Iowa’s seven electoral votes are apparently up for grabs, as the Bush and Kerry campaigns plan trips here next week. President Bush will visit Cedar Rapids this coming Tuesday. John Kerry and his runningmate, John Edwards, will campaign in Sioux City next Saturday. And Vice President Dick Cheney was in Iowa yesterday afternoon to speak to about 1,000 Iowa Republicans who turned out for a rally in Waterloo. Cheney says he and the president “are tremendously grateful for all the support” they’ve got in Iowa, and Iowans “will be seeing a lot” of the two men in the next few months. Cheney says the Bush/Kerry race will be “spirited” and he asked Iowans to “remember all that has occured since George W. Bush was elected.” The Vice President says the country’s faced “serious challenges” in the three-and-a-half years Bush has been president, but Cheney says the Bush Administration is “meeting those challenges with strength and resolve.” The Bush/Cheney campaign has been trying to emphasize the softer side of the vice president, and Cheney’s wife is a major part of that charm offensive. Mrs. Cheney pointed to a sign in the crowd that read “Nice Hair” then she turned to her husband, who is balding, and laughed. John Kerry last week said he and his runningmate, John Edwards, had “better hair” than Bush and Cheney do. The Cheneys brought two granddaughters along for the Iowa campaign stop. Mrs. Cheney said the girls were having a pretty good time and may have set a record by bringing a Barbie doll onto Air Force II, the vice president’s plane. Cheney himself chimed in when he got to the microphone, sharing more personal details. Cheney told the crowd he and his wife are headed home to Casper, Wyoming, to celebrate their 45th high school class reunion. Cheney quipped that his wife was “very young” when she graduated from high school. One of the high points of the rally, though, came before Cheney even arrived in the hall. Iowa’s most popular republican officeholder, Senator Charles Grassley, urged the crowd to do what they could to ensure Bush carries Iowa in November. “Get out and work your fanny off for George Bush and Vice President Cheney,” Grassley said. Cheney’s visit to Iowa came during a week when the national media broadcast and published rumors that Bush may dump Cheney from the ticket. Both Bush and Cheney have denied Cheney’s on his way out, and the Iowa republicans at yesterday’s rally were rallying behind Cheney. One man said Bush and Cheney have been a good team, and now is no time to change. His wife offered her own slogan: “Flush the Johns in 2004; give us W four years more.”
