DES MOINES, Iowa (AFP) — Whether it's with rock star swagger, corny Irish jokes, boardroom-like seminars, storm-the-barricades rhetoric or motherly soothing, each White House hopeful has a unique pitch to voters.
Candidates' acts are now honed by months traipsing through school gyms, churches, diners and living rooms on the campaign trail, as they spar for final undecided voters before Iowa hosts the first 2008 nominating showdown Thursday.
Most campaign events have a few things in common, including ubiquitous American flags, speeches invoking revered ex-presidents, and appeals to now-mythic episodes of America's past.
But the similarities end there.
Democrat Barack Obama hits rhetorical heights seldom seen in modern politics, ex-first lady Hillary Clinton adds iconic glamor, and surely no one has more fun running for president than Republican Mike Huckabee.
Obama struts onto a catwalk-style stage to the pounding beat of U2's "City of Blinding Lights," shouting "Hello Iowa!" to fist-pumping fans wearing huge "Hope" stickers.
By now, his soaring stump speech -- the most poetic idealism to be found in the 2008 race -- has the cadence of a sermon, punctuated by red meat political soundbites.
It also recalls great civil rights appeals of the 1960s, as Obama says his audacious run for president, at 46, reflects what Martin Luther King called the "fierce urgency of now."
Many of the mainly young people in the Illinois senator's crowds seem to be enraptured, and some eyes brim with tears.
Obama also drops in a bit of self-deprecating humor, perhaps to head off early criticisms that he at times can be pompous and professorial.
Clinton's audiences are often middle-aged -- the kind of people battered by life, but who, like their heroine, are still standing.
Her most reliable applause line appeals to solid middle class values, in contrast to the populist fury of rival John Edwards and Obama's lofty rhetoric.
"Some people are demanding it, and some people think you get change by hoping for it, well I think you get change for working really, really hard for it every single day."
The former first lady adopts an almost motherly tone, as she promises to tackle perils at home and abroad, and sometimes ex-president Bill Clinton shows up to turn up the glitz.
Campaign theme songs suggest the historic potential of her bid to become America's first woman president.
In "Suddenly I See," Scottish rocker KT Tunstall sums up Clinton as her image makers would like her to be seen.
"Her face is a map of the world ... everything around her is a silver pool of light ... She holds you captivated in her palm."
As Clinton plunges into crowds, Tom Petty's "American Girl" pounds out of speakers, or the Police's "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" fills the air.
Republican events are typically more staid -- with the exception of those by Huckabee, who is part stand-up comic, part evangelical preacher, and part guitar strumming hipster, with a personality that shot him to the top of Iowa polls.
Rudolph Giuliani, perhaps the only Republican who can match top Democrats for star quality, earns a respectful hearing for his September 11, 2001, heroism -- even from arch-conservatives who don't trust him.
He is no longer New York's mayor, but, a natural politician, Giuliani still acts like it. He seems most happy wrestling with voters' problems one-on-one.
John McCain, 71, calls his supporters "my friends" and induces groans with an opening joke about two Irish brothers.
But even before the chuckles die, he pivots to "Straight Talk" about Iraq or terrorism -- a contrast that makes his points all the more effective.
McCain's stooping gait and scarred face, recall his incarceration in Vietnam and cancer battles, although he has enlisted his 95-year-old mother Roberta to defuse questions about his age.
Republican Mitt Romney is best described as polished -- his events are no-frills affairs with little music or frivolity -- like the problem-solving seminars of the business executive he once was.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
