Lynner helping Biden’s bid in Iowa

LYNN – Although it is not the definitive vote in determining which candidates will contend for the 2008 presidential election, Thursday’s Iowa caucus is an important indicator as to which candidate is leading the race to their respective party’s nomination this summer.While high-profile candidates like Hilary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani are buying up television air space in the mid-western state, Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden is quietly touting his experience and ideas for change as the key attributes that set him apart from his more recognizable and pop-culture savvy opponents.Among the supporters leading the charge behind Biden is a long-time advocate for the Delaware senator, Lynn native and Assistant City Solicitor Richard Vitali, who flew to Iowa earlier this month to help organize the caucus effort.Working from Biden’s main campaign office in Clive, a suburb of Des Moines, Vitali works daily to coordinate with field directors at each of the Senator’s 11 offices scattered throughout the state.The goal is to locate every resident looking to support Biden and corral them together to find out how many people in each district are in their camp. Each precinct will have a captain, who then recruits other Biden supporters in the area for the vote.The Iowa caucus does not work like a normal anonymous vote. Rather than casting individual votes in a machine, residents will gather at schools and meeting areas on Thursday and split into groups based on the candidate they support. The group with the most representation will then be determined the winner for that precinct.Vitali, who first supported Biden in his run for president in 1988, has been helping with fundraisers and campaign support in New England, most specifically New Hampshire, in recent weeks, but he said the atmosphere in Iowa is like nothing he has ever seen.”The media has changed things a lot (since the ’80s); CNN was in the office yesterday just filming us,” he said. “Every street in downtown Des Moines are filled with satellite trucks. People are talking about this everywhere you go. The state has made a huge commitment, but because of all of the media attention, it has created a very charged atmosphere.”Vitali says he understands that other candidates like Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama are frontrunners in the democratic race, but he is hoping Biden’s experience and grassroots campaign in Iowa will speak to the state’s largely working class population.”You can’t turn on a TV out here without seeing an ad for one of the ‘big three’ – they are constantly on TV,” he said. “But we don’t appeal to people on glitz and glamour, we appeal to them on nuts and bolts. People here really look over their candidates, they are not just for sale.”In speaking to voters, Vitali says the issues important to people vary immensely from the Iraq war to health care, but one common theme is present.”There has basically been a lot of talk about wanting a change. People are not happy with the way things have happened in Washington, and I think whoever it is that wins the Democratic nomination is going to have a very good shot in November,” he said.For Vitali and his group of Biden supporters, they will be working around the clock leading up to Thursday’s caucus in the hopes that the thus far under-the-radar Senator can surprise the nation in 2008.”There is no time to sit back,” said Vitali. “Nobody wants to come this far and fumble on the goal line.”