So. Everything changes tomorrow night. The primary race is officially on and the horses will have left the gate. For those of us in Iowa it means that the circus packs up and moves away for another four years. I was trying to put together some thoughts about the past year. This is what I got ...
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I was not born in Iowa nor was I a registered voter there until 2017. I had no idea what the famous Iowa Caucuses were all about. I mean, I knew what a caucus was vaguely and that it afforded at least some form of ranked choice voting. I also knew that Iowans took a lot of pride in the caucuses and that the world seemed to focus like a laser on the state during primary season. So, basically, I could answer a few trivia questions.
I made my first foray into the world of US Presidential Caucus politics in February, 2019. I took a short trip to Ames for the annual Story County Democrats Soup Supper. And yes, I did race the Polar Vortex back to Des Moines that night. But what I witnessed that night was some pretty Norman Rockwell stuff.
The Soup Supper was held in a church meeting hall. If you’ve never been in a Midwestern church, all of the meeting halls have pretty good kitchens for feeding a large number of people, quickly. The room was full of eager and hopeful Story County Democrats and the energy was both positive and hopeful.
This was buoyed by the presence of JD Scholten who narrowly lost a Congressional race to unseat Steve King the previous Fall. If you’ve never known the inexorable political will it takes to unseat someone like King in the Iowa 4th, then the only metaphor I can think of is Sispyphus. You learn to measure success in small doses.
Scholten, a local farm kid who played a little baseball, stood a full head taller than most of the room. His smile and positivity in the face of his recent defeat gave most of the room the confidence that maybe, just maybe, 2020 might be the year to flip IA-4. And if that was possible then maybe one of the presidential candidates in the room might be able to beat Donald Trump as well.
What can I say? There is nothing quite like a room full of Democrats dreaming of defeating a Paleo Con like King and thinking that it might be within their grasp. It’s a very adults at Disney World type of feeling.
You’ve probably never experienced anything like the Soup Supper. Unless you live in Iowa, New Hampshire, or South Carolina you have probably never been inundated with multiple presidential candidates at the beginning of the campaign. And I will note here that the caucuses were just under a year away and the general would be 22 months in the future.
In a world where Donald Trump is president the time passes differently. A Trumpian day is like a week in the politics that used to be and a Tumpian year is akin to an entire four year term. The cycle just moves that much more quickly. The media churns through content like sharks and there are just so many outlets.
But on that night in February everything was fresh and hopeful and new. While Steve King returned to the new Congress that had just convened, the nation had given us the Blue Wave that gave the Speaker’s Gavel back to Nancy Pelosi. So much, so so much, about the Trump administration was yet unknown.
Iowa Democrats flipped two seats in 2018 and held another. The people in that room were ready to work like hell to send Scholten in 2020. And they were ready to find a presidential candidate to give that same energy in the effort to beat Donald Trump.
It is a cliche that Democrats want to fall in love with their candidate but Iowans want so much more than that. They want romance and flowers and a trip to the State Fair and a visit in their own kitchen. And then maybe they will caucus for you. But they’re gonna date a few other candidates for a while too.
While I’m obviously not giving you a hot take I mention this to say that it has the effect of humanizing Iowans rather than demonizing them. The one thing that Iowans have grown up knowing is that they matter, at least every four years, on a national scale. They’re not spoiled as much as they just expect to really get to know the candidates.
I mean, has Cory Booker ever hugged you? Did Elizabeth Warren tell you, personally, to keep fighting? Has Chasten Buttigieg ever led you in a chant of Boot Edge Edge? Have you danced with the Drag Queen who loaned Kirsten Gillibrand a dress?
Iowans learn to look for something different in a presidential candidate. I had never before in my life thought that it would be possible to see Kamala Harris lead a drum line or Julian Castro a mariachi band into an event akin to Lollapalooza.
And again, this was very early in the process. The candidates were fresh faced and optimistic and the voters were still celebrating a win in 2018. We were all on the same team. We loved everybody. We created the hashtag #Friendship2020. Love, as it were, was in the air.
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TOP COMMENTS
From Zen Trainer:
In an inane thread about who deserves the title "professor" in this
Diary by newcomer
KellyStone,
Our Past made 2 great comments that really hit at the core of it for me -
This one and
This one.
[note: brillig is formatting this on an iPad and getting rid of the capital letters seems to be impossible]
TOP MOJO
Top Mojo for yesterday, February 1, 2020, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary on FAQing Top Mojo.
Top Pictures for yesterday, February 1, 2020. Click any picture to be taken to the full comment or picture. Thank you jotter!
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