Greetings from Iowa!
I'm currently sitting outside my best friend's office at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, as she gives an interview to Austrian TV about the Iowa caucuses. I'm braving the sub-zero wind chill here to engage in my own super-geeky form of political tourism, hopping from event to event just to see what happens.
The caucuses are in two days. Last night, on New Year's Eve, I went to a huge Clinton party at which Bill, Hillary and Chelsea took the stage with Iowa Governor Vilsac and his wife . . . for a grand total of 5 minutes. Really, Hillary? Can't you spend more than a couple of minutes talking to the hundreds of your supporters who braved the cold to come downtown and pay $5 for a tablespoon of cheap bubbly at your party?
Disappointed, we ditched the Clinton party and headed over to Raucus for the Caucus, an event that was organized for the national media by Iowans terrified that the media would think Des Moines a totally lame-ass place to be on New Years. Twenty-five bucks got us a gorgeous buffet, open bar and live Latin band - FAR more fun than the Clinton fly-by. Perhaps too much fun, given my pounding headache when I dragged my butt out of bed at ten this morning to prep for a Biden event.
Biden was appearing at a small bar downtown. He's currently polling 4% in the notoriously-flawed last minute Des Moines Register poll, and while he claims we'll be surprised on Thursday, somehow I doubt we'll be THAT surprised. Biden's supporters are overwhelming old. Old and white, but pretty much everyone here is white, so that's not surprising (although I kept having moments of cognative dissonance when I looked at all the crowds and there are, what, maybe two people of color, and had to remind myself that it's IOWA, for chrissake). Biden's speech was pretty good - he had a great line about the fact that given today's threats, the next president will be have to be ready to lead on her or his first day, and he's the only one with the experience to do that. Still. Joe, don't give up your day job.
Tonight we're going to drop in on Huckabee and Chuck Norris, just for the laugh factor. Gotta love a candidate whose foreign policy credibility comes from CHUCK NORRIS.
And, now, the under-reported story of the caucus season: Ron Paul, with a videocamera and a microphone, and what looked like 50 homeless people, stormed the Huckabee office downtown holding signs about the IRS. You gotta wonder. I have a priceless video of one of Rachel's friends who actually saw this telling the story, but sadly my time on this computer is coming to an end so I'll have to share it some other time.
The caucuses are in two days. Last night, on New Year's Eve, I went to a huge Clinton party at which Bill, Hillary and Chelsea took the stage with Iowa Governor Vilsac and his wife . . . for a grand total of 5 minutes. Really, Hillary? Can't you spend more than a couple of minutes talking to the hundreds of your supporters who braved the cold to come downtown and pay $5 for a tablespoon of cheap bubbly at your party?
Disappointed, we ditched the Clinton party and headed over to Raucus for the Caucus, an event that was organized for the national media by Iowans terrified that the media would think Des Moines a totally lame-ass place to be on New Years. Twenty-five bucks got us a gorgeous buffet, open bar and live Latin band - FAR more fun than the Clinton fly-by. Perhaps too much fun, given my pounding headache when I dragged my butt out of bed at ten this morning to prep for a Biden event.
Biden was appearing at a small bar downtown. He's currently polling 4% in the notoriously-flawed last minute Des Moines Register poll, and while he claims we'll be surprised on Thursday, somehow I doubt we'll be THAT surprised. Biden's supporters are overwhelming old. Old and white, but pretty much everyone here is white, so that's not surprising (although I kept having moments of cognative dissonance when I looked at all the crowds and there are, what, maybe two people of color, and had to remind myself that it's IOWA, for chrissake). Biden's speech was pretty good - he had a great line about the fact that given today's threats, the next president will be have to be ready to lead on her or his first day, and he's the only one with the experience to do that. Still. Joe, don't give up your day job.
Tonight we're going to drop in on Huckabee and Chuck Norris, just for the laugh factor. Gotta love a candidate whose foreign policy credibility comes from CHUCK NORRIS.
And, now, the under-reported story of the caucus season: Ron Paul, with a videocamera and a microphone, and what looked like 50 homeless people, stormed the Huckabee office downtown holding signs about the IRS. You gotta wonder. I have a priceless video of one of Rachel's friends who actually saw this telling the story, but sadly my time on this computer is coming to an end so I'll have to share it some other time.