LOAN, Iowa - He offered to help a farmer having problems with his ram. He repeated, word for word, one man's advice on how to reassure voters who were concerned about scandal. And he promised a person who had undergone surgery to become a woman that he would learn about transgender issues.
During a three-day visit to the first-in-the-nation caucus state, Vice President Al Gore is trying to seal the deal, making pledges all the way from Davenport to Sioux City, looking for a big win eight days from now. Even his opponent, Bill Bradley, expects Gore to prevail here Jan. 24, but the question is how wide the win, how big the push will be going into New Hampshire.
And here is how Gore is putting the finishing touches to the Hawkeye State: Staying positive, staying away from pesky national reporters, and allowing others to do the dirty work.
Down a gravel road, past fallow corn and soybean fields, Gore visited with several hundred voters in Jon Roarson's frigid barn. The vice president brought along Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat featured in a television commercial for Gore, and a New Jersey farmer named Roy Etsch.
Gore talked fluently about agricultural trade policy, countercyclical crop payments, and the reason the bottom has fallen out of the hog market. He left it to Harkin and Etsch to come in for the kill.
On crop insurance, ethanol, price supports, and flood relief, Bradley voted against family farmers, Harkin said. The vice president, he said, stood with the farmer.
''I tell you these things because I think you ought to know it,'' Harkin said, comparing the information to a homebuyer finding cracks in the foundation of a house.
Etsch, an older man whose hearing has declined, delivered the coup de grace. He said Bradley never cared about farmers, even though New Jersey is home to 9,000 family farms. He said Bradley was unavailable to meet with farmers when he served in the Senate, and told of the time he once finagled an appointment, only to arrive in Washington to be stood up.
''I doubt even today he knows the difference between corn and soybean,'' Etsch said. Though he said he is not looking to cause trouble, and he always voted for Bradley in Senate races, Etsch said he was certain what would happen if Bradley became president: ''He'd forget about the agriculture community completely.''
Caucuses are not like primaries, where people vote and leave. Instead, Iowans gather together in homes, schools and churches, debating the virtues and flaws of the candidates for hours on end before a vote is taken. It takes time and commitment to participate.
It also takes organization. And that is why Gore has visited with activists and labor leaders, simultaneously imploring, thanking, and energizing his troops.
One stop was at the United Auto Workers local in Waterloo. In a squat, tan building by the highway, Gore thanked the members for their early endorsement of his candidacy over Bradley last year, despite resistance by their national leaders.
''I'll never forget it - ever,'' he said, reminding them that he supports a $1-an-hour increase in the minimum wage, a strengthened National Labor Relations Board, and strong antitrust enforcement on agriculture.
In Cedar Rapids, Gore stood under hot stage lights at Coe Community College's theater in the round, promising to take every question, no matter how long it took. He stayed for more than three hours.
''I'm not going anywhere,'' he said. ''I'm staying right here. If necessary, I'll stand here till 7 p.m. on the evening of the 24th.''
Brad Wilson, a farmer with a gift for metaphors, told Gore about the problem he's been having with his 300-pound ram, which, he informed the vice president, is a male sheep.
''Ever since I put him in with the ewes, the female sheeps, he has taken the position that I am not allowed to go into the pen,'' Wilson said. ''Every time I step into the pen, he will charge into me and ram into me over and over until I leave the pen.''
Though he hadn't yet made his point - that he's feeling battered by federal farm policy - Gore was itching to respond.
''Well you know, as eager as I am to win the support of caucus goers, I promise you I will try to help you with this,'' he said, laughing at the absurdity.
More seriously, an older man described himself as a fan of the Clinton administration's accomplishments, yet still unsure how to vote in the Democratic contest.
''I'm concerned that your ability to win the election is reduced by your association with the Clinton scandal,'' he said, referring to the president's affair with an intern. ''I think you have to come up with some way to make a statement that says you're separated somehow in order for you to be elected. And I have a suggestion for that statement, which is something along the lines of, `I wouldn't have done that.'''
Without hesitation, Gore replied: ''I wouldn't have done that.''
Of course, not every voter received a ready answer, or even a lengthy one. When a heavy-set woman with broad shoulders and scraggly blonde hair asked Gore if he would cover transgender people in the employment nondiscrimination act, he was slightly flummoxed.
''I will have to educate myself on that,'' he promised.
