Southern Minnesota: Ringside seats to Iowa campaigns

AUSTIN

When she's not waiting tables at Jerry's Other Place, Mary Graff likes to relax with a little TV. But these days, whether she's watching "Good Morning America" at 7 a.m., the afternoon soaps or the 10 p.m. news, Graff, like thousands of other Minnesotans living along the state's southern border, is subjected to a barrage of presidential political ads streaming from her set. Radio is no different. ¶ "Oh, I hear the local news reports, snips of speeches, ads from Hillary, ads from Obama. They're all saying what they think we want to hear," Graff said a little wearily as she served the regular lunchtime crowd at Jerry's, down the street from the massive Hormel meatpacking plant.

In nearby Albert Lea, Wanda Dorman, co-owner of Hanson Tire Co., said that when daytime demigod Oprah Winfrey recently endorsed Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., it was the talk of the town. "Oh, it was Obama and Oprah, every time you turn around," she said, laughing.

"I hear my customers talking about it a lot," said Graff. "You'd think the election was in two weeks."

In fact, just down the road a piece from unassuming Austin and Albert Lea, the all-important kickoff to America's presidential campaign really is barely more than two weeks away. In Iowa, one of the fiercest presidential contests in memory is being waged in preparation for the earliest lead-off caucuses in history.

Like it or not, southern Minnesotans have a ringside seat.

Austin's KAAL-TV's signal reaches into northern Iowa. Since September, sales of advertising time have been brisk as national sales manager Chris Mans happily crams his schedule with $40 30-second spots on "Regis and Kelly" and even $1,600-per-minute ads on top-rated "Grey's Anatomy."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., has already booked right through the holidays, including a Christmas Eve spot on "Cashmere Mafia."

A few feet over in the KAAL newsroom, news director Mike Schram furiously plots coverage and has already mobilized his small staff to trail Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards in the northern Iowa town of Mason City, and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as she stumped in Clear Lake for Clinton.

"There's nothing more important than democracy in action, and Iowa kicks it off," Schram said, noting that Minnesota's Feb. 5 caucuses come hard on the heels of the Iowa results. With the intensity of the race picking up, he said, "We need to clue our viewers in to the issues that matter most to them."

Unable to avoid eavesdropping on the full-throated debate across the border, southern Minnesotans are already engaged and full of opinions about the candidates and what they have to say on the war, economy, taxes and the latest hot-button issue in the region: illegal immigration.

The big campaign issues

At Bunnell's Donut Hut in Albert Lea, Lorene and Denny Olson settled in with pals at their regular table, where a pot of serviceable coffee and 47-cent doughnuts fueled an afternoon's discussion of the presidential race.

"I think Hillary Clinton is quite brilliant," said Lorene Olson, a tad defiantly, as Denny Olson cast a sideways glance her way. "I just like all of Hillary's ads. You can tell she has an incredible mind."

Then it was Denny's turn. "The ads are so general, their sound bites are so ... nothing. There's not enough cohesiveness there to hold a popcorn ball together," Olson said.

For this lifelong union member and retired packing house shipper, few issues loom larger than the area's swelling illegal immigrant population. They're displacing American workers and using up scarce government resources, he said. "If nobody does anything," Denny Olson said ominously, "by the time our soldiers come home, there won't be any America left."

Two seats away, a resplendent Santa Claus in full regalia had a different topic in mind. "They've got to get health care straightened out," said Dave Mullenbach, sporting the jolly old elf's silver-framed reading glasses, full beard, red velvet suit and belly like a bowl full of jelly doughnuts. "They've got to help rural America. We're suffering down here."

A part-time volunteer at the local historical museum, Mullenbach said his snow-white hair and beard will take a post-Christmas trim as part of a cancer research fundraiser.

The fieriest ads in the Iowa air war have been on the Republican side. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has trotted out shoot-'em-up star Chuck Norris as his answer to immigration, while former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has assailed Huckabee over controversial pardons.

Those hard-edged ads have aired well to the south, in Iowa's midsection.

Close-to-the-border Minnesotans instead have been treated mostly to softer ads from Democrats: Obama urging parents to "turn off the television" as part of an effort to reinvigorate education, Clinton promising to end the Iraq war, Edwards portraying himself as a populist fighter.

So far, Vince Bergland, owner of Albert Lea's Bergland Harley Davidson, is not impressed.

Bergland has the weathered face, mechanic's hands and Fu Manchu mustache you might expect from a Harley man. But he's also a regular public radio listener who leans Republican but has not dismissed Democrats. He has a diabetic wife and is struggling, at the moment, with allergies for which he can't afford to see a doctor.

"I see a lot of focus on inane, stupid things that have nothing to do with what's important," said Bergland, 53. "I don't care what Oprah thinks. So what if Romney's a Mormon? I want to know about health care, the economy, the price of fuel. That's what affects my business. We have no heavy industry. Our young men? Why would they want to be here? No good jobs.

"I don't expect anyone to have magic answers," Bergland said, twirling the end of his mustache. "But I've been hearing [from candidates] for a year and I still don't know what they stand for."

Patricia Lopez • 651-222-1288