Iowa Caucus Guy’s Presidential Election Blog

In November, I embarked on putting together a list of music-related posts about the Democratic Presidential candidates.  Part 1 covered the very musically inclined Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg.  Part 2 covered Deval Patrick (son of a member of Sun Ra's Arkstra), and the musically gifted pair of Tulsi Gabbard and Marianne Williamson. Part 3 will start off with a candidate who has now dropped, Kamala Harris , but had a couple of music related stories that stepped in to distract from her campaign. One of which was that when asked about recreational marijuana, Kamala said, sure, in college she would listen to Tupac and Snoop Dogg and partake in the Chronic. All would be well in good, if Kamala hadn't graduated in 1986, Five years prior to 2Pacalypse and 7 years before Doggystyle, their respective debuts. Which gives a few possibilities.  1- She's lying to sound "cool" 2- She did smoke some weed but it was back when Dr Dre said Cess caused Brain Dama...

There is (as everyone knows) a Democratic primary.  What gets less attention is that there is also a Republican primary.  While Trump seemingly has large support from his base, there are challengers. If you look online, there are dozens of Presidential candidates, of course, but by my count, there are really only seven serious candidates who are running credible campaigns to challenge Trump, and today, I am featuring one of them- Robert Ardini. Ardini is an award-winning Advertising Executive, Business Owner and Publisher who made news when he ran in the New York House district that Donald Trump is from.  Running as a Republican in a very heavily Democratic district, he still garnered 50,000 votes (Interestingly, he did twice as good as Trump did there).  Ardini wrote a book Running for Congress in Trump's Backyard, which looks like an insightful look into what it must be like to run in New York politics. Ardini is a serious candidate, getting his name on b...

Iowa takes its First in the Nation status seriously.  There are a few local tv series that do a good job of getting a candidate in front of an audience. As good as any is the local CBS affiliate which had a series called The Undecideds . The idea is four undecided Democrats spend a half hour with a candidate and ask questions.  I would suggest some sort of google search around "KCCI Undecideds" and you can find the episodes. Another great series is from Iowa Public Television and it's an hour interview with former Des Moines Register journalist and one of the essential Caucus Talking Heads David Yepsen. It records not that far away from me, and so I've been meaning to take one of the tapings in. You should be able to find these episodes on the Iowa PBS YouTube Channel . As I mentioned in last post, winter weather has hit every weekend leading up to the Caucus, so I knew that would work in my favor. and it mostly did. I was one of the first one there to s...

I decided that I would blog about the 2020 Election for a couple of reasons.  First, because I love this stuff and that was only going to be the case.  Second, because simply living in Iowa gives me an unique perspective.  If nothing else, with a steady diet of local television and area newspapers, I am likely to pick up stuff that might not be in the National media. But you never know where things will go.  For me, I did not get to as many campaign events as I would have liked.  That said, I did have a handful of candidate interactions.  More importantly, I was able to share quite a few secondhand accounts.  While I might not have been there at a certain scene, it's quite likely that I knew someone who was. Which brings me to attempting to see Elizabeth Warren one time before the caucus. But Iowa weather is the great unknown in the Caucus process.  It's unlikely that anything would have changed, but it is important to note that weather slow...

As unpopular as Donald Trump seems, there are only a handful of serious Republican candidates running against him.  One of these is writer Zoltan Istvan. Zoltan is on the ballot in many of the states holding Republican primaries including New Hampshire, California, Colorado, and Texas.  I first heard of Zoltan (his real name) in 2016 when he ran as the Transhumanist Party's candidate for President. As much of a campaign for Transhumanism as for the White House, Zoltan's 2016 write-in campaign was covered in the Guardian , Vice, New Yorker, USA Today. the BBC, Business Insider, Vox, Salon, Huffington Post and many other media outlets. Zoltan made a run for Governor of California as a Libertarian in 2018 and gathered over 14,400 votes.  As featured in the Washington Times, his run in 2020 is as a new type of Republican- a candidate who is fiscally Conservative, appealing to Libertarians and Republicans, but with a focus on Science (a subject that often seems owned...

I have been trying to engage as many people as I can as we reach the final days before the Iowa Caucus. I spoke with a friend who is working on the Buttigieg campaign and had some conversation with her and another Buttigeig organizer around Mayor Pete and why he supports him. I will share some of those thoughts here and try my best to not misrepresent in any way. Pete's charisma and youth come up repeatedly, and in comparison to progressive Democrats in the past- Kennedy, Clinton, and Obama.  It's a talking point, I had heard before.  From there, in case you forgot, Buttigieg is a Rhodes Scholar, served on active duty in the Middle East, and spent eight years as an executive, transforming South Bend. The terms that come up to describe Pete are similar to the things I heard when I saw Pete speak and also when I saw him in the debates: calm, thoughtful, intelligent, humble, sincere.  In hope to  defeat Trump, the words I again here are a campaign of respect...

Polling could be a cottage industry in these parts. As I mentioned before , it's such a hook, that people are already running 2024 numbers. The December news was the fall of Elizabeth Warren in Iowa, and the emergence of Pete Buttigieg.  Equally, it is reported that Joe Biden is also a possible leader.  Less noticeable is the consistency of Bernie Sanders to be near the top. The common consensus has been the CBS News poll is right and it is a three-man race.  That said, I don't feel like Warren should be wrote off just yet. Still, there is an element of guess work, right? Biden has polled as low as 15% and as high as 23% in December.  Buttigieg is at 18%-24%, and Warren could be anywhere from 12% up to 18%. In which case, I am starting my own Iowa Caucus Poll.  Why not?  Everyone else is.  So, here goes... We will open it up for questions, now.. What is your methodology? Well, as I drive around Iowa, I am going to look for yard signs, a...

As the days to the Iowa Caucus wind down, I have been efforting online and IRL friends to share campaign stories.  I hope to get as many as I can here. This blog isn't made to be taken too seriously, but the truth is just the fact that I am in Iowa puts me at a certain advantage to tell stories you might not hear.  Although I only was able to take in a handful of candidate events this cycle, I do know at least one person who attended every (or at least dang close) major Iowa election event this cycle.  These insights are spread throughout my 50+ posts. I noticed that my friend Bob had just went to an Andrew Yang event, and so I asked him if I could share his thoughts. I like Yang and unfortunately, did not get a chance to see him.  He is popular with the younger Democrats I know, and I get it.  He brings a certain buzz that was missing in this election.  He talks to tech topics that others aren't.  Also, his UBI (Universal Basic Income) plan may ...

2020 is soooo boring! I mean, we haven't had the Iowa Caucus, the New Hampshire Primary or Super Tuesday yet, but what everyone wants to know about is 2024. I mean, we have been talking about these same candidates for a year, let's get to the good stuff. Well, that is probably not true.  I think most people hate the eternal election cycle.  It's the media trying to fill the need for constant information. In any case, I suppose you can't top a headline like Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump lead 2024 polls  for clickbait. Now, there will be a Republican Primary next month.  I heard it would be an up/down vote on Trump, but the Register is saying it will be a straw poll.  In any case, William Weld and Joe Walsh (who campaigned in Iowa this weekend) will challenge, and it will be uphill as the Donald had at least 76% of party support per November polls. An even longer shot is Rocky de la Fuente, running as a Republican, after a 2016 Democratic primary race...

If you have been following my blog, you know about my project to ask Presidential candidates what kind of music they like.  It goes towards a further conversation about communication, and I have been also able to use it to highlight candidates people might be interested in. I reached out to Keenan Wallace Dunham after I saw some positive buzz about him on social media.  Then, his name kept popping up.  He is one of the major candidates listed on the Torch of Liberty's 2020 Libertarian Party poll.  Dunham is one of 13 candidates that will appear on the California Libertarian primary. and one of 10 on the New Hampshire Libertarian Presidential Preference Primary. Checking out his twitter, I notice he mentions a couple of issues where there should be a big audience, but the Dems and GOP don't seem to be consistent on- privacy issues (Dunham would pardon Assange and Manning) ending war, and applying term limits. I asked Keenan to share a bit about his campaign, and...

Awhile back,  I wrote  about an October  news story in Florida  covered by the Free Thought Project, about a High Schooler who had gotten in trouble for handing out flyers and wearing "Taxation is Theft" gear. The IowaCaucusGuy blog was contacted by the Behrman 2020 campaign to share some of Dan's thoughts.  As this blog is set by the tenets of interesting election-related content and having constructive dialogue, we have decided to share that letter here - Iowa Caucus Guy An Open Letter to Schools by Dan "Taxation is Theft" Behrman Dear Public Schools of America, I am running a presidential campaign, focused on freedom from oppression and tyranny. I am promoting the ideas of freedom on which this country was founded. Many young people are reaching out to my campaign and asking if they can help. They are young adults, often 15 to 18 who want to learn more about politics and freedom. They want to be free. They are screaming it, fighting for it - and yet...