An Odd Couple With Big Influence

"This is completely different," said Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor and Democratic presidential candidate, one day recently in Des Moines. "This is about organization -- this is about identifying your supporters in advance and making sure they come to the caucuses."

New Hampshire considers itself first on the electoral calendar because it holds a secret-ballot primary. Jim Splaine, a New Hampshire state legislator, is blunt when he speaks of the Iowa way of doing things: "That's not a real election."

'Iowa Nice'

On a recent day in Grundy Center, host of more campaign events per capita than any town in Iowa, according to the Register, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) appeared at the high school alongside a bunch of generals who vouched for her as the future commander in chief.

Listening carefully was Calvin Kiewiet, 67, the maintenance manager at a senior center. He's lived in Grundy Center all his life and has never been "out East," he said. He said when he leaves Iowa he finds that people aren't as friendly. Iowans are good folks, he said. "They're churchgoing, dependable. If they tell you something, shake your hand, it's going to be done."

What you hear repeatedly in Iowa is that people want a candidate who is down to earth, honest, a straight shooter, "real." They want someone who has some warmth.

Terry Branstad, a Republican former Iowa governor, said recently that he met with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R) early in the campaign cycle and offered some advice: "I suggested one of the best things he would do is bring his wife and children here and go to every county in Iowa. This is a very family-oriented state. They want to see the family. They want to know you're real. They want to see you up close and personal."

There's actually a phrase, Branstad said, that captures the Iowa personality: "Iowa nice." It's been in circulation recently among pundits who have complained that presidential debates in Iowa have been a little too tepid. No candidate wants to alienate all those Iowa-nice Iowans.

Just up another straight-as-string Iowa road from Grundy Center is the town of Dike. Wayne Paige, a former mayor, was born there 74 years ago and insists it was "a buzzer of a town," a snappy place with lots of grocery stores and a hotel and a pool room and not one but two barber shops. Not much of that is left. Dike has 944 residents, as of the last census, but Paige seems to be the only person visible on the sidewalks downtown.

He'd heard Republican Mike Huckabee that morning at a nearby golf club. Paige, who was born again at the age of 32 while listening to a preacher on the radio, likes Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister, a lot. Paige says the biggest problem facing the country is "scriptural ignorance."

He still loves it here. Life is so simple in Dike. People are nice. Another word comes into his mind as well.

"A little gullible," Paige says. "They expect everybody they talk to is going to tell 'em the facts."

'More Direct'

In New Hampshire, candidates often find themselves on the spot.