I am blogging the Iowa caucus run-up experience for Southpaw, from the perspective of a Dean volunteer. I'll be in Iowa from today through the 21st.
This is my first entry. You can also find it (and the others, as they are posted) on Southpaw.
Extended copy follows:
Perfect Storm Indeed!
The Hyperbolic Pants Explosion has landed in Des Moines, no thanks to the weather gods. When I woke up this morning there was no snow on the ground in Chicago. By the time I left a couple of hours later, my car was covered with a couple of inches of heavy, wet snow. Once I got out of the city proper, most of the drive consisted of either sliding through a foot of slush, or squinting through near white-out conditions, or sometimes, both. At times, traffic had slowed to 15 mph. At one point things seemed to clear for awhile, so I took the opportunity to pry my fingernails out of the steering wheel and snap this picture (I will say one thing: unlike Illinois, Iowa seems to be largely in favor of actually plowing the highway when it snows).
In any case, let's just say it was a long and harrowing trip.
Despite having a fully-loaded 30 Gb iPod, I spent most of the time listening to old episodes of This American Life (as well as a drive-off-the-road funny David Sedaris at Carnegie Hall piece). Just by sheer random choice, I happened to get the first post-911 episode, as well as the episode examining the cases for and against the invasion of Iraq (pre-war, of course). The post-911 show, of course, was emotional. Like many, I still carry all of that just close enough to the surface that it isn't hard to bring me back there. Fortunately, TAL took a decidedly rare unmaudlin approach to the subject.
More interesting to me in the moment, though, was the "why are we going into Iraq" episode. If you have the opportunity, go grab this episode (available at Apple's music store, as well as Audible.com). First, if you're a Presidential race junkie, there's a fascinating opening interview with recent candidate Senator Bob Graham, in which he expresses such frustration at getting the run-around from the administration that he actually gives Ira Glass some questions to ask administration officials as he interviews them for the show. I'm not sure why anyone would expect Ira Glass to get answers Bob Graham couldn't get, but I suppose that's a measure of the level of frustration early dissenters were feeling. As expected, Ira asks, but doesn't get any further than Senator Graham got.
After that, they spend some time talking to Iraqis (including an Iraqi soldier), and to various Americans who talk about why we should or shouldn't go in. The thing that nearly drove me off the road was listening to the neocon hawk vision of post-war Iraq. There's something so naive about it that it would be quaint if it weren't so deadly. We're going to have secure military bases in Iraq that will allow us to make Iraq our center of operations in the Middle East. There will be rivers of Iraqi oil to pay for it. Iran will naturally topple from within. Syria will follow. And on and on. No months of insurgency. No influx of opportunistic anti-American forces (and so no retroactively cobbled-together flypaper theory). Just a neocon utopian vision.
I don't know how else to describe it but poignant and painful.
Well, I suppose it's still early, right?
On the domestic front, I got in just in time to catch the rerun of today's debate. I can't recall seeing anything spectacular or shocking. I did take the opportunity to indicate in that very special way that one or another candidate was "Number 1!" I think the best moment just from a purely masterful political perspective was Dean's challenge to the rest of the field to pledge right there on stage to support the nominee. In a single brilliant stroke, he addressed the ridiculous charge that he and his supporters won't support another Democratic nominee and forced the rest of the field to pledge to support him should the likely outcome occur: candidate Dean. Nice move.
Dean is appearing more Presidential every time I see him. He's been calm and even for months. Part of that is just the freedom of being the front-runner. He doesn't need as much of the rah-rah and fire and brimstone (though he's still phenomenal at pulling that out for the red-meat crowds). But whatever the reason, it makes the attacks on his supposed campaign of anger look mysterious and out of touch. If guys like Edwards and Lieberman are serious about catching him, they're going to have to start pulling out some new weapons.
Tomorrow: I report for duty at HQ.