Hillary and Obama Appeal to Voters Despite Snow

Candidates crisscrossed villages covered with snow to meet with voters gathered in public auditoriums, churches, libraries, and schools to meet their favorite candidate.

Presidential campaign in the 21st-century led by visual images and the Internet are scenes that smacks of distant past hundreds years back.

○ Overheated Democratic Party and Calm Republican Party

At 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 2, the Historical Society Museum in Des Moines, where Hillary Clinton delivered speech was packed with people from early evening.

She said, “I guess you have heard many pledges in speeches by candidates. Here is the easiest and surest way to judge them. That is to see what kind of work candidates have done so far.”

The crowd, mostly middle-aged women or in their prime years, praised her as she, a seasoned politician of 35 years, spoke a sentence.

Hillary asked each voter to come to caucus as she gave shovels to voters to clear their driveways. She also got on a bus packed with journalists and poured coffee for each of them.

Barack Obama, who is currently doing very well in opinion polls, had places for his speech covered with placards saying, “change.”

In a passionate speech delivered at Des Moines Hoover High School, he described the day when real change of historical proportions would occur. His audience was more enthusiastic than that of Hillary’s.

○ Caucus that sticks to traditions

On Thursday night, registered voters of the two parties will gather for the 1,781 caucus venue. In the case of the Democratic Party, supporters for each candidate will gather together. A lot of efforts have been made to attract more supporters. The size of delegation is determined by the number of supporters. If the number is the same, the tie is broken by coin flipping.

An American correspondent explained, “Because of the unique way of caucus, candidates have no other choice but to depend on their leg work and meet voters rather than counting on media and their image.

On Wednesday night, after an indoor campaign in Convention Center in West Des Moines, Mitt Romney went great lengths and shook hands with each voter. An official from his campaign said, “We made 12,000 calls to voters yesterday alone.”

sechepa@donga.com