Regardless of political affiliation, party leaders in Iowa and New Hampshire do their best to keep their first-in-the-nation status in the presidential candidate selection process. Candidates’ visits through those states are about as good as you can get nowadays to the political campaigns of old. If you’re interested in seeing a candidate and haven’t tripped over one recently, you’re not trying.

Although I won’t be able to participate in the caucus Monday, I couldn’t pass up the chance to meet two candidates in Toledo over the break — John Edwards and Howard Dean. The contrasts between the atmospheres of each visit illustrate two ends of the campaign spectrum. (I would have liked to see Wesley Clark, but the only gesture he’s given Iowans is an upraised middle finger.)

Edwards came Dec. 28. The materials laid out at the entrance included a 63-page booklet, titled “Real Solutions for America,” that contained his positions for just about everything. Edwards spoke in the half of the room that wasn’t lit as well. His message was much like those in his TV commercials, one of class warfare. He pitted “the rest of us” against the rich, saying we had two health care systems, two public school systems, two tax systems and even two governments. As I listened to him, I had to wonder if anyone with money, or anyone running a business, had ever done anything good.

To give Edwards a fair shake, some of his ideas, either spoken at the meeting or presented in the book, have some merit. Funding “No Child Left Behind” and closing loopholes in corporate taxes are things all of Congress should work on. Other proposals straddle the border between simply unworkable and pie-in-the-sky. “Controlling the special interests” sounded more like “All we have to do is restrict the free speech and spending rights of corporations and strip lobbyists of their right to talk to members of Congress.” Edwards wants the government to pay one year of college tuition; he thinks that repealing the tax cuts, increasing capital gains taxes and closing corporate loopholes is going to pay for all that.

Dean came Jan. 4, the first stop after the Des Moines Register’s debate. While Edwards’ event was one of substance, Dean’s was more one of style. Bright fixed lights shone on a platform with a big poster as the backdrop. (Dean needed the platform; he’s only 5-8.) A space was set aside for traveling press. There was a digital video camera with “NBC Network News” on the bar code; a conventional TV camera was being carried by someone with a CNN tag on his neck strap. Hoping for something outlining Dean’s ideas like Edwards had, I only got a five-page pamphlet appropriating the vision of Thomas Paine titled “Common Sense for a New Century.”

Occasionally repeating some of the things he had said in the debate, Dean blasted Bush, saying the tax cuts were “emblematic of someone who has forgotten the middle class” and the president’s allegiance was “to corporations, not ordinary Americans.” Claiming Bush doesn’t care about a majority of the country has been a common theme among all contenders during this caucus season; while Edwards painted it in broader strokes, Dean preferred to specifically blame Bush for just about everything.

Parts of his speech made me wonder exactly which party’s events I was attending, as Dean said “you cannot trust Republicans with your money,” promised to “restore honor, dignity and respect” with new foreign policy, and said “Iowans ought to run their own school system” when talking about education. That wonder disappeared as Dean talked about providing health care for everyone at $87 billion a year and offering student aid up to $10,000 a year for students in loans and grants, calling those loans “paid” in 10 years.

Taken together, the two meetings show what it means, and what it is really like, to campaign in Iowa. Want to be president? You’re going to have to travel to small restaurants across the state and talk in places with bad light and acoustics. You’re going to have to drive slowly on snow-covered roads — I could only do 45 while traveling to see Dean. You’re going to have to talk to what the coasts consider a despised caste: Midwesterners. Florida or New Mexico isn’t going to work; those who want this job are going to endure the weather and everyone in it.

While I still wouldn’t vote for Dean, I enjoyed having the opportunity to see him. The real winners in this contest are the people who have the choice and chance to go hear someone who disagrees with the president on just about everything. Perhaps too often we forget just how great that alone is.

Both candidates’ visits had their own merits. I liked Edwards’ booklet and the slightly less formal atmosphere; Dean’s showed me what a front-runner’s campaign and an embryonic media circus look like. Edwards had local supporters; Dean did too, but I think the young people flittering about weren’t from the area.

And the Dean session had pie. It might not have earned any hearts, but it might have won over a few stomachs.