In non-Vilsack news, it’s worth pointing out that the Iowa State House approved stem cell research last night by a vote by a vote of 52-46. The bill passed despite heavy Republican opposition. Stem cell research was one of the major issues that Chet Culver ran on in 2006 and Chet came out heavily in favor of stem cell research before the legislative session. This bill will make sure that life saving research can take place and, in particular, take place in Iowa. It’s an important milestone that got buried by Tom Vilsack dropping out this morning. It’s pointing out and reminding people that although Iowa will not be home to the next President, it may be home to a cure for cancer, Parkinson’s Disease or another terrible disease.
There has been some speculation about the connection between Tom Vilsack and Hillary Clinton. Perhaps some of the ’sack staff will move to the Clinton camp, and that would be a huge boost to Clinton if it happened. But while the staff might go to Clinton, it is way too early to assume that Vilsack’s supporters will automatically flow that direction, too. So the question remains: who will fill the Vilsack vacuum here? Who gains the most politically from the drop-out?
That’s a question that requires two answers, because, here in Iowa, we have gotten to know two different sides of Tom Vilsack. The first Tom Vilsack is the conservative DLC Democrat who was our governor for eight years. He was well-liked by moderates because of his political positions, and he was well-liked by many progressives because he was able to win. It is safe to say that the majority of Vilsack’s caucus support over the past few months has come from folks who got to know Vilsack as a moderate, and these folks are going to be looking for another moderate, probably with some executive experience.
The second Tom Vilsack is the McGovern-esque presidential candidate he had started to become over the past few months. He ran far to the left on the Iraq war, calling for immediate withdrawal and a cutoff of all funding in Congress, and he fashioned himself an expert on environmental issues in general (and renewable energy in particular). He was getting some traction on AirAmerica Radio and on certain liberal blogs (although clearly that wasn’t enough) and using “Courage to Create Change” as his tagline. In many ways, his campaign might have hoped to be 2008’s Howard Dean, another candidate who had a somewhat moderate record as a governor but who broke out as the antiwar left’s poster candidate during his campaign. (Vilsack was even using Blue State Digital, the team that handled Dean’s online strategy 2003-2004, for his web stuff.)
So these are two different voids. In Iowa, though, it is the moderate Vilsack who attracted most of the supporters. So the question is, which candidate matches up the best?
Ironically, Evan Bayh and Mark Warner would probably have gained the most. Unfortunately for them, they both dropped out months ago, perhaps because Vilsack was sucking up all of the moderate governor oxygen. (Yeah, in Bayh’s case, he has Senatorial experience, too, but it was his experience as Indiana Governor that he seemed to be emphasizing to distinguish himself.)
Without Bayh and Warner, it seems that the most likely to gain will be Bill Richardson, but he doesn’t draw as many obvious comparisons to Vilsack as Bayh and Warner would have. If Richardson doesn’t have an excellent Iowa field campaign soon, he will lose whatever advantage he might have gained, because folks who were comfortable settling on Vilsack this early could be looking for another candidate to settle on soon. He has a strong Iowa field director already, but that won’t be enough. Maybe this will encourage him to buy access to the state party’s VAN (the super-high-tech voter file), which is the mark of any serious Iowa Caucus campaign.
Either way, all of the non-”rock star” candidates must be breathing a sigh of relief today. Tomorrow, we’ll find out which one is “rock solid” enough to fill Vilsack’s two pairs of shoes.
David Yepsen totally misses the lede in his blog post about Tom Vilsack dropping out. He notes that Vilsack was spending $500,000 a month in overhead and he couldn’t continue to afford running for President after only raising one million dollars in the fourth quarter of 2006. The real story is why Tom Vilsack was spending $500,000 a month that he didn’t have. We had previously pointed out that Vilsack’s “dilemma is how he will raise enough money to remain viable for the next year. After all, it doesn’t matter if you’re rock solid if you’re flat broke.” But when your monthly overhead is higher than your reported cash on head, that’s not good budgeting at any time–especially a year before the caucuses. If Vilsack hadn’t hired so many staffers so quickly, he’d probably still be a candidate today. He took a gamble that the money would be there to pay all of the people he hired. He was wrong. It was a high-risk, high reward approach to running for President. It didn’t work out. And that’s why Tom Vilsack dropped out.
With Tom Vilsack dropping out, one question is what happens to the large organization of staffers that he built in Iowa? There are a lot of experienced Iowa field operatives who are now unemployed. Hotline hints at a possible answer, noting that many of Vilsack’s top level staffers have strong ties to Hillary Clinton. Clinton still has only hired a barebones Iowa staff and the ties between Vilsack and Clinton are close enough that there was some speculation that Vilsack’s candidacy was merely a Clinton stalking horse. It would seem a good match that many former Vilsack staffers would migrate to Clinton’s campaign. Tom Vilsack had a strong Iowa field operation, Hillary Clinton needs one. As high level ex-Vilsack staffers move over, they’ll bring some lower level field operatives with them. It would give Clinton a head start for building the strong ground game needed to win the caucuses and help her grab a healthy chunk of Tom Vilsack’s 1,159 committed supporters.
The Des Moines Register reports that Tom Vilsack is ending his bid to be President today. Vilsack will apparently cite his inability to raise the money necessary to compete successfully for the Democratic nomination. It had long been rumored that Vilsack had serious financial woes due to weak fundraising and the need to pay the large field staff he had already hired. Although Vilsack had attracted quite a bit of grassroots support in Iowa and was still neck and neck with first tier candidates in a recent poll of caucusgoers, his support outside the Hawkeye State was minimal.
Tom Vilsack was the first serious Presidential contender to announce he was running and is the first to drop out. Although it’s not a surprise that Vilsack campaign didn’t pan out. However, that he’s dropping out almost a year before the caucuses and only a week after Vilsack made a relatively successful appearance on the Tonight Show is a shock. What the most disturbing thing is that Vilsack’s campaign is ending this early. In 1960, John F. Kennedy didn’t start his campaign until December 1959, in 2000, George W. Bush didn’t start to run until June 1999, now we have candidates dropping out 21 months before the election. It is a disturbing trend.
