This is the Dean for America field office in Dubuque, isn't it picturesque? Inside, it's pretty messy, no surprise, but the outside looks so cool, and was a very nice first sign for my eyes in Iowa. Diane Gibson welcomed me, JD Berry is there from Burlington, so is Amanda from GenDean. It's the workers inside this building that are going to have to carry Dean through in Dubuque.
What's it take to win here? This NE part of Iowa around Dubuque has about 70,000 people in the surrounding area, so, we can count on there being roughly about 2100 showing up on a low caucus night (3%), and 4200 (is 6% high?) showing up on an above-average night at the caucuses--in about 40 different places. As I said in the previous post, there are five campaigns on the ground here, it's a very competitive area of the state for democrats.
It's also a tough media play here, as it's closer to Chicago than it is to Des Moines. Gore hit this area of the nation in his riverboat tour down the Mississippi in 2000, during what was probably the highpoint of his campaign (and also the tactic which Rove acknowledged after the election when questioned for a good move by the Gore campaign).
You probably wondered what's up with the orange hats, I did. Apparently, the idea came from having an open hunting season, and with the canvassers are hitting rural areas of Iowa and all, orange (gotcha one Rospars) was born...
Storm people from Madison, Wisconsin, this is Bill Anderson and Abby Davidson (who has been here since January 9th canvassing) making a sign-up sheet for the Dorm Storm to get all the students to vote, and to also invite them to the Harkin event here tomorrow. When I mentioned to them that I might put up the photo on DailyKos, Abby said, "oh, my mom reads that site everyday, she has it book marked in her favorites!" Yea, dKos is a `mom's bookmark site' alright; and come to think of it, my moms got it bookmarked too!
Tomorrow is a Dean-filled day. Senator Harkin is going to be here in the morning, then I'm going down for the event in Davenport for Dean. I heard Kerry might be in Davenport too, so maybe I'll see the Kopter. Btw, that was a hell-of-a-move for Kerry. A trivia that caught the imagination of the 18-24's, and boosted him up in the polls (Dean's last week negative advertising didn't help). Does Kerry, or Edwards, have the field to carry him is the big question, because it looks like, at least in Dubuque, that Dean does.