 What’s the deal with the black & white saddle shoes?  Click here for the story of our farm in Greene County, Iowa. Here's looking at life at Simple Serenity Farm  Carla’s sister & brother-in-law Chris and Tony Woods, of Des Moines, were at the farm on Sunday, August 22, helping Carla do the lawn mowing and other yard work that we’ve struggled to keep up with lately, with all our medical appointments. The Woodses brought along their 18-month-old granddaughter Ari, who was a delight watching all the action from the porch with Chuck, catching up on her reading and then getting a moment on the lawn tractor seat! Click here for larger format Earlier photos in this series Iowa Hall of Pride netINS, Inc. Butler House on Grand B&B Sam's Barber Shop Douglas T. Bates III, Attorney KMA Radio's ''Chuck & Don Show'' Barack Obama story & coloring book The Monks of New Melleray Abbey RELATED LINKS About Offenburger.com Biographies Want to Reprint? Want Updates? ARCHIVES Chuck Offenburger's columns Christie Vilsack's columns Carla Offenburger's columns Carla's book reviews Jared Strong's columns Guest Columns The Simple Serenity Farm columns Farm Photos, 2006 - 2008 Our Iowa News Digest Along Our Way 
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 Previewing the caucuses from Sam’s Barber Shop By CHUCK OFFENBURGER December 26, 2007 AUDUBON, IOWA Many people outside Iowa will have a hard time believing what happened to my friend Sam The Barber Kauffman late in the afternoon of December 13. Iowans won’t doubt it at all. With the Iowa Political Caucuses upon us, on January 3, we in this state have become accustomed to getting phone calls or other personal contacts from some very high-level people.
They talked “for just about 20 minutes,” Kauffman said. “At first, he kind of talked about some things he’d done as president to make it a better world, and I couldn’t disagree with him. Then we talked about Manatt, and he said, ‘You know, I appointed him ambassador to the Dominican Republic during my presidency.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I know – my wife Lois and I visited him down there and stayed overnight in the embassy.’ I told him he should come to Audubon, and that I could get him a nice place to stay at Manatt’s hunting lodge he has outside town. He said, ‘Well, Sam, it’s nice you’re inviting me, because I’ve never gotten an invitation from Chuck Manatt.’ “Then we got around to the real reason he was calling me. He asked if I knew who I’d be caucusing for. I said, ‘Well, I am leaning toward Governor Bill Richardson, from New Mexico, right now, but if he doesn’t have a large enough group at our caucus to be viable, then I can see myself joining the Hillary group.’ And he said, ‘Sam, I wish you would.’ Then we talked a little more, and he said goodbye. After I got off the phone, I thought how I’d just said ‘no’ to a former president of the United States. That’s hard to do!” Another 20 minutes passed, and the barber shop phone rang again. “I picked it up and it was Chuck Manatt,” Kauffman said. “He said President Clinton had just called him, told him about our conversation and so Chuck wanted to follow up and campaign a little with me, too. We had a good long talk, but I still wouldn’t commit for Hillary right now.” We were all a little wide-eyed in the barber shop, hearing him tell us about those phone calls. “Wow!” said Rev. David Swinton, a United Methodist pastor from nearby Harlan who’d come over for our barber shop discussion on politics. “That barber vote is very valuable, huh?” THEY’VE ALL GOT OTHER FIRST PREFERENCES. As our discussion in the shop continued on Friday afternoon, December 21, none of our panel of regulars had Senator Clinton as a first choice. Kauffman and retired farmer Dale Edwards, 83, both favored Governor Richardson. Republican Kathleen Parris, 45, a medical office worker, is volunteer chairperson in Audubon County for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s campaign. Republican Nancy Olsen, 50, a homemaker, said she was “on the bubble” between Romney and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. And I for the first time publicly said I was pulling out of supporting Romney and would be endorsing Huckabee.  Pastor Swinton, 43 and a Democrat, said he was for Senator Barack Obama, of Illinois, “because of his brightness and freshness of perspective. And part of it for me is a generational thing. My generation of people, and those younger, have been eating Baby Boomers’ dust all our lives.” Farmer and Democrat Rob Nymand, of Brayton, who stopped in for a haircut, said he was trying to decide between Obama and Richardson. Darrrell and Lavonne Shoesmith, who live south of Audubon, are also Democrats; Darrell was wavering between Obama and Richardson, and Lavonne already committed for former Senator John Edwards, of North Carolina. A dozen other people came through the shop during our conversation of 2 ½ hours, and we heard about their favorites, too. But when we moved beyond our own preferences to saying whom we think will win – in Iowa as well as the nation – things shifted. PICKING THE LIKELY WINNERS. The collective prognostication of all at the barber shop – you can call it the Barber Poll – is that in the Iowa caucuses, Huckabee will be a narrow winner over Romney on the Republican side, and Obama will win on the Democratic side in an even closer race over Clinton and Edwards. However, things changed when we talked about who will win the nominations of the Republican and Democratic parties, once all the primaries and conventions are over. Our poll has Romney as a huge favorite on the Republican side, with only Arizona Senator John McCain challenging him. And we see Clinton as a near 2-to-1 choice over Obama. Then, who is most likely to be the next president? The barber shop regulars were split between Clinton and Romney, with farmer Edwards casting a perhaps sentimental vote for Senator Edwards. When we added the voices of the others who visited the shop that afternoon, we see Clinton as the most likely winner, and fairly easily over Romney. At the time of our discussion, four of the leading Democratic candidates had campaigned in Audubon County – Richardson, Obama, Edwards and Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. But no Republican candidate had been here. What’s up with that? “Well, Audubon County ranks 96th in population among the counties in Iowa, so a lot of campaigns focus on places with more people,” said Kathleen Parris, a veteran of organizational work in the Republican Party. “And our county is fairly evenly split, with a third Republicans, a third Democrats and a third independents. With it that close, we’re not one of those ‘got to have it’ counties for any of the candidates.” Some head-turning supporters of candidates have appeared in Audubon County, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack and TV’s “home improvement expert” Bob Vila, all of whom were here advocating for Clinton. OH, MY, HOW DUMB! We also identified what we thought have been the three dumbest things that have happened during the campaign for the Iowa caucuses. Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, also a Clinton supporter, was a run-away winner of our nod for dumbest statement when, in late November, he said he doubted the upcoming appearance in Iowa by TV talkshow superstar Oprah Winfrey for the Obama campaign would have much of an impact because he didn’t think she has much of a following in the state. “I’m not sure who watches her,” the former governor told the Washington Times. “Maybe young moms, maybe people who are retired. But we have the support of most retired Democrats.” On December 8, Winfrey drew 18,500 to Hy-Vee Hall in Des Moines – in a snowstorm – and they were decidedly not all young moms or retired people. AFSCME, the labor union representing many government employees, got our nod for dumbest, and most offensive, mailing for a brochure it mailed widely in Iowa supporting the Clinton candidacy. The cover of the brochure showed a photo of President George W. Bush, with his tongue slightly protruding from his lips, and the caption for that photo was, approximately, “Somewhere in the United States, a village is about ready to get its idiot back.” The brochure then went on to ask which candidate is most ready “to clean up his mess?” And a Romney brochure was also cited for being excessively cornball, especially in a campaign for president of the U.S. The slickly-printed brochure, from the Romney campaign headquarters in Des Moines, purported to show two dogs, a boxer named “Tiny” and a foofoo dog named “Spike,” using a laptop computer to write a letter to, “Dear Iowa Friend.” The dogs tell us they are “appawlled” at the record of Romney’s opponent on illegal immigration. The dogs went on to say they’ve “been around the block a few times” and they “know this much: People like Mike Huckabee need to be kept on a short leash. We sure don’t want to unleash him in Washington, D.C.!” Then Spike and Tiny say farewell with “Bow Wow for Now,” and put their paw print signatures on the brochure. AS THE BARBER POLL TURNS. Other interesting points the group made, as our discussion continued: -- When I asked if anybody thought Huckabee’s TV ad proclaiming himself to be a “Christian Leader” wasn’t a little over the top, Nancy Olsen from our panel of regulars said, “Why don’t we try one!” Then she added, “You know how conservative I am.” -- Our visitor Lavonne Shoesmith said she is strongly for former Senator Edwards “because he can really get down and work for the underdog, and I’m concerned that we are losing our middle class in America – we’ve got the very rich and the very poor. Edwards put me in the mind of the way I felt about John Kennedy, in being fairly young, being a great speaker and even in the way he works.” And Parris, the Republican organizer, said she thinks the Edwards campaign organization is the strongest she’s seen in the Democratic race. -- Parris said what she likes about Romney is “his experience, with how he’s handled his business, his executive experience as a governor, and that of several things he has taken charge of when they were in bad shape – from businesses to the Winter Olympics and even to the Republican Party in Massachusetts – he’s been able to turn them around and made them successful. I also like his family. And he has great confidence.” Swinton, the Methodist minister, said one thing that bothers him about Romney is that “I just can’t believe that’s his real hair.” -- I said that Huckabee initially seemed too conservative for me, and more conservative than I could remember him being earlier in his career. After Huckabee took the lead in the polls on the Republican race, Romney veered right himself, and now Huckabee is sounding more moderate. “I was around Governor Huckabee when I was working on the Lamar Alexander presidential campaign in 1999, and Huckabee seemed like a pretty moderate Republican to me then,” said Parris. “After he started out so conservative this year, you find yourself wondering, ‘Is it true? Is this the real Huckabee?’ ” -- Barber Kauffman said what he likes about Richardson, whom he gave a free haircut to in August, is that “he’s had a lot of experience. He’s done several wonderful things, and done them well, like negotiating the release of prisoners when he was the United Nations ambassador. And he’s been a Congressman and now a governor. He has a whole lot of experience. And that’s one thing that bothers me about Obama – not much experience.” -- But Obama seems “young and exciting” to Darrell Shoesmith. And Olsen said “he doesn’t seem as jaded.” Swinton calls him “an inspiring speaker, and he opposed the Iraq War from the beginning.” -- And, on Senator Clinton, Olsen said she dislikes “her political ambition. We saw it in her attitude the whole time during her years in the White House (as first lady). And I also have to wonder if she’s elected now, who’d really be the president?” But Kauffman says if she is elected, “you get Bill with her, and I see that as a definite plus.” You’ll note several names of candidates missing here. Republicans Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson have almost no support around Audubon. McCain is respected for his experience and his record as a war hero, but his age of 71 and his opposition to subsidies for the ethanol industry have made his campaign a non-starter here. Among the Democrats, Senator Biden and Senator Christopher Dodd, of Connecticut, also are respected for vast experience, but here they’re just not cracking the top four of Obama, Clinton, Edwards and Richardson. SO, ARE HAPPY DAYS REALLY HERE AGAIN? The consensus in the barber shop is that, nationally, it seems like a Democratic year. “With the job that ‘W’ has done as president,” said Kauffman, “if we Democrats can’t win this time, there’s no hope for us.” But Parris argues that the general public is no more upset about the Bush administration now than the public was with the Clinton administration in its post-Lewinsky final years, and adds, “Anything can happen.” The war in Iraq and Afghanistan is unpopular, but there seems to be progress lately, and we haven’t been attacked in the U.S. for more than six years. Plus, it’s a time of prosperity in the countryside, with $4.50 per bushel corn and $12 soybeans. Farmer Edwards says he “can make more money renting my land now than I ever made farming it myself.” But he says land values are inflated and adds, “We’re headed for trouble.” So all of the above reflects the general feeling here now, as Audubon County and the rest of Iowa go to caucus next week. We’ve worked hard at our job of winnowing out some candidates, and we’ve enjoyed our time in the national limelight while we’ve done that. But on January 4 when we hand-off in these political races to the people of New Hampshire, South Carolina and other states – and when Bill Clinton and other attention-getters are making their phone calls to those folks – there will still be plenty left for them to decide.
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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). Republican Parris favors Mitt Romney, Republican Olsen is undecided between Romney and Mike Huckabee, while the first choice of Democrats Kauffman and Edwards is Bill Richardson.
