Iowa Caucus Guy’s Presidential Election Blog

Not that I necessarily planned on it, but I have watched most of the Democrat debates, and it feels natural to share my insights here.  I did watch this weekend's Saturday Night Live, and to be honest, I think they nailed it. I grew up on SNL, so am really enjoying what I feel is them hitting their stride again. The SNL I grew up with was the rebounding of the 90s with Hartman, Carvey, Lovitz, Dunn, Jackson, Nealon, Miller, and Hooks; but it was also a time where cable started to run the classic first Not Ready for Prime Time Players as well. Anyway, if you have 12 minutes, go ahead and watch. I will wait.   So for me-  I assume everyone has their minds made up about Warren and Sanders, right?  Biden can't make it a night without a gaffe. He answered a question about Domestic Violence by saying you got to "keep punching" . He also said he had the support of the " Only Black Female Senator " which ignored the fact that Kamala Harris w...

Music and Politics seem to go hand in hand. For years, people were attracted to the idea of a plain speaking musician running the government, which fueled the likes of Frank Zappa, Joe Walsh, and Jello Biafra to run for office. This month I have been collecting the music related stories of 2020.  I have spent time on Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, but I want to cover the rest of the field. We will start with the latest entrant  Deval Patrick.   The former Massachusetts Governor has music in his blood.  His father is the late Pat Patrick, who had a notable musical career playing saxophone and bass, most notably as part of Sun Ra's Arkestra. Patrick joined Sun Ra in the 1950s and played on seminal acid jazz albums like Sun Song, Sound of Joy, and Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, continuing into the 60s playing "Space Lute" on The Nubians of Plutoniana and essential records The Futuristic Sounds Of ... and The Heliocentric Worlds Of....  He would tour and...

Iowa is in the spotlight again as the latest Des Moines Register poll is out.   To be honest, the results of the polls have not been surprising to me.  They are in line with what I have seen and Dems I talked to.  I know I fall in the trap of social media sometimes which can distort whose the loudest, but my gut is with the results as they currently show. To that end, I think the Warren and Buttigieg ground campaigns are strong, and they are appealing with the voters of Iowa.  It's not to say other candidates are not appealing (believe me, social media will tell you that  their  candidate is winning), but it is no surprise to me. The headline that likely write itself is 'how liberal do Iowans want the Party to go?'. The story as we get to the actual night itself will likely be around the uniqueness of the Caucus.  If a candidate does not gain 15%, then they are not considered viable.  The question then may be where do Booker and Harri...

While I have been down this rabbit hole of music, I have discovered this crop of candidates have strong musical ties. Hey, I know, this isn't serious stuff, but that was never my intent, and if you really want to find it, go back through my blog, and you will find some very insightful content, too. You may have heard this four years ago, but Bernie Sanders released an album. We Shall Overcome was released in 1987 and is a collection of spoken word and folk music. The cassette (well, it was  1987) sold maybe 800 copies at the time.  It was re-released in 2014 as a CD and Digital Download and even got Bernie to the fringes of the Billboard New Artist chart in 2016. It's not much, but I think it beats Tim Ryan 's Spotify career (which largely falls under the threshold of 1000 listeners). Musical talent? NPR covered that original Sanders album when it talked to producer Todd Lockwood. "I realized pretty early on that Bernie is not a singer. That bec...

My last post talked about some of the recent concerts that accompanied the Presidential rallies. No, I don't believe that the endorsement of a celebrity will push someone to vote for someone, but the endorsement does rally the base. Somewhat ironically, the recent politicians who have energized the youth the most have been the oldest. Opposite sides of the spectrum supposedly, Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders have arguably best connected with young voters than anyone else running. Let's talk  Bernie Sanders  - the guy who brought 5000 people to his rally in Iowa City with Vampire Weekend and Foster the People in 2016. As mentioned in my last post, Sanders has had first, Jack White, and then Prince's New Power Generation appear with him. Any mention of Sanders also should include the fact that Cardi B is a very vocal supporter of his as well. Sanders's musician fans is like a who's who. Besides the ones I mentioned above, there's also Ariana Grande, TI...

My favorite things are Election politics and Music, and I probably pay as much attention to when they intersect as anyone.  This month, I am planning a few months on the two. They go together. Politics is Rock'n'Roll, as far as I can tell.  I mean, right now, we have a President who was a celebrity before he ever stepped into the office. Barack Obama, of course, could control a stage. Bill Clinton played sax on Arsenio. Back to as far as I can remember,  there was Ronald Reagan, who hung out with The Rat Pack, and attracted people like Prince and Neil Young to support him. Heck, Reagan seems like an obvious starting point, but before him, Jimmy Carter had Willie Nelson smoking weed on the White House roof, Gerald Ford hosted George Harrison, and it has to at least, go back to Kennedy's Camelot White House. Politics is rock n roll. Especially, election politics. Why not? You are not in the office yet and actual having to govern. You will be the one to bring Good Ne...