DES MOINESIn her sixth year on the school board of a system that must cope with huge demands and limited resources, Iowan Laura Sands is used to being accountable to the public for spending decisions.
So imagine her surprise last summer when she perused a General Accounting Office audit of the Pentagon, which showed that $43 billion in spending couldn't be accounted for.
That and a sense that $280 billion is too high a budget for the Defense Department a decade after the Cold War's end overcame Sands's reluctance to go outside her local responsibility and endorse a campaign to cut $45 billion (about 15 percent) out of the Defense Department's budget and shift the resources to domestic needs.
''I didn't realize how unaccountable they are by the standards I'm used to every day,'' said Sands, a moderate Democrat who leans toward Al Gore in the presidential campaign, notwithstanding his support of existing policy that will add $130 billion to the military's pile over the next five years. ''But I do know how great our needs are in Iowa in areas like education, health care, and water quality.''
Since last summer, 18,000 Iowans have done what Sands did - joined Iowans for Sensible Priorities - and there's still a month before the party caucuses. By any standards, including presidential campaigns, that is very impressive organizing.
If this were just another top-down issues campaign, feeding off the impending caucuses, her organization would be of minimal interest. And it's a fact that its national parent, Business Leaders For Sensible Priorities, has provided the resources, including television and radio ads that are already up and running here and in New Hampshire (the driving force is Vermont's Ben Cohen of ice cream fame).
The resources here include Peggy Huppert, co-chair of Polk County's Democratic Party and a relentless organizer. From a start working out of her home to a frantic life today in an office suite on the edge of downtown, Huppert has moved well beyond the traditional base of peace activism on the left; indeed, she has concentrated on broadening the obvious base, and her success has caught national politicians' eyes, though not yet anyone's open support.
Adolphus Pulliam is even less inclined to this kind of thing than Laura Sands. A basketball legend at Drake University and now an official in its athletic department, Pulliam was attracted by the richly decorated campaign bus (originally the one Ben & Jerry's used to market their ice cream) parked at the farmer's market he visits.
''I was speechless when I learned about this issue; still am,'' he said in his office behind the stadium where the famous track relays are still conducted every year. ''Then I was depressed because everybody around here is working so hard with families and kids at risk and it's never enough. And then it got me mad when I see how all this military money is being spent, how the people want their money spent and how different Congress is from the people.''
Huppert's organizing is supported by national advertising (the Iowa group also has its own spot running), and by occasional visits from major supporters. The national group has recruited several maverick former military leaders (Admiral John Shanahan, who once headed the Atlantic Fleet, and Army Colonel David Hackworth, for example), as well as former Reagan Defense Department official Lawrence Korb, who has written a paper for the organization. There was even an Iowa visit by as extreme a conservative politician as there is, former New Hampshire senator Gordon Humphrey.
The campaign's proposal is not kooky or pacifist. The biggest item by far would unilaterally cut the US strategic arsenal to 1,000 nuclear warheads from the present 7,500, a level above what many experts believe the cash-starved Russians are capable of maintaining; $35 billion moved would pay for the hiring of 100,000 teachers as well as provide health insurance for 11 million children who lack it.
The other two would stop procurement of the controversial F-22 fighter - and enable Head Start to be fully funded for the first time in its history - and block production of new attack submarines - providing the money to repair and modernize every one of Iowa's 1555 public schools, for example).
The campaign's tracking poll as well as a national survey done for the parent group show overwhelming support (close to 4 to 1) for the proposition of a 15 percent (of Pentagon spending) shift in priorities to domestic needs.
In Washington, however, the political and military establishment is frozen in a two-wars-at-the-same-time strategy against countries other than Russia and China, which not even the Pentagon considers potential adversaries. Of the seven that are (Iraq and North Korea are the favorites in the scenario community), the United States outspends them all on defense by 17-1. And yet the campaign's targets are weapons programs designed for a Cold War that doesn't exist.
In the presidential campaign, John McCain would at least fund his new military programs out of existing spending. Bill Bradley keeps mumbling sentences about holding spending constant, which would net more than $100 billion over five years, but he has yet do more than mumble. Gore supports the Clinton buildup. And George W. Bush would throw even more money away.
There are signs, though, of strong interest being kindled among Democratic congressional leaders. If people like Peggy Huppert stick around, this is an issue that could surprise. It has the additional benefit of being the right thing to do.
Thomas Oliphant is a Globe columnist.
