spokeswoman Lisa Lockwood leaned back at her neat desk under a whiteboard identifying her as the “Director of Fun and Secretary of Candy Distribution.” But Lockwood didn’t sound at all cheery as she compared Cain to a product that failed to catch on.
“If it doesn’t fly,” she said. “You are not going to keep selling it.”
The removal of Cain from the Iowa political market -- now made official -- has set off a post-Thanksgiving sales blitz by the leading candidates.
After months of discounting Iowa, the contenders are suddenly shopping their wares for the electoral season. This week, Mitt Romney aired his first Iowa TV ad, sent his son to rally supporters and announced that he had always cared about Iowa after all. Ron Paul planned two college rallies that promised to draw legions of the young supporters who constitute his electoral army. And both of them attacked Newt Gingrich, the field’s resurrected darling, who campaigned across the state.
There comes a point in every presidential cycle when the field thins and the surviving candidates scramble after the supporters. Now marks the beginning of the Iowa endgame.
‘Crunch time’
The Iowa caucus is served up daily at The Waveland Café, out on University Avenue. The waitresses pour coffee into mugs advertising C-Span, which, along with CNN, has turned the all-American-looking diner into a television studio in previous elections. The autographs of John Edwards, Ron Paul and Bill Richardson are scrawled directly on the walls.But this year, the staff lamented a drop-off in political activity.
“We had seen so many political candidates before,” said David Stone, the café’s owner as he pressed his palms on the counter Wednesday morning. “This time they seem to be here and gone very quickly. They speak at an event and then they are beating feet out of town as fast as they can go. My help is saying, ‘What is going on Stoney? There hasn’t been anybody.’ ”
But the collapse of Cain meant that the candidates had to start getting serious, Stone said. “It’s getting to be crunch time.”
No one seemed to agree more this week than Gingrich, who is looking to build on a surge in the polls after being left for damaged goods only months ago.
Not too far from The Waveland Café, across the city’s myriad strip malls and down a broad avenue lined with medical buildings, former member of Congress and plastic surgeon Greg Ganske swiveled on a stool in his clinic. Between an examination chair and black binders with labels like “Body Contouring,” Ganske recalled the “dark days” this summer when his old friend Gingrich crashed at his house to save campaign funds.
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