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DES MOINES, IOWA — It’s settled: Chuck Norris, you’re no John Mellencamp. One night after the “Texas Ranger” campaigned on behalf of Gov. Mike Huckabee at the Val Air Ballroom in Des Moines, John Mellencamp took to the same stage to support Sen. John Edwards — before an audience nearly twice the size of Norris’.
The crowd was livelier, the parking lot overflowed, the beer taps, well, flowed, and the people treated the event — only hours before Thursday’s caucus — more like a hoedown than a revival.
Mellencamp played an acoustic set of hits, including “Our Country,” and Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth, later called him “the musical voice of working people in this country.” (You hear that, Springsteen?)
“You tell ’em John!” said one crowdmember. “Speak the truth!” shouted another.
Loud boos and jeers were heard each time Edwards mentioned companies such as Halliburton or Eli Lilly.
Then there was this shouter: “Jean Smart is a hottie!”
Wait, what was that last one? Yes, one other advantage Edwards had over Huckabee in this “Battle of the Val Air Ballroom” was overall star power. Edwards’ stage also featured such stars as James Denton from “Desperate Housewives” and actresses Jean Smart and Madeleine Stowe.
Even Roxanne Conlin, Edwards’ Iowa co-chair, couldn’t resist the star power. When the hunky Denton came on stage, she had a hard time keeping her hands off him, prompting Elizabeth Edwards to give her a warning: “Okay, Roxanne, that’s enough of that.”
Edwards’ backdrop on stage was a virtual “who’s who” of his constituencies: Steelworkers for Edwards, Farmers for Edwards, Carpenters for Edwards, Labor for Edwards and Rural America for Edwards. Former Karate Champs for Edwards were nowhere to be found.
