POLITICS 88 : Gephardt Gains New Intensity as He Surges Into Lead in Iowa

Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, flashing a new intensity in his eyes and a passion in his voice, apparently is on a roll.

As he hammers his way through to the end of his stump speech on trade at a packed union hall here, his hands slash the air, then his fist pounds the lectern.

“It’s your fight, too!” he shouts, bringing a roar and a standing ovation from the huge crowd.

Although he was left for dead by the press in December, Gephardt now may be the man to beat in the Iowa caucuses Monday. He has soared to the top here in recent presidential preference polls on the strength of a media and stump campaign that has plastered Iowa with a simple Midwestern message: that his campaign is about saving jobs and farms, and to that end he will fight against imports, the big corporations and the Eastern media elite.

In the process, he has grown and remade himself as a presidential candidate.

‘Bionic Candidate’

Gephardt, the man fellow Democratic contender Bruce Babbitt nicknamed “the bionic candidate” for his stiff manner, has somehow found new oratorical skills. He tells unemployed workers and destitute farmers that their troubles are not their fault, that outside forces have conspired against them. In return, he hears cries of “Give ‘em hell, Dick!”

“Who do you think doesn’t want change in agriculture . . . the grain companies don’t want change,” Gephardt charges. “And these big import and export companies don’t want change (in trade policy) and, certainly, the foreign countries that have their markets closed and our markets open, they don’t want change.

“We had the Gephardt Amendment (which would enable U.S. retaliation if foreign markets are not opened more fully to U.S. goods) on the floor, and the lobbyists were as deep as the people in this room. They like it the way it is.

“But, on Feb. 8, your voice is as loud as theirs is. That’s the night your voice has power.”

Gephardt insists that his new emotionalism has come not from coaching from a media guru but from anger that has been building as a result of a barrage of criticism of his trade policies.

“It really came from the last six months, the experience of seeing an editorial every day saying this guy’s a protectionist,” Gephardt said. “Then, seeing the Wall Street Journal editorial saying the trade deficit” should be accepted as a permanent feature “ . . . made me very angry, and it was totally out of sync (with the economic dislocation) I’ve been seeing.”

Broadening Message

Gephardt is already preparing to broaden his message after the Iowa vote.

In a new speech--given once last week in Ames, Iowa, staff members concede, to avoid charges that the candidate changed his tune as soon as he left the state--Gephardt attempts to turn the issues of trade and agriculture into symbols for a larger economic and social malaise permeating the nation.

It tries to cast Gephardt not as a candidate of narrow interests known for flip-flopping on the issues but as the man fighting the system to help retake “our economic destiny” from the Japanese and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

“I reject the latest version of the conventional wisdom, that a concern about trade and jobs, farms and seniors is somehow too narrow--that it may work in Iowa but that elsewhere Americans do not care,” Gephardt said in Ames.

“This reaction is the rationalization of those who profit from the present distress--of corporations shipping jobs overseas, of speculators buying up farmland, of status quo apologists intent on limiting the standard of living--not of course, for themselves, but especially for workers and the elderly.

“The decline of agriculture, the deficit in trade, the threat to seniors really affect all of us. For they are more than individual injustices to which attention must be paid, they are symptoms of a broader, more pervasive danger which the people themselves already sense, even if politicians are reluctant to speak of it.”

To Push Oil Import Fee

In addition, Gephardt will stress his support for an oil import fee in New Hampshire--knowing that it is unpopular there--at least in part to prove that he is willing to say things voters don’t want to hear.

“They won’t like it (the oil import fee), but we will appeal to their Yankee mentality that we’ve got to take control back from OPEC, and we’ve got to stop wondering whether the Japanese will buy our (Treasury) bills every week,” said Joe Trippi, Gephardt’s deputy national campaign manager.

Gephardt will argue also that he wants to bring about change by working within the system, thus attempting to answer critics who say his populist message conflicts with his role as a Washington insider.

“I think what people want is someone with a clear vision of what they want to do to make the country better, but also the ability to get it done,” Gephardt said. Excited and a little bit frightened by the speed of their candidate’s turnaround, Gephardt staff members have jokingly nicknamed their frenetic and packed Des Moines office “Lazarus Central,” after the biblical Lazarus who rose from the dead.

Victory Plane Chartered

In happy anticipation of victory, they have reserved a Boeing 727 jet to ferry Gephardt--and the huge entourage that goes with a winner--from Iowa to New Hampshire next Tuesday morning.

But Gephardt, a man who rarely shows either highs or lows once he is off the stump, personally remains cautious about his prospects in Iowa.

“I feel that I have a chance,” he said guardedly. “In December, I had to begin to question it, because everybody else said I was out of it.

“But, I think the thing is still tight,” he warned. “There are a lot of people in Iowa who haven’t made up their minds and won’t until Monday night.”