Davenport and its people may be a little too complicated for the splinter strategizing in which political consultants indulge, with their talk of a hardened cultural divide. Downtown looks shot. Riverboat gambling was supposed to regenerate the city center; 13 years later, it hasn't. On the other hand, the three casinos in the Quad Cities provide their employees with health insurance.
RiverCenter, the small convention center where Kerry held his town hall, sits astride a closed bank, its drive-in window duct-taped shut, and a tattoo parlor. But a new music museum and performance space has spurred some stylish restaurants to open up. And the city is building a $34 million art museum, where Kerry stopped Wednesday morning to chat up construction workers.
There's been deep job loss, especially in higher-paying manufacturing jobs, although John Deere and Alcoa have started hiring again. The freight trains that rumble along several times a day give an air of industry, just as the old wood-sided houses with their wide, gracious porches and manicured lawns sloping down to the river give an air of prosperity.
In this homogeneous slice of the heartland, Kerry supporters and Bush supporters look and sound very much alike, based on interviews with three dozen voters.
They are overwhelmingly white, reflecting a population that is only 15 percent black, Asian or Latino. They wear trucker hats or Boy Scout uniforms. Both groups carry union cards. Kerry women are just as fond of flag-motif apparel as Bush women.
Asked about the issues most important to them in this election, those on each side list the economy and the nation's safety first or second. Values? No one mentions them. Asked if it matters to her that Kerry favors upholding abortion rights, a Republican woman who remains undecided says, "Well, I'm a Catholic, but no," and she shrugs.
Jeanita McNulty, a GOP team leader, is handing out tickets for the Bush rally. "What saved us after September 11 is that he was in office," she says of the president. "He did an amazing job helping people get through it. That's why I don't worry on a day-by-day basis," in a week when CNN's Anderson Cooper asked viewers, "Did you worry about terrorism when you went to work today?"
"I want to see us protected," agrees Elaine Johnson, who will vote for Bush. "I supported the war, and I still do." Still, as a senior citizen, she knows she wouldn't be able to pay for all her medicine if her late husband's company didn't help with the tab, and she worries about her friends who don't have that benefit.
Tanya Schmidt picks up three Bush rally tickets. She knows about medical bills. At 23, in delinquency for unpaid emergency room visits, she is leaning toward Kerry but wants to hear what the president has to say.
She was laid off from her customer service job in February and hasn't been able to find another job. A biochemistry major at Iowa State University, she ran out of money and dropped out. Her mother and aunt are also out of work. "I need school or work. Something. Something to improve, you know?" she says.
"People look at you like you're a lazy bum, maybe not around here, where so many people are out of work, but other places you go."
Van Symons, a Chinese historian at a local college, also hits the Bush rally with his two children, Diana, a recent college graduate headed to China to teach, and Karl, a college junior. "I abhor the war," he says. "I said this would happen, that we would win the war but lose the peace. We happen to be Mormons," he adds, and his politics puts him at variance with his Bush-supporting family in Utah. "But I'm really interested to hear how [Bush] presents the issues, and to get a balanced view."
For his part, as the river streams quietly past, the president calls for his supporters to rouse "discerning Democrats and wise independents" to his cause.
After the rally, a girl wearing a Kiss T-shirt walks beside her father, who is carrying his Veterans for Bush sign. "What's the matter with gay marriage, Dad? Who's it hurt?"
A trio of young men from Grinnell College debate how democratic discourse is harmed when, as Adam Schwartz puts it, "you stay in your own little isolated group. We don't spend enough time going to each other's parties."
Bush heads to Minnesota. Kerry goes to Missouri. They rally more swing voters before nightfall.
The river flows on past Davenport, one city, under God, divisible, but very politely, resolutely so.
