I am back at Simpson
College in Indianola, this time for an Elizabeth Warren GOTC event on a Sunday
morning. We (myself and my able-bodied intern Evelyn) arrive just after 9 a.m.
for a 10:45 event. Already a long line snakes through the lobby of the campus events
center. The lobby has filled, so volunteers are directing people to line up
outside. There are in luck because today broke bright and clear with high
temperatures expected in the high 40s — in other words, Iowa winter beach
weather!
Big news last night came in
the form of the Des Moines Register deciding not to publish their much
anticipated last poll before the caucuses. Apparently there were some
discrepancies in the polling. At least one respondent was not given Mayor
Pete’s name in the poll. They reported this to the Mayor Pete people who
complained to the newspaper pollster. Some investigation was done (the extent
has not been revealed), and the decision made to sit on the poll. This is
important because it eliminates the ability to see any recent trends in
support. Bernie had been surging, and Warren lagging, so the poll last night
could have given an indication as to whether these two trends were holding. Now
we won’t know until caucus night. How this development might affect the
campaigns in the last two days remains to be seen.
As I wrote earlier, one
important component of success in the Iowa caucuses is not just how a candidate
does but how they do compare with how they are predicted to do, and predictions
are based largely on polling. We will see how the candidates spin the caucus
results based on the lack of the final Des Moines Register poll.
Once again the press pass
makes my life easier. We are allowed into the meeting room ahead of the public.
I set up my laptop on a comfortable table (the only disadvantage is that we
print folks are stuck behind the riser with the video cameras), there is Wi Fi
and the seats are comfy!
Warren rally-music on
entering-Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots are Made for Walking.” Next up, “I Walk
the Line” by Johnny Cash. Now the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” hits our ears.
“Born to Be Wild,” Steppenwolf. Elizabeth definitely understands Boomer music.
“I Heard it Through the Grapevine” next. Stevie Wonder. I’ll stop and admit
that I am telling you the music because I am bored. You see, there’s much time
waiting around at political events. Candidates never arrive when advertised. I
hope that this event, the first public event of the day, starts on time. It
doesn’t.
Following up on some
earlier posts, my intern did some quick research on the group Tom Steyer
mentioned, NextGenAmerica. Their website states, “We are a diverse coalition of
young people, organized to take power by winning elections for progressive
candidates.” They claim to have registered over 1.3 million voters since 2013.
They are working in 11 battleground states to get out the youth vote. If you
are interested in the work they are doing, please visit their website:
nextgenamerica.org.
The other research project
involved the Job Creators Network, the folks whose brightly painted bus was
parked outside the Yang event in Grundy Center and the Sanders event yesterday
in Indianola. They are the brainchild of the founder of Home Depot, a
billionaire libertarian. Why they are hovering at the fringes of Democratic rallies
is not clear.
Now the music goes Latin
and more contemporary.
I spy MSNBC reporter Katy
Tur across the room and decide to introduce myself. I tell her that we have two
things in common: We were both born in Los Angeles, and while she attended
UCSB, I taught at UCSB (I guess that’s one-and-one-half things in common). She
is very nice, and we had a pleasant chat about my insinuating myself into the
press corps. She asked me about the Biden event in Waukee and asked me to
compare the sizes of the events I had attended. I asked her what she thought of
the Register pulling their poll at the last minute, she responded,
“Polls suck. I wish they wouldn’t announce poll results.” It’s a feeling held
by many politically aware and active people, but polls aren’t going away. I
believe the Register’s decision will impact how the caucus results are
viewed. We shall see.
11:05 a.m.: Elizabeth Warren has not made an appearance
yet. I go downstairs and find Warren addressing the overflow crowd that jams
the lobby and mezzanine. Audience is very enthusiastic and vocal.
11:30 a.m.: “American Girl”
by Tom Petty. It seems that will be her entrance music, but after it ends a
local precinct captain talks about why he is involved in the campaign.
11:42 a.m.: Warren enters to “9 to 5.” She introduces her
family including her famous dog Bailey. She recounts that she has been
campaigning for the past year. She thanks Iowa for speaking to her, for
supporting her, for pushing her with hard questions. She thanks the other
Democrats who are running and who did run. She talks about her background in
Oklahoma, her three brothers, her father who was a janitor, and her mother who
worked. I’ve known what I wanted to be, I wanted to be a public school teacher
from the second grade. She couldn’t afford a four-year college but got a
scholarship because she was a high school debater. She dropped out of college
at 19, got married. Later she enrolled in a community college, worked part-time
to support herself, and got a job as a special education teacher. One year in,
she became pregnant, was fired. She decided to go to law school, found a state
school that was affordable. Graduated, passed the bar, and practiced law for 45
minutes. Became a law school professor. Taught contracts, securities but became
concerned about how average Americans were doing in our economy.
All in all, Warren has a
pretty good backstory. What she doesn’t mention is that for many of her adult
years she was a Republican and voted for Republican candidates. I would like to
hear about her “conversion experience” and what led her to switch not only
parties, but political ideologies.
She pivots to corruption
issue. Makes the point that whatever issue voters care about, if they are
effected by D.C., money and corruption choke off our democracy. Rich people can
have more things, but they shouldn’t own a bigger piece of our democracy. Save
our democracy, save our country, it’s going to take big structural change.
The plan: End lobbying as
we know it; end revolving door between D.C. and Wall Street; all candidates for
office must put their tax returns online.
We want to build an America
that works for everyone-that’s why I am in this race.
She takes a question from
an Australian. Climate change. No additional mining or drilling on federal
land. Zero carbon footprint for buildings, cars, make farmers on the front line
in the fight against climate change-sustainable farming (carbon capture). Likes
the Green New Deal but wants to add the oceans (Blue New Deal). Innovate our
way out of the problem. More scientific research and innovation.
Next question: a Kansas
college student. Your female role models? Frances Perkins. Was in New York at
the time of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. The owners blocked safety. Perkins
got appointed to a fire commission, and political pressure led to changes.
First female cabinet secretary. Used an inside/outside game. Minimum wage,
ended child labor, made unions legal, the weekend. “It’s amazing what one
persistent woman on the inside and millions of people on the outside we can
make change possible.”
Trump wanted to kill the
Affordable Care Act and end health insurance for 35 million people. It survived
51 to 49 in the Senate because people got involved and made their feelings
known.
“It’s a righteous fight and
we need to be in it to win.”
A Minnesota high school
student asks about technology: accessibility and security. Warren responds, “The
president needs to use the anti-trust laws to break up the giant tech
companies.” To protect privacy: we have to stop real fake news.
A woman named Grace asks,
“I am young and how can I feel hope with what’s going on in America and the
world.” Warren responds with as much hope as can be expected in these times.
Warren wraps up with: “We
have one goal-we are going to beat Donald Trump.”
Bernie had a large and
enthusiastic crowd in the same building yesterday, but my observation is that
Elizabeth has a larger and even more enthusiastic crowd today. I wonder if any
real reporters attended both events and are making the same comparison. In the
end the only thing that matters is what happens on Monday night.
We take a break from the
campaign trail (or shadowing the candidates’ trails) for an afternoon
entertainment. For the past few election cycles, the Des Moines Performing Arts
theater group has put on a musical entitled The Adore Us Line, a
take-off on the famous Broadway musical in which the Democratic candidates make
their pitch for voter support. It was quite funny, well-performed, and has just
enough heart as well as dissing of the president to warm a Democrat’s heart. If
any of you ever end up in Iowa in four, eight or more years before the caucuses
you should see if The Adore Us Line is playing. It is a good use of 90
minutes.
Our final event was a Super
Bowl watch party put on by a group called Progress Iowa. They somehow got my
email address, so I thought, why not? The candidates or surrogates were
supposed to drop in to make pitches. We arrived by 6:30, too late to see any
candidates, even though I introduced myself to Representative Ro Khanna,
Democrat of California. He is from Silicon Valley and now serves as national
co-chairman for Bernie Sanders. When I told him I was also from California, he
was curious about my presence. I told him that I was a “caucus tourist” (a term
I had only heard a few days before from Harvey Wolf). Ro seemed confused, so I
repeated what I said, and his response: “I’ve never heard that term before.”
It made me wonder about how
many of the people who I had seen attend these various events were not even
Iowa voters. Warren had questions from two out of state and one out of country
people. Are caucus tourists everywhere?
Later I spoke to a precinct
captain from the southern tier of the state who told me that high school
government teachers from as far away as St. Louis have assigned students the
task of observing the Iowa caucuses. Good for them. When I taught AP U.S.
Government at Santa Barbara High, every two years I forced my students to work
on a political campaign. I set a minimum number of hours, gave them a time
sheet to fill out and to be signed off on, and set them loose. I gave them the
information I had on local campaign offices, but really, in this day and age,
they didn’t really need my help with that. They moaned and groaned at first,
they were fearful, unsure they would be accepted and know what to do. I would
always reassure them that whenever a high school student or any other volunteer
walks in to help out they would be immediately welcomed and brought into the
fold. After the elections were over my students invariably told me that they
enjoyed the experience and that it had been worthwhile. I hope I set more than
a few of them on the road to civic engagement.
After the musical Evelyn
and I walked through the Pappajohn Sculpture Garden in downtown Des Moines.
They have some fantastic pieces, including a polka-dot pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama
and a rusted tree trunk by Ai Weiwei. If you are ever in Des Moines….
Tomorrow is the big
day.