INDIANOLA — Former President Bill Clinton visited Iowa on Saturday, stealing the show in the 2004 presidential race and rallying Democrats to challenge the Bush White House.

Clinton was the keynote speaker at Sen. Tom Harkin’s annual steak fry near Indianola, an event which featured seven of the nine Democratic presidential candidates. Nearly 5,000 people gathered to hear the former president and the candidates speak on policy issues. Clinton praised the presidential contenders, calling them a “field of talented, gifted and devoted Americans.”

“This is the best field of candidates we’ve put forth in a decade,” Clinton said. “I get tired of people saying this field can’t beat the incumbent president. They said the same thing about me, and I did it.”

Harkin and Clinton were joined at the rainy pep rally by John Edwards of North Carolina, Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois.

With the outdoor stages and the rain-soaked field, the steak fry had the feeling of a rock concert. Hundreds of cars jammed Highway 92 east of Indianola and countless campaign signs littered the adjacent roadside.

Each candidate had five minutes to present their views. While each candidate was backed by their supporters, some Iowa Democrats said Clinton out-shone the field he was there to support.

“Clinton was definitely the star of the show,” said Don Poynter of Newton. “He has a real way of uniting all types of people. He’s a brilliant man, and you could see it in the crowd’s reaction.”

The presidential candidates focused their speeches on Clinton’s unifying politics and Bush’s divisive politics, attacking President Bush and not each other.

Graham criticized the Patriot Act and the war on Iraq for its “poor planning and bad execution.”

“When Congress entrusted Bush to defend the country against terrorism, they gave him a blank check of authority,” Graham said. “He cannot be trusted with a blank check.”

“It’s my pledge to remove the divisive presidency of George Bush and bring back the unifying presidency of Bill Clinton.”

Kucinich, a strict vegetarian, found camaraderie among other non-meat-eaters at the steak fry. As Kucinich began his speech, one supporter held up a sign reading “Vegetarians for Harkin.”

Kucinich pointed to the effectiveness of his health care package and attempted to separate himself from the other candidates by pointing to his voting record on the Iraq war, the Patriot Act and other trade agreements.

“My first act as president will be to cancel [the North American Free Trade Agreement] and the World Trade Organization, and resume bilateral trade agreements,” Kucinich said.

He then began a chant referring to the situation in Iraq, pounding his fist on the podium, yelling “U.N. in, U.S. out.”

Kucinich supporters said he was the only candidate who managed to distinguish himself from the other candidates, who had nearly identical opinions.

“Kucinich addressed the issues that were important, and he was much more to the point,” said Gary Harter of Corning. “He’s the guy who understands the issues of war and the World Trade Organization.”

Dean’s introduction was followed by enthusiastic applause from his supporters who represented 16 states, including Alaska. He said he wanted to unite the citizens of America who Bush had polarized through his tax cuts for the wealthy and loss of jobs for American manufacturers.

“You’d better elect a Democrat for president because you can’t trust a Republican with your money — for example, Mr. Bush is a ‘credit card president’ because he borrows what he cannot pay back,” Dean said.

Dean’s charismatic speech had a stirring impact on his supporters, especially Dick Stater of Cedar Rapids.

“Howard Dean has the young vote because he’s not afraid to say what he thinks,” Stater said. “Hearing him speak invoked a sense of patriotism I haven’t felt in four years. With Bush, it’s been one lie on top of another.”

After the candidates spoke, Sen. Harkin took the stage, praising Clinton for bringing much-needed rain.

“Good things happen when Bill Clinton visits Iowa,” Harkin said. “In 1993 he came during the flood and everything dried up. He comes today and we get the rain.”

Clinton was greeted with an ocean of red signs reading: “Welcome back Bill, we miss you.” As Harkin and the presidential candidates stood behind him with looks of admiration, Clinton criticized Bush’s handling of post-Sept. 11 events, the economy and environmental standards.

“After Sept. 11, we had a great time for change because the whole world was supporting us,” Clinton said. “However, instead of uniting the world we alienated it by pushing our policies too far to the right. We’ve gone back to the old politics of division.

“In a world where you can’t kill or jail all of your enemies, you must make fewer terrorists.”

Clinton criticized Bush’s tax cut, saying the administration wasted the prosperity of Clinton’s two terms with tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, himself included.

“They’re giving people like myself a tax cut and kicking thousands of children out of after-school programs, unemployed workers out of their job-training programs, students out of their student loans and took cops off the street,” Clinton said. “The very same people that were lifted out of poverty during my presidency are losing their livelihood.”

Clinton urged all the candidates to remain strong on foreign policy as they challenged Bush. Justin Koch, member of the Kirkwood College Democrats, agreed with Clinton’s statement. Koch said the most important issue for him was electing a Democrat who was strong in foreign policy, but whose views were not so liberal they alienated the majority of the population.

“The Democratic Party doesn’t want to look like a bunch of hippie protesters on the issue of foreign policy, but experts,” he said. “We don’t want to appear like a counter-culture — we want to take over the popular culture.”