Category: Living in Society

On Super Tuesday, March 5, the Iowa Democratic Party released the results of their mail-in presidential preference “caucus” that replaced first in the nation. Most news outlets did not recognize this was a thing to watch before it happened. After four attempts, Biden won Iowa, securing all 46 delegates to the national convention. I don’t recall him visiting the Hawkeye State to campaign this cycle. I’d wager he had already shaken many of the Democratic hands that marked the oval next to his name.

At the public library used book sale last weekend I bought a copy of Pete Souza’s Obama: An Intimate Portrait for a free will donation. Souza was chief official White House photographer for all eight years of the administration. Many of the photos in this 352-page book have been widely published. After returning home from the library I started reading it and couldn’t stop until I had turned every page. We are hungry for the kind of presidency Obama had. It is incomprehensible to me the country followed Obama with Trump.

Why does the Obama administration pull on my heartstrings? It’s because almost everyone I know had some connection to what they did. Friends traveled to D.C. for the inauguration. Members of my groups reported on high level meetings they attended. Nearly every Democrat I knew worked on his campaign. Combine that with the fact I met the guy in 2006, before he ran for president, and had a comfortable, personal conversation with him. Obama was as real as a politician can be. That means something and I miss it.

Obama ran into an obstacle when Republicans took the U.S. House majority in 2010. It was as if the electorate said, “Whoa Nellie,” and backed off from the work Obama was doing. I found it frustrating, as did he. Obama navigated through it as best he could. Another obstacle appeared in 2014 when Republicans took control of both the House and Senate during the midterms. In Souza’s book there is a photo of Obama and Biden working on Biden’s announcement he would not run for president in 2016.

Few Democrats I know caucused for Biden during the three times he competed when Iowa was first in the nation. When he defeated Trump in 2020, he became the kind of Democrat we missed. With his long experience in the U.S. Senate, and as Vice President, he learned how to get bills passed, and he did. He doesn’t get the recognition he deserves. As I wrote previously, “(under Biden) it is government acting as it should be and therefore if nothing seems broken, no worries. No credit for elected officials either.”

Those of us with living memory of LBJ know what it means to hit the ball out of the park in an election. When I was a kid, I expected all elections could be like the 1964 Democratic landslide. Biden hasn’t come close to what Johnson did in his first three years in office. Like with Obama, Biden’s first two years with a Democratic House and Senate were his best. We could return to that if Democrats do well in 2024. A lot depends on every Democrat activating during the fall campaign, recapturing some of the Obama essence. It seem there will be no more Democratic landslides for the time being.

Having Obama and Joe Biden as presidents has been positive. I also recognize how quickly the past fades.

I put the Obama book on the table in the living room so my spouse could spend time with it. Eventually it will go on my bookshelves until I’m ready to reflect again on those years. Despite the challenges, they were good years. There is new work ahead that requires focus. Re-electing Biden will be a formidable task. It will be worth the work if we can get it done.

Editor’s Note: If you are on social media looking to get involved in a campaign, I recommend following Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin and Resistance Live. She is on Threads and YouTube. She will get your energy level UP!

The economic mark of the Biden Administration can be found everywhere in Iowa. From electric vehicle charging stations and wastewater treatment facility upgrades, to grants for improved rural broadband connectivity, Biden worked with the Congress to deliver results for Iowans.

Despite these tangible contributions to improving the lives of Iowans, why doesn’t the president get more public credit for his work? I submit the reason is citizens just expect infrastructure things to happen. It is government acting as it should be and therefore if nothing seems broken, no worries. No credit for elected officials either.

At the same time infrastructure improvement happens, there is a coterie of Congress-people sowing chaos in the U.S. Capitol in an obvious, although ill-advised, attempt to re-elect indicted criminal Donald J. Trump as President. I don’t know if Matt Gaetz is the ring leader, yet he is at the center of efforts to disrupt our government and economy at the bidding of the 45th president. Gaetz was recently profiled in The New Yorker.

In seven years in Congress, Gaetz has helped make the institution even more dysfunctional than it already was, threatening to shut down the federal government and force a default on its debt. Gaetz is a paradox: he is determined to attack the modern democratic state, but he harbors ambitions that only modern American politics can satisfy. He articulates an idea of the country that seems so negative—ridiculing his colleagues, trashing the welfare state, scorning embattled democracies abroad—that it is sometimes difficult to see what he stands for. And yet the more Gaetz tears down, the more his supporters love him.

Matt Goetz’s Chaos Agenda, The New Yorker, Feb. 19, 2024.

I recommend reading the entire article at the link.

I have confidence in the American people and in Iowans. The Iowa Democratic Party is on the right path with its People before Politics campaign. As an Iowan, everywhere I turn in state government there are problems with its current direction.

For example, I currently need a certified copy of a birth certificate for the new Real ID program, which adds a gold star to my driver’s license. I don’t like flying in commercial aircraft, yet may have to in event of an emergency. Real ID or additional documents will soon be required. The needed certified government document was available at the county recorder’s office, yet when I called them to ask questions, they referred me to an outfit called VitalChek to get it. “You can order it from us by mail and you can also just call them and they will send it to you,” the person answering the phone said. That’s fine if the outsourcing of normal government functions saves money for the state. What VitalChek does is add a substantial fee to the request, in addition to the charge for the document. Perhaps some government staffing was reduced in this move, but the expense was transferred directly to citizens in the form of extra fees. Pile on enough stuff like this, and the people of Iowa may get irritated enough to vote Republicans out of office. Maybe then Iowans will recognize the good work Democrats can and in Biden’s case are doing.

To leave on a positive note, I linked to this video about broadband in Iowa. Whatever you do in the near future, be sure to give the Biden Administration credit for the good work they are doing.