End of Story After Week as Media Capital

The big names packed up and left this city today for New Hampshire. So, by the way, did the guys who are running for president.

Every four years, Iowans relish the chance to look a candidate in the eye, shake his hand and take his measure before their first-in-the-nation caucuses. That’s what they tell you in the civics books.

But what really makes caucus season stand out is the concentration of media stars in a capital city that has exactly one Starbucks.

For about a week, you see them everywhere in Des Moines: on the streets, on the enclosed downtown “skywalks,” in coffee shops, at candidate forums.

And then, one day, just as you are getting used to the fact that you are a 50-year-old waitress at the convention center who is being interviewed by Al Jazeera, it’s over.

“You know what it feels like to be in Iowa right now?” said Ken Fuson, a reporter for the Des Moines Register, the state’s largest daily newspaper. “This is what it must feel like to be Billy Ray Cyrus. One minute, you’re on top. Next day, nobody cares.”

Sure, some people pretend it doesn’t hurt to go the way of a country music one-hit wonder.

Take the governor.

Popping into Des Moines’ Starbucks on Tuesday morning, Gov. Tom Vilsack said he’d heard that the caucuses generate between $50 million and $60 million over the course of the year that precedes them. And while he encourages the media and the politicians to “spend early and spend often,” he feels no regret now that he won’t be bumping into stars at 801 Steak and Chop House, the city’s most famous watering hole.

“You know,” he said, “I go into 801 or any of the other places and I may run into a teacher, I may run into a nurse, I may run into someone who is making a difference in someone’s life every day.... The people I care about are still here.”

Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie, who was in his office by 7:30 a.m. Tuesday for budget meetings, allowed that it had been “interesting” to chat with people like Dan Rather, Donna Brazile and George Stephanopoulos last week. But what’s done is done. Iowans, he said, “are going back to their regular way of life.”

The city may have gotten a nice economic bump in the hotel, food and “stuff-they-might-buy” sectors, he said, but it’s not like people are buying real estate.

And despite the freezing temperatures, he has seen no benefit flow from the caucuses to his family business, County Furs, established in 1888. “I have never heard anyone in the outerwear business say, ‘I can’t wait till the next caucus because it helps my business,’ ” he said with a smile.

Fuson said “media trolling,” a new sport, had taken hold in town in the past week. “People would actually go out and hit the various nightspots to see who they could have their picture taken with. Like, ‘Instead of going to the movies, let’s go see who we can see.’ ”

George Formaro, co-owner of Centro, a popular Italian restaurant that cooks its pizza in coal-burning ovens, saw many media trollers. “There was quite a bit of that,” he said.

Like its counterpart, the 801, Centro was lousy with media and political heavyweights. “We had Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, Bob Schieffer, Bob Novak, Wolf Blitzer,” said Formaro. “John Kerry walked right up to me and shook my hand. It was really cool.”

And even though Centro’s business doubled last week, added Formaro, “forget about the money. It’s just really nice to see all the people from other places coming here and the chance to show off our city a little bit.”

But all those people are gone now.

Hours before the caucuses Monday, staffers from at least 68 news organizations -- from ABC and Al Jazeera to Yomiuri Shinbun and WQAD, bustled around the cavernous Polk County Convention Complex.

Here was where Al Jazeera caught up with Pat Christensen, 50, who was working at the center’s coffee stand and planning to attend her first caucus. (She did, and stood for former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.) When a reporter asked her if she’d agree to be interviewed on camera by the Arab news service, she thought to herself, “What the heck!”

Outside the convention center, at least a dozen huge white satellite trucks were parked along the street --not as many, perhaps, as showed up for Michael Jackson’s arraignment in Santa Maria the other day, but then again, this is only a presidential race, not a pop superstar’s pedophilia trial.

By noon Tuesday, the trucks had vanished. Today, said Scott Hallgreen, the center’s event coordinator, his hall will be filled with lawn mowers, tractors and earthmovers for the Iowa Nursery and Landscape Assn.’s annual show.

“In some ways, we’re glad it’s over,” Dave Busiek, news director for KCCI Channel 8 TV, a CBS affiliate, said Tuesday. “But it was a tremendous honor to rub elbows with some of the best journalists in the country.”

Earlier that morning, as a massive ABC News bus, festooned with the network’s logo and equipped with a studio inside, pulled away from the curb, Fuson, sitting in an armchair at Starbucks, called after it: “You’ll call back, right? You still care, right?” He sat back in his seat.

“We know you people,” he said with mock resignation. “You’re not going to come back unless there’s a flood.”