Nostalgia in the air as Obama returns to Iowa

It was in Des Moines last October that I heard Obama say that his having lived in Indonesia as a child gives him the understanding of foreign cultures that would be useful as president.

And it was in Iowa last December where I saw him campaign with an unruffled demeanor and a mixture of extemporaneous and memorized speeches to crowds in small towns such as Manchester, population 4,898.

Dennis Pearson, a self-described Republican, told me last January after hearing Obama in Manchester, “He seems to be an honest, sincere person who will bring back some sincerity to the presidency.”

And perhaps most fatefully, it was in Iowa that Sen. Hillary Clinton’s caucus strategy ended up costing her the support of many Democrats.

It was in Iowa way back in May 2006 — what seems like ancient times — that I talked to Democrats who said that Clinton should not run for the nomination and would not win the presidency. They were right about the latter, at least for 2008.

Jan Sutherland, a Council Bluffs, retiree and part-time teacher of English as a second language, said to me in May 2006, “There are too many people who dislike Hillary. It’s not that Hillary can’t handle the job, they just simply dislike Hillary, and they’d vote against her personally.”

Sutherland added: “I don’t think she can win. It will just keep the country split.”

Keep in mind that the conventional wisdom among pundits and reporters in Washington, D.C. at the very moment Sutherland was telling me this — in the spring of 2006 — was that Hillary Clinton was the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.

How wrong the conventional wisdom was — but there were unmistakeable signs in Iowa that it was wrong, even in the spring of 2006, well before Obama formally launched his bid.

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