How I spent my Iowa vacation

I'm originally from Osage in northeastern Iowa, and I lived and worked in Des Moines for fifteen years. So Bernie sent me to Johnson County in eastern Iowa. Which was cool as it was the shortest drive and I did go to college there a very long time ago.

Iowa City was crazy. Got much love from people on the street and folks I door knocked. Virtually no Hillary presence save the occasional door hanger.

Saturday I walked over ten miles between canvassing and helping with crowd control at Bernie's Vampire Weekend party at the Fieldhouse. The crowds were great and let me boss them around to keep them from blocking ambulances going next door to the UI Hospital.

The lines were incredibly long. I've seen a video of both lines showing about 6,000 people in thirty seconds. The video starts about five feet in front of where I was standing (always stand behind the camera). People began lining up at 7 a.m. By 2 p.m., three and a half hours before the doors opened, thousands were lined up.

If you look closely, the tiny people in the middle are the halfway mark

About forty-five minutes after the doors opened, the fire marshall closed them and two very large Iowa City cops kept them closed. I got to tell everyone left in line that they weren't getting in. There were over a thousand people still waiting but they were exceptionally cool about it.  A lot of people thanked me for my work even though I was the guy that kicked them out of the student line that all got into the Fieldhouse and into the line that didn't all get in.

The vibe was very positive. The line ambience was more like people waiting to see Pink Floyd than a politician but — make no mistake about it — these people were not there for the bands.

Inside was crazy intense. After the doors were shut I tried to find out if some of the talent would come out to talk to the people who didn't get in. I got a police escort to that part of the building and after that I was cool to come and go. It wasn't security so much as knowing your way through the maze. (Rock show, not politics.)

I did not stay for Bernie. I saw the Nurses Union bus which was cool, but I was beat and turned in. I'm sure you can find a YouTube. By going back to the motel I got to see the local news coverage. It was good. It also wasn't like news you see here in Wisconsin. The Saturday before the caucuses? The evening news was all politics, weather and sports, but mostly politics. They covered every aspect of the rally (but not enough of the speech). Good stuff.

Sunday was easy. We canvassed in the morning, quietly putting door hangers on likely Bernie doors while it rained. I do not think I heard anyone moving around until at least 11 am. Iowa City is like that. More canvassing then back to the motel.

Monday I hit the Coralville Brueggers for a "crew" box of coffee and a baker's dozen of cream cheese and lox bagels for headquarters where they sent me to Washington which is a very nice place where they immediately got rid of us by sending us to Riverside, the future birthplace of Captain James Tiberius Kirk. It says so right on the water tower.

Just door hangers then back to Washington to call old people who haven't figured out how to block political calls. No one else answered and I got a sense that Iowans were going to be very glad when this was over.

Cranked up some John Brown's Body and drove back to Iowa City where we handed out caucus locations on the Pentacrest next to the old Capitol. I walked around the business district but the restaurants, bars and sidewalks were all but empty, like a ghost town. Passed five sites going back to headquarters and each had long lines well outside the door at 7 p.m. Most of Johnson County started late and I heard this happened in all the college towns.

CNN claimed there wasn't very good youth turnout. I do not believe that. I think they underpolled the college towns. The student precincts had 900 caucusers apiece.

It was a long night after that but it was most notable for my getting to watch a lot of CNN. What garbage. No understanding of the process and a deliberate distortion of the data. The percentages of caucuses reporting in was totally misleading. Small rural caucuses report quickly, sometimes before urban caucuses have gotten everyone in the door.

 Bernie HQ in Iowa City

The results speak strongly to the heavy concentration of insurance companies in Des Moines, but Bernie got a lot of delegates in Polk County (I think it was his biggest county for actual caucusers) but still this map gives you a sense of how Bernie won in Democratic counties while Hillary did best in the rural areas.

The percentages won were of the delegates to the county conventions. There was no reporting of the actual numbers of caucusers. This is something that has changed since I used to run a caucus  in Des Moines. I strongly suspect this is DNC imposed. The DNC has been bigfooting the Caucuses since I worked them in 1980 and they became a big thing. The 90 precincts that had Microsoft problems? Clearly DNC-imposed crap, much like the  vaunted but not at all good VAN. (From a canvassing standpoint, the old card decks were easier to work with. I get the need for data collection, but again, I was not impressed. But back to the delegate count!)

At the county conventions, I would expect some Clinton delegates and most O'Malley delegates to not show. Alternates will be seated with preference to same-candidate alternates from the missing precincts. A surprising number of alternates are seated who pledged for a different candidate simply because most alternates don't show up. I've done it. Interest drops after the big night and I would not be surprised if Bernie won the delegate count for actual DNC delegates when they're chosen at the CD and state conventions. That's the actual contest for delegates. The caucusing is more about building lists for the general election.

A clean win would have been nice, but getting a tie in Iowa when the state party is owned by your opposition? This was an incredible win. Assuming the voting machines in NH aren't rigged, Bernie is on his way to the White House!