Four politicians pondering the idea of running for president were in central Iowa this weekend. Republican Mike Huckabee, the Governor of Arkansas, kicked off the weekend with an appearance on Iowa Public Television. “I think right now the list of potential candidates would fill the Des Moines phone book,” Huckabee said. Huckabee, who is in his second four-year term as Arkansas’ governor, said it’s “obvious” politicians like him are “poking around” in Iowa this far in advance of the 2008 race because they’re considering running for president. “There’s no point in me saying ‘No, it’s never crossed my mind,’ because you wouldn’t believe it and no one watching would either,” he said. Huckabee said he’ll decide “a year or more from now” whether to launch a bid for the White House. “I don’t think it’s a decision that I’m ready to make today,” he said. Neither are Iowans. Kim Schmett, a long-time Iowa Republican party activist, says this weekend wasn’t a fluke, and there’ll be more candidate traffic in the months to come. “Unlike past years, there’s almost always been one or maybe two candidates (who) were considered ahead of the field,” Schmett says. “This year, it appears to be a totally wide open field for anybody running.” Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado openly admits he is a long-shot candidate and that he came in Iowa to press his number one priority — curbing illegal immigration. “What I’m doing here is to try to get the taller guys with better hair to take up these issues when they’re coming through here as presidential candidates,” Tancredo says. “I think I am hampered by a number of things on this trail. One is being five foot eight in my cowboy boots. I always say I’m too short, too fat and going too bald to really be considered a serious candidate but I’ve got to do something to make the serious candidates pay attention to this issue.” One of those taller candidates is Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, who says the country’s attention is rightfully focused not on presidential politics, but on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. “This is the first time during my lifetime we’ve evacuated a major U.S. city, so this is an enormous thing that’s taken place,” Brownback says. “A lot of people’s lives have been harmed, and we need to rebuild (the Gulf Coast).” On Sunday, 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards was in Indianola at Senator Tom Harkin’s annual steak fry and he is focused on how the hurricane has highlighted the issue of poverty in America.”(Hurricane) Katrina has focused the country’s attention on an issue that doesn’t just exist on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, but exists all across America,” Edwards says. “We need to take this window of opportunity and act.” Edwards is critical of the actions President Bush has suggested. Edwards says Bush was wrong to suspend a federal law which requires the government to pay the “prevailing wage” on federal contracts to rebuild the Gulf Coast. “We ought to have a new W.P.A. like was used during the Depression to create jobs and we ought to bring these folks (who) have been displaced back into New Orleans to rebuild their own city, give ’em a decent wage and a decent benefit,” Edwards says. “I think that’s the way to help rebuild New Orleans the way it should be rebuilt — not just rebuild the city but rebuild people’s lives.” Earlier this year, Edwards formed a Center on Poverty at the University of North Carolina, and he says Hurricane Katrina has given President Bush an opportunity to attack poverty and keep the nation’s attention on the problem. “In this window when people are paying attention, will we have leadership that sustains the effort?” Edwards says. “I think in the short term people will pay attention. The real question is: is it transient or will it be long-lasting?”
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