Iowa Caucus Guy’s Presidential Election Blog

I have been interested in politics seemingly since birth. I write about it periodically like a groundhog seeing his shadow, I see it is that time again. Over the years, I have tried to keep my analysis and observation light and put a positive nonpartisan spin. I don’t always do that but I am going to try, and what a better way to show that lack of bias than with a post about Winners and Losers in the recent GOP Iowa Caucus race. So let's jump in.  Vivek Ramaswamy : Winner   The Entrepreneur got a lot of headlines for saying the voting age should be 25. Though he did say if someone served in the military, they could start voting at 18. I am undecided if this is a good idea or even a good recruiting tactic, but in a race with a lot bigger names and being an unknown, he got headlines and got his name out there and for that he is a winner. Doug Burgum : Winner  The North Dakota governor wasn’t even the most likely person from the Dakotas to win the Nomination but he...

The “first in the nation” Iowa Democratic Caucus is dead. Much will be written about it. Or probably won’t. Most Iowa Democrats seem to be signing a sense of relief. The kind of relief that comes when cities are glad they don’t have to host the Olympic Games. I find it bizarre and counter to my beliefs, but I am one person and I have no real skin in the game. I should have seen it coming, of course. But even if I was too enamored of the process, I knew things were in trouble on Caucus Night. The face of the local NBC affiliate newscast, Dan Winters looked annoyed, even angry. It was clear that things weren’t going to be tidy and everyone was going to be in bad before 10:00. I am not sure why Winters looked so physically agitated, but surely him or the producers or whoever could have guessed that they might be there all night. Even if everything went smoothly. (Winters, as good as a local talking head as any I have ever seen, retired in 2022, after 18 years in the busin...

The decision from the Democratic Party has been to delay the announcement of the Primary Order for the 2024 Election Will that mean rising political candidates will still come to Iowa or will they skip it? I suspect that there will still be some moments. There are still a couple of big Party fundraisers and these are the kind of moments where someone like a Barack Obama or Pete Buttigieg can launch themselves. The September Steak Fry is the premier event and the marquee speaker is US Representative (from NY-8) Hakeem Jeffries. Jeffries in just under a decade in Congress has been a rising star- is a fromt runner to replace Nancy Pelosi when she retires and steers a more moderate path than other more well known young leaders. Not quite to the level of that annual Des Moines event, the Wing Ding in the Northern Iowa town of Clear Lake took place in the first part of August. In this case, the keynote speaker was Mallory McMorrow. McMorrow currently sits in the Michigan legislature but has ...

If you follow the Primary Election process, you may know that several states are competing with Iowa to hold the first Democratic primary or caucus in the Nation for 2024. As covered by USA Today, the Des Moines Register, New York Times, Politico and many others, here is a quick and dirty positive and negative about the contenders. Arguments were made in front of the Democratic National Committee a few days ago with a decision maybe as soon as early August. Colorado + Geographically and economically diverse, large numbers of independent and swing voters - Anticipated that many would vote by mail and thus a delay in results like what happened in Iowa in 2020 Fun fac t : As a Super Tuesday State, it got little candidate visits in 2020 and none from Biden Connecticut + Close to New York City with a diversity that mirrors the nation, suburban, urban and rural areas all in easy driving distance - Strongly Democrat State which might not mirror purple/red states Fun fact- Governor John Car...

2024 might be the end of the "First in the nation" Iowa caucuses. At least for the Democrats anyway. Over the years I’ve written in different places to different people about the caucuses. Whether I think Iowa should go first is moot, But I find the Caucuses so interesting. I grew up in the 80s and I remember watching the news about the Iowa caucuses and it was as interesting as sports to me. There were about a bunch of unusual names like Bruce Babbitt, Pete DuPont, Al Haig, Dick Gephardt, Ruben Askew, and Ernst Hollings. Caucuses are the fun part of the political process. Let’s face it politics sucks but a candidate running for election is the greatest thing. The future is wide open, dreams are shared and promises are made. No wonder Donald Trump never stopped running for president. The 2020 caucus had the inevitability of feeling doomed. Maybe it was when the final Des Moines Register poll was canceled with the news that not every candidate was being included. It might’...

This post is awhile in the making. I had it planned in December and the events of January 6 and everything else only seem to make it more relevant. So here’s my coda to the 2020 election. The question that bugs me as armchair pundit is this: Why didn’t Trump govern from the middle? I tend to think that he could have and would have won a decisive re-election. I don’t even know that he had to ‘do’ anything differently, but change his rhetoric. I will always recall Trump on the local radio on the night of the 2016 Caucus. He had a very broad pitch which keyed mainly on a big infrastructure package (Remember at that time, Cruz was running to the right of him) Of course, Reagan angered many on the left, but his rhetoric was always to all Americans. As someone with as much screen time as Trump, I’m surprised he didn’t learn this lesson. I also can’t move past a discussion on Trump without mentioning “2000 Trump”. QAnon fixates on the idea of JFK Junior praising Trump, but that was an entirel...

As I wrap up my 2020 Election thoughts, I thought I would focus this post on the Democratic candidate.  Meme Biden is the Best Biden We have had some close elections in the last 20 years and it is easy to second guess things. This year, the press did just that - shifting from ‘what Biden could have done to win’ to ‘what Trump could have done to win’- in a matter of a week.  I see three scenarios for the Democrats and I can’t claim to be an expert, but this is how I see it. One of the most striking moments of the year was the senior couple who left the Caucus I was at in an angry state. They claimed to anyone who would listen that if Joe Biden wasn’t the nominee, they would vote for Donald Trump. This seemed incongruous to me. If Biden wasn’t your first choice, you would think they would still surely vote for Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigieg before voting for Trump.  I can only guess at their motivation and I hesitate to just say “OK Boomer, vote for the heterosexual ...