WAUKEE, Iowa – Just five months before they cast the first votes of the presidential campaign, Republican voters across Iowa are still not convinced that any one candidate running for the party’s nomination has the chops to beat President Obama.
At campaign events and meet-and-greets with candidates across the state, few voters say they have made up their minds to back a specific candidate — and even those who have picked one admit that they would welcome a newcomer to the race.
“I thought I would be set in my ways by now, but I’m not,” said Worthin Grattan, 74, of Grinnell, Iowa, following a town-hall-style event with former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
He was impressed by Pawlenty, but then again, “the guy sitting beside me showed me a brochure about [Texas Gov.] Rick Perry and how he’s created more jobs in Texas than any other state — now that’s something,” he said.
Perry, who has been flirting with the idea of running for weeks, might be a game-changer for retired pastor Wayne Mullen of Waukee, Iowa. Mullen is supporting Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann but said he would reconsider if Perry jumps into the race. “Anything but Obama,” he said. “Because of him, the country’s going to hell in a handbasket.”
Mullen’s not alone: More than two-thirds of Iowa voters who backed a candidate in a recent Des Moines Register poll said they could be persuaded to vote for someone else.
Meanwhile, some voters, like retired Lutheran pastor Jerry Laehn, are simply looking to be persuaded by, well, anyone.
Reacting to a Pawlenty speech, Laehn shrugged and remarked, “It was expected.”
The Republican presidential candidates are descending on Iowa this week ahead of a debate Thursday and an influential straw poll on Saturday.
“You need to have the excitement factor — the ability to really rev up the masses — to beat a candidate like Obama, and none of these candidates so far have that,” said a Republican operative in Iowa who spoke on the condition her name not be used because she hasn’t endorsed a candidate. “I think Michele Bachmann has that energy, but she’s far too socially conservative to win the general election.”
Iowa is critical for Bachmann, and she is banking on her conservatism to propel her to a strong showing in Saturday’s straw poll and, ultimately, Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses in February.
“I’m thinking about supporting [Bachmann] — even though I’m uneasy about the fact that she’s a woman — mainly because I know the Bible is very dear to her,” said David Gaumer, a retired federal employee of 34 years from Clive, Iowa.
Gaumer’s wife, Ray, gushed over Bachmann and called the rest of the candidates “milquetoast.”
Ray Gaumer said she’s a new convert to Bachmann’s campaign after former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney waited until the last minute to take a stand against the debt deal that Obama and Congress brokered to avoid a government default.
Romney has consistently topped all the latest nationwide polls but decided to skip campaigning in Iowa and instead focus on the first two primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina.
“I’m really [mad] at Romney right now,” Gaumer said. “When we needed him, he didn’t show up.”
