Winter Weather Leaves Campaigns Out in Cold

The Republican presidential race may go down in history as the great snow job of 1996--and not because of a blizzard of political rhetoric.

Record-breaking snowstorms in Iowa and on the East Coast have shown that the weather is even more capricious than the voters. In both Iowa and New Hampshire this month, campaign events have been canceled, volunteers sent home and candidates and their aides stranded by the weather.

“Candidate travel has been the thing affected the most,” said David Kochel, executive director of the Iowa Republican Party. “The state’s really shut down.’

The latest blizzard in Iowa dropped up to 13 inches of snow Friday, forcing Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas to cancel an appearance at a Council Bluffs high school that was itself closed by the storm. It was the second week in a row that the GOP front-runner has been snowed out in Iowa, and his luck hasn’t been too good in New Hampshire either.

Earlier this month, Dole, Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas and publishing magnate Steve Forbes missed an important gathering of hundreds of Republicans in New Hampshire because planes were grounded at East Coast airports.

Because Dole has already been noticeably missing from the hustings--due in part to budget talks in Washington and in part because his campaign saw advantages in limiting his appearances--his weather-related absences are felt more keenly.

“It’s important for the candidate to get around,” said commentator Patrick J. Buchanan’s Iowa manager, Loras Schulte. “Iowans like to see the candidate.”

Perhaps to make up for lost face-time, Dole plans a major swing through Iowa in the next few days. “This is one hard winter,” said Dole’s Iowa campaign manager, Darrell Kearney.

Besides Dole, businessman Morry Taylor was the only other candidate whose campaign plans were thwarted by Friday’s blizzard. A Taylor-sponsored dinner dance in Clear Lake, Iowa, had to be postponed.

An undaunted Taylor turned the misfortune into an adventure. Walking into a bar in nearby Mason City, Taylor found a captive audience stranded by the snow.

“It was the place for politics,” said Taylor spokesman Marty Lettow. “Everybody was stranded, eating and drinking. . . . It turned into a big rally.”

Taylor, who bought a round of drinks at another bar Friday, attributed his ability to campaign in a blizzard to the giant recreational vehicle he uses for traveling.

“We’re a real machine when we roll in that RV. . .. Not one of these wimpy little minivans the rest of ‘em [other candidates] use,” Taylor said.

By the time the snow stopped falling Saturday, former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander was the only other presidential hopeful on the scene. His plane was able to land in Sioux Falls, S.D., on Friday and he drove southeast to Iowa, where he made several stops Saturday.

“We got lucky,” said spokesman Bryan Flood, who was himself stranded in Des Moines and unable to join Alexander.

Kochel said the snow put the presidential hopefuls at an equal disadvantage, although it does seem to favor Forbes, who has mounted a bigger television advertising campaign than any of his rivals and is less dependent on icy roads to get his message out.

Aides to the other contenders said they have generally been lucky. Their candidates, for the most part, had been able to keep to their schedules.

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At various campaign headquarters, however, it’s been another story, especially in snowbound Des Moines. Though many volunteers work out of their homes, the Dole and Buchanan campaigns had to cancel sessions to train volunteers for the state’s Feb. 12 caucuses.

“It slows the process down,” Schulte said. “There’s no question of that.”

Both he and the Gramm campaign sent phone-bank volunteers home early Friday but equipped them with lists of voters’ phone numbers so they could make calls from home.

In that regard, the snowstorm turned out to be a political advantage: A large number of people were home to take their calls.