Election 2002

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That was also the thinking of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which put Iowa's First District on its list of "vulnerable" Republican targets. And this wasn't just any Republican. This was the "righteous" Jim Nussle, who appeared on the House floor in 1991 with a paper bag over his head to express shame over the congressional bounced-check scandal.

So far, Nussle is holding up. He is outspending Hutchinson 2to 1; President Bush stopped by last month and added $300,000 to his coffers. And Nussle can do things for Iowans that Hutchinson can't. As chairman of the House Budget Committee, he recently brought the Speaker of the House to Davenport to sign off on a new bridge across the Mississippi. And he promised to raise Medicare reimbursement by $123 million over the next three years.

With Nussle's pollsters claiming he has more than 50% of the vote, Hutchinson needs to move the debate quickly to an area in which the g.o.p. is weakest: corporate greed's role in the faltering economy. But she is on hersecond D.C.-imported campaign manager in three months and is plainly uncomfortable with the negative campaign ads Washington is producing for her. "It's not Iowa," she says. Last week, while Nussle was voting to support the use of forcein Iraq, Hutchinson was in between campaign stops, in Dubuque on the phone, begging for money. --By Marguerite Michaels/Dubuque