For purple mountain majesties! (I see Amy Klobuchar!)

While I didn’t make the July 4 parades, I did make the Ankeny Summer Parade the following weekend.

A suburb north of Des Moines, Ankeny was a very red town 20 years ago. It still has some GOP bona fides for being the home of former acting Attorney General Matt Whittaker and Iowa Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver. I have little doubt that I will see the 38 year old Whitver become Iowa Governor in my lifetime.

That said, the town of about 64,000 is purplish and no longer the place it was two decades ago when a friend ran for a local race as a Democrat- a mostly futile thought to begin with, back then.
Ankeny has grown though. It is still largely a very affluent suburb. It is becoming more diverse (slowly) as well. The big news is Dems are starting to win. It’s no longer a one party town. A look at results from the last election show Trump did well, but it was hardly a landslide. Obama won here, too, though, so, purple.

All considered, I don’t know that any of this means that the Ankeny Area Democrats are a barometer of anything; but I can report that they were out in force, and you win a Caucus by having passionate supporters.

I had been looking forward to this as my understanding was three Presidential candidates were going to walk.

One of those candidates was Amy Klobuchar. Amy and her husband walked proudly with the Democrats. Probably no coincidence that by my not-perfect-eagle eye, Amy had the best presence excepting Warren, Sanders and Biden.

I find Klobuchar an intriguing candidate. She seems to have a dedicated following. Unfortunately, she finds herself in a crowded field. There are almost 20 candidates who wished they had her numbers. Still, she probably needs a big jolt to knock one of the Big Five candidates who are nudging her out.
Her home state newspaper Star Tribune wrote about her this week as someone at a crossroads. Sandwiched between Booker and O’Rourke in money raised, but heavily trailing the leaders.

The truth is she is raising money, but she’s also spending money. She has an Iowa staff and making the debate minimum qualifications should be easy, but she needs to make that splash. The article concludes that she is a strong moderate and Midwestern voice, perhaps the perfect VP candidate, but nearly unknown in New Hampshire, her odds are long.

Amy didn’t engage the audience too much (smartly in a situation like a parade) where I was, but her team made sure stickers and buttons were wisely spread. She looked confident and positive and surely showing up only helped.

John Delaney had been long attached to the post parade Democratic luncheon, so I assumed he would march. He didn’t as far as I could tell.

Eric Swalwell had also been attached but was two weeks removed from dropping out.

Bill DeBlasio and John Hickenlooper also were there for the luncheon. One can guess logistics were the reason that they didn’t march, but surely both could have needed it.

The Dems were an exciting blend of smiles and limbs, signs and banners. The Warren group were some of the loudest. Beto and Castro has large banners that surely magnified small numbers.
With Delaney supporters walking a significant amount in front, and Sanders trailing at an exaggerated distance, I also saw at least some Buttigieg, Harris and Gillibrand supporters represented.

Area Republicans also showed up well. Sen. Joni Ernst and Whitver were at the front of the parade.
Ernst has a charismatic presence that will help her if she ever decides to make The Big Run herself. It betrays the image she is working on as a tough Biker, Guns and Booze Chick.

In the post-Y2K world where CEOs and Division Vice Presidents buy luxury bikes (because apparently, big game hunting is frowned upon) and ride on weekends. Ernst surely gives donors and bigwigs a feeling that they are bikers, instead of what they really are- hobby enthusiasts.
If you ever have prepped for a parade, you know that you have to find a vehicle. In 2008, Johnson County College Republicans used an ambulance to signal 71- year old John McCain and his dead on arrival campaign.

A depression era antique tractor pulled the Republicans’ float. Despite one large MAGA sign, it was noticeable that they were pushing state and local gear and Trump gear was almost nonexistent.
As we end July and go into August, we had the Progress Iowa Corn Feed. The Des Moines Register reported that only Pete Buttigieg was the only one to get a standing ovation in a room of people who desperately needed the attention (Moulton, Ryan, Castro, Gillibrand, Bennet, Castro, Delaney, Klobuchar, Williamson, Hickenlooper) at an event the big names skipped.  The Register also reported that Castro was well received and DeBlasio and Inslee could not make it.

Next up is RAGBRAI, the annual weekly Bike Across Iowa event and John Hickenlooper (and John Delaney for one day) has committed to it as a way to get to know Iowans. He joins an illustrious group of candidates- Howard Dean, Tim Kaine, John Edwards, Bruce Babbit, Gary Johnson and Gubernatorial candidate Fred Hubbel. There is a thread that runs through these candidates which is they didn’t win a damn thing in Iowa after doing this. The Iowa Bicycle Coalition reported in 2015 that most RAGBRAI riders would bike past Presidential candidates.

Knowing my social responsibility, I recognize that teachers might want to work my blog into their ciriculum. In that spirit, I offer some “end of the chapter” style discussion questions.

Discussion Questions:

1. If you were a Candidate walking in a parade, would you walk proud yet aloof waving like Klobuchar or manically try to shake every single person’s hand in the nearby vicinity like Admiral Stesak?

2. If you only had four supporters in your group like John Delaney do you walk in front so everyone sees you and thinks “Look, there’s only four of them” or do you walk with the crowd where you might not be seen at all.

3. Eric Swallwell said he was going to walk in the parade but didn’t; now that he has dropped out. Shouldn’t he still be obligated to travel half way across the country to walk two miles in possibly 90 degree heat? Wouldn’t we like him more if we did?

4 John Hickenlooper wants to be a cool hip dude. He likes biking. He likes microbrews. He likes Nathaniel Ratliff and the Night Sweats. What else is it you kids like? Is Pokémon still a thing? Do you kids still “plank”?

5. The Republican float was driven by a depression era antique tractor- a perfect metaphor for a party that is scared of immigrants and socialists, wants lax labor laws and regulations, would like citizenship tests for voters and think things went downhill when the New Deal went into effect. What vehicle would pull your float?