Two L.A. voters hit the trail

A presidential election is a conversation about the nation’s future, but all Richard Brenner was hearing in Van Nuys were fragments, disconnected bits and pieces.

He wanted more. He yearned for a lively discussion, some policy, a vision. While presidential candidates swarmed through early primary and caucus states such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina in the nominating process, they often ignored California.

“By the time we get to see people in California, it’s already decided,” he said.

Brenner was frustrated. Then, as he Rollerbladed one Sunday in Balboa Park, it came to him: If the candidates wouldn’t come to Van Nuys, he would go to the candidates. He would go to Iowa to experience them, uncut, plunging himself into the middle of the conversation that he couldn’t hear from home.

He would become a political tourist.

Brenner scoured the Internet for a new winter coat -- his first in more than 20 years -- and settled on a brown bomber jacket with a thick woolly lining. He bought boots and plane tickets. He read up on the candidates’ positions.

On Saturday, five days before the Iowa caucuses, he got up at 3 a.m., thoughts of the impending flight making it impossible to sleep. To get to Iowa, Brenner, 53, had to defy his fear of flying and his dislike of the cold. In Southern California, the temperature hovered around 70. In Des Moines, it was 25 degrees and dropping.

Brenner’s wife, Leslie, 58, was traveling with him. Both Democrats, the couple primarily wanted to see their party’s front- runners; neither had preferences among the contenders.

“There’s a lot to be said for being in the mix, to get out there and look at it, to know what’s going on in your country,” she said.

After checking in at a hotel near the golden-domed Capitol in downtown Des Moines, the couple drove in their rented Jeep to the first political event: a John Edwards rally at East High School two miles away.

Getting out of the car, Richard tugged his jacket against his neck and cursed the cold. (Bald and energetic, Brenner bears a passing resemblance to Yul Brynner but jokes that he looks more like the Addams Family’s Uncle Fester.)

At 7 p.m., the Brenners were half an hour early, but the gym was already packed. More than 1,000 people had come to hear the former North Carolina senator talk. The couple found two seats close to the podium, but behind Edwards.

Mari Thinnes Culver, wife of Iowa’s Democratic Gov. Chet Culver, and Elizabeth Edwards, the candidate’s wife, introduced Edwards, who wore a blue suit and hiking boots.

The Brenners listened intently -- Leslie with her head cocked to one side, Richard at times cupping his hand around his ear -- as Edwards talked, mixing the personal (his grandparents’ humble circumstances in a mill town) with the political (fighting corporate greed). He described the upcoming general election as “the great moral test of our generation.”

After the 40-minute speech, Edwards took questions from the crowd on healthcare, education and medical malpractice.

A middle-age woman who wore an orange “Save Darfur” T-shirt got teary as she talked briefly of the plight of people there.

Several times, Edwards’ wife whispered in his ear, apparently to remind him of a particular point or message.

After Edwards finished speaking, people gathered around him. The Brenners weren’t interested in fighting their way to meet the candidate, though Richard had enjoyed every moment of the spectacle -- crying babies, cheering steelworkers, John Fogerty blasting through the speakers. But more than anything, he delighted in hearing the candidate in person.

“Watching him on TV, I thought he was slick,” said Richard, who saw a different Edwards at the rally. “He told his story, and there was passion in his story.”

Half an hour later, Culver walked into the downtown restaurant where the Brenners were having dinner. As she walked by their table, Richard called out: “Nice speech tonight.”

She slowed down, smiled and shook his hand before murmuring an appreciation and moving on.

Over chicken livers and salad, the couple dissected their first day as political tourists.

At times, the rally had felt like “a cross between a pure American experience and scenes from ‘The Manchurian Candidate,’ ” said Richard, who is fond of movie metaphors.

“Wow,” his wife responded, “what makes you say that?”

Richard said he enjoyed the crowd’s enthusiasm but was a bit put off by the lack of diversity as well as the ubiquitous flags. He liked Edwards’ apparent willingness to talk about tough subjects such as the security company Blackwater USA, under investigation for a shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead.

Edwards’ suggestion that questioning the war in Iraq can also be a form of patriotism -- “I thought was brilliant,” Richard said.

“He’s not as shallow as I thought,” Leslie said.

The following morning, the Brenners wanted to hear Barack Obama speak in Knoxville, 40 miles southeast of Des Moines. On their way out of the hotel, they bumped into former President Clinton. They would see him again later that night, stumping for his wife at Carlisle Middle School, about 12 miles south of the capital.

Arriving at the Obama rally, Richard couldn’t find a parking spot. He drove onto a private driveway and parked.

“We’re from L.A.,” he told the owner of the house. “We’re here to see Obama. Can I park here? It’ll only be an hour or so.” The Iowan supported Edwards, but he courteously allowed the Brenners to park at his house.

About 400 supporters from the small town had packed the school auditorium. A young staffer offered the Brenners standing room onstage with the senator from Illinois.

Obama, wearing a black suit, talked about a need for change in Washington and argued that -- unlike his opponents, perhaps -- he isn’t jaded by politics. He joked about the embarrassing discovery that he is related to Vice President Dick Cheney (the two are distant cousins) and finished with his oft-repeated anecdote about the woman who invented the campaign’s trademark chant: “Fired up.” As he tells it, he met Edith Childs, 59, on a swing through Greenwood, S.C. He had been in a foul mood, but her chant lifted his spirits, and he adopted it for his campaign. It shows, he says, the power of one voice.

Behind him, the Brenners appeared more animated than at the Edwards rally -- often laughing and clapping.

“It was nice looking out into the crowd, watching their faces,” Richard said later. Obama, talking about civil rights and “how everybody has a responsibility,” was moving, he said. “Here he is, the son of a single mother, and he’s running for president, and he has a legitimate shot -- that’s inspiring to me.”

Obama’s message of change resonated with the Brenners.

The couple had long felt disenchanted with the Bush administration and disillusioned by government in general.

In recent years, they said, politicians on both sides had taken the country in the wrong direction: The war in Iraq has become a costly failure -- morally and economically -- and America has lost its standing in the world. At home, education and healthcare have faltered. The elderly are marooned with tiny Social Security checks, while the young struggle with expensive student loans. The government’s priorities have become skewed to benefit the powerful.

The Brenners felt separated from the political process -- profoundly unable to change their country.

“I hate feeling that way,” said Leslie, who described herself and Richard as “practicing idealists.”

“I agree 100%,” Richard said.

Watching a movie about President Kennedy one night before coming to Iowa, he had cried. At times, he said, he doesn’t recognize his country.

“I just don’t feel that the government has any response to people like us,” he said.

Richard and Leslie came of age in Chicago during the 1960s. He grew up in a Jewish middle-class family, she in a family struggling against poverty. They lived in different neighborhoods but took part in the same civil rights marches and in the same Vietnam War protests. Mike Royko, who skewered City Hall in his Daily News columns, helped form their political consciousness.

In 1977, they met in a music studio at Columbia College in Chicago, where both had enrolled -- Richard to study film, and Leslie the arts.

After college, Richard tended bar at Wise Fools Pub, a well-known blues bar. But the cold was getting to him and in 1980, he persuaded Leslie to abscond to California. They got married the following year. In Los Angeles, they worked hard and put away money for their dream: to own a restaurant. It took 20 years. In 2000, the Brenners went into partnership with three friends, becoming co-owners of Hugo’s Restaurant, a West Hollywood institution.

For their vacations, the Brenners sought out quirky adventures, renewing their vows in front of an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas and traveling to the Burning Man festival in an RV. Last month, they trekked around the Grand Canyon.

Now they were on the campaign trail -- to see Hillary Rodham Clinton.

On Sunday afternoon in Traer, a small town 90 miles northeast of Des Moines, the Memorial Building was overflowing.

A deejay played the Clinton campaign soundtrack: KT Tunstall and other female vocalists. A young emcee was revving up the crowd of about 300 people, who were jammed wall to wall into the community center. He threw T-shirts to those with the loudest shouts of support for Clinton, giving the event a game-show feel.

Leslie noticed that a Marc Jacobs T-shirt was lost on the woman who nabbed it. “Who’s Marc Jacobs?” she heard the woman asking.

For the first time, the Brenners sat in front of the candidate. They had listened to Edwards and Obama looking at their backs.

Clinton, wearing a dark-green suit, was joined by her daughter, Chelsea. The New York senator emphasized her experience, toughness and passion to fix the nation’s healthcare system. She talked of foreign policy issues -- ending the war in Iraq -- and a need to reform student loans. She did not take questions.

Afterward, she moved around the room, chatting with supporters.

The Brenners spoke to her briefly. Clinton grew up near Richard’s childhood home in Chicago, and the two reminisced about a legendary sandwich shop in the neighborhood.

Driving back to Des Moines in a thick fog, Richard and Leslie talked about the candidates they had seen. Richard was most impressed by Clinton (“succinct”) while Leslie had become partial to Obama (“inspiring”). But the biggest eye- opener had been how easy it was to get close to the candidates.

In the coming days, they would see Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware. They would go to a house party with Obama’s wife, Michelle. For a bipartisan experience, they ventured into Republican territory. They would watch football with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and sneak into former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s Des Moines headquarters and meet his sister, Pat Harris.

Later Richard likened the trip to another experience, almost 20 years ago. It was at Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.

Seated in the top deck at Dodger Stadium, he watched an injured Kirk Gibson propel a ball into the right-field stands, then limp through the game-winning home run and into baseball history. (The Dodgers went on to win the Series.)

He felt joy in the fact of being there. “It wasn’t virtual but real,” he said.

During this trip, it had been the small gestures beyond the sound bite (Elizabeth Edwards whispering prompts in her husband’s ear; Obama cracking up on stage after telling a joke) and the sometimes poignant questions from the crowd (the woman choking back tears when talking about Darfur; the veteran asking about medical care) they had enjoyed most.

“You see that glow in people’s faces,” Richard said. “They want to believe.”

He and his wife might still.

The trip had renewed their faith in the political process.

They had heard the call in Iowa.

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louise.roug@latimes.com