From Conn. to Iowa, on the tense caucus hustings

Let’s follow along as Cristin McCarthy Vahey and Lori Charlton knock on doors in Ankeny, Iowa. It’s Monday afternoon, the waning hours of a cold, gray day before the Democratic caucuses for president.

The politically active pair from Fairfield — McCarthy Vahey is a state representative and Charlton is on the board of finance — had traveled on their own dime, 1,150 miles due directly west from Connecticut to help their candidate, Mayor Pete. Nobody ever says “Buttigieg.” A friendly woman, maybe in her 60s, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, answers a door on a street near the main commercial strip in the small town, just a few miles north of Des Moines.

“Hi, I’m Cristin McCarthy Vahey, I’m a volunteer for Mayor Pe ..... ”

The woman needs no more prodding. She can see the buttons and cards. “I am caucusing tonight, I’m checking people in,” she says. “I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do, though.”

“We’re hearing that a lot,” McCarthy Vahey says. She listens before she pitches.

“I have never been so, let’s say I’m confused. It is a very hard decision,” the woman says.

After months of following the cavalcade of Democrats vying for president, it’s 3:05 p.m. and she’s due at the caucus meeting in less than three hours. McCarthy Vahey and Charlton also have a role, as monitors for Buttigieg.

It’s a tense day, but upbeat as the last pre-caucus poll shows Buttigieg has edged into a statistically insignificant lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders, with former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren just behind.

McCarthy and Charlton aren’t the only Connecticut politicos out on the Iowa hustings Monday. The group they’ve joined, 203 Action, has volunteers for a few candidates. State Sen. Alex Bergstein, D-Greenwich, came out for Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who needs a leapfrog miracle in her neighboring state.

Rep. Josh Elliott, D-Hamden, is someplace in Iowa campaigning for Warren. Darryl Brackeen Jr., a New Haven alderman, is also in the Hawkeye State, for Biden.

In Des Moines, Erick Russell, the young, up-and-coming vice chairman of the Democratic state central commitee in Connecticut, takes in the whole picture along with his husband, former Newtown state Rep. Christopher Lyddy. Russell has no dog in the fight as a top party official. He’s in Iowa to learn the system and offer support to his friend Troy Price, the Iowa state party chairman.

I’m listening in on McCarthy Vahey’s phone as she and Charlton hit the doors.

“I usually have known exactly what I’ve wanted. Pete is in there,” the friendly woman in flannel promises.

They talk about people voting for President Donald Trump, how it’s emotional and also, as the woman says, about those 401(k) retirement plans that are doing pretty well these days.

“It’s about the bread and butter issues. That’s why I think Pete is the best candidate,” McCarthy Vahey says.

They talk about leadership. They talk about how voters always seem to want change. The woman is worried about two things: Buttigieg’s lack of experience and his “low support in the African American community.”

That last worry is a big one, as Trump played his hand in a Super Bowl ad featuring a black woman who got out of prison, the Trump ad claims, because of the president’s criminal justice reform.

Buttigieg running as a man married to a man? It never comes up.

“I’m here because I know Pete, I met him a number of years back,” McCarthy Vahey explains, at a leadership conference. “I shook his hand and I said ‘Pete, we’re all going to be working for you someday.’ Even among leaders, he’s a leader.”

The woman wonders, would Washington eat him alive?

“I’m a state legislator in Connecticut and I know...you have to have the ability to know you’re not the smartest person in the room and help bring them along,” McCarthy Vahey says. “I would say with Pete that’s one of the skills he brings.”

It’s remarkable how many Iowans remained undecided to the end. That’s been reported widely but to see it and feel it is a different matter, said Russell, who lives in New Haven and works as a lawyer at Pullman & Comley, specializing in government finance.

Since arriving Friday night, he’s been to rallies for all five leading candidates. “I’ve been really impressed with the size of these events,” he said. “Very, very, very well attended, a ton of energy in the room...We have a really awesome group of candidates running.”

Klobuchar packed a restaurant during the Super Bowl, for example.

But can anyone beat Trump?

That’s the question that terrifies just about every Democrat in Iowa and it’s the reason for all the indecision. This time around, it’s not just a matter of going with the heart and the mind on issues.

It’s the reason McCarthy Vahey and Charlton exchange friendly banter and phone numbers with a volunteer for Biden from Chicago, working the same street in Ankeny.

It’s the reason former U.S. Sen. and Connecticut scion Chris Dodd, who had his own bad luck in Iowa, has been in the state trashing Sanders’ ability to win in November.

And it’s the reason the friendly woman in flannel worries about the left flank of the party. “Warren and Bernie, it’s all socialist, socialist, socialist. It’s so ugly,” she says to McCarthy Vahey and Charlton.

“We just have to keep our eyes on the prize,” Charlton declares.

They part, agreeing the woman won’t commit to Buttigieg in that doorway. They hope it’s not just the die-hards who show up to caucus. “Thank you for chatting,” the woman says.

“Time is flying. It’s like the clock is ticking here,” McCarthy Vahey says to me after they leave the house. “The organizers in the office said they’ve got that pit in their stomachs.”

It was a pit for Monday night, but really it was about November.