Democratic presidential candidates are roaming the state like a swarm of termites seeking an entry point into an American dream.
Thus far, Julián Castro found his way to Solon, although to my knowledge, no one else has.
This presidential election cycle seems different from 2008 and 2016 when there were open races among Democrats. What makes it different is Democrats tell me they will support the candidate who wins the nomination at the July 2020 Democratic National convention. Period.
A lot is at stake in our general elections. In Iowa with our unique caucuses? Not as much.
Things were different when the Democratic Party emerged from the disastrous 1968 Chicago convention. I could see from my perch in high school that Hubert Humphrey emerging from smoke-filled rooms was not a good thing. With leadership from George McGovern, Democrats changed the nominating process for the better, bringing, among other things, the importance of the Iowa caucuses.
While Iowa got the attention of presidential candidates this year that may not always be the case. What was Iowa and New Hampshire added South Carolina and Nevada by 2008. Now Super Tuesday on March 3, 2020 with Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Democrats Abroad, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia holding their presidential primaries compresses the whole schedule.
I haven’t picked a candidate to support this cycle. I may not before caucus. What I have embraced is a caucus process likely to change by the next presidential election.
~ Published in the Sept. 19, 2019 edition of the Solon Economist
When we moved to Big Grove Township we had expectations about building a life here. These expectations spoke to our shared culture.
We built a new home, settled into the public school community and began getting to know people as I worked a career that would eventually take me to a job in Eldridge, Iowa where I managed a dedicated fleet operation for a large steel service company. At the time I thought the 55-minute drive was a reasonable commute.
While there, in a staff meeting, news of the planes hitting the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and crashing in a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania began to emerge. I was scheduled to fly to Philadelphia that morning but the flight would be delayed. That day became part of an American cultural heritage.
The events of Sept. 11, 2001 were an opportunity for the country to pull together, to unite in shared values. It was squandered by our national leaders who used the terrorist attacks as sufficient reason to invade Iraq. Our disdain for the national culture has increased since then.
Participating in a national culture is made worse by growing income and wealth inequality. If comparisons of modern capitalism with the Gilded Age and the rise of Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Carnegie and others is apples to oranges, Republican leadership of the U.S. government is systematically undoing every constraint on wealth and business implemented since the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act. This is intentional, and under a government subject to the unlimited financial contributions of businesses. In part, we can thank the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC for unleashing the power of the wealthy in our governance.
Not only do we view the rise of the wealthy into power over our lives with disdain, we spend more time thinking about it because of new media available to us 24/7. We tend to forget our local culture, the culture we share with family, friends and neighbors — things that are shared, yet personal to us.
Mom’s funeral on Monday started an immersion into cultures I forgot existed. Greeting people from every part of Mom’s life at the visitation taxed my ability to remember. I don’t believe I come up short. At the Knights of Columbus Hall after interment I sat with three of my cousins and talked about things I’d forgotten existed. Aunt Wini’s wringer washing machine, Orsinger’s ice cream, Uncle Vince’s photography culture, Chicago steel mill culture, and more. I was able to keep up even though it has been years since I’d seen any of them. I could keep up because it is our shared culture.
Yesterday I took the crate of apples from the summer trees in our backyard and made a gallon of apple cider vinegar. By this morning the brewers yeast was working. After skimming the scum, I put the two half gallon jars on the pantry shelf to ferment. I got the mother of vinegar from a neighbor. His family had been making vinegar with it since the 19th century. The distribution of our vinegar is in a short radius with most of it used in our kitchen. I’d be willing to bet I’m one of a very small number of people fermenting vinegar in our township.
The point is we have shared cultures and the only way they exist, now and into the future, is by participating in them. The sad occasion of Mom’s passing was made better by the celebration of her life by the living. Our cuisine is made better by making our own vinegar for pickles and salad dressings. Eventually our national culture will regain its value but we are not there yet.
We chose this township based on the logistics of living. To make it meaningful we’ve had to participate in local cultures. As bad as the national culture is now, we can’t stop participating because so much is at stake. What happens near the lake ripples throughout society. If enough people engage, that could be life-changing for us, and for us all.
It’s been hard to figure if I should campaign for a Democrat for president before the February caucuses or whether I should remain neutral until the last minute to help our Big Grove precinct caucus go more smoothly.
Based on previous caucuses when there was a presidential preference, the precinct will not be close in 2020. Obama was a clear win in 2008, and in 2016 we had enough extra Hillary Clinton supporters to send a delegation over to Martin O’Malley’s group to make them viable and deprive Bernie Sanders of an extra delegate. At the convention, the O’Malley delegate came over to Clinton after the candidate dropped out of the race.
2008 got a bit ugly. I was the John Edwards precinct captain and was asked to be caucus secretary as I was in 2004. Throughout the difficult body counts and recounts people got impatient and things got a little heated and personal. It is a case for the temporary chair not to identify for a candidate until the last possible moment.
There is the issue of the work. In 2016 Team Clinton door-knocked and phone-called before the caucus like there was no tomorrow, hitting every part of our area, in cities and rural areas equally. I no longer do much of this work outside my own precinct but want to help. If I wait to declare, I’ll help a campaign in other ways.
In the run-up to the 2020 caucus most of the 20 or so candidates don’t have the management structure to canvass the way we did for Hillary. If we pick someone to support without adequate campaign infrastructure we’ll be on our own. That was the case in 2008 when hardly anyone caucused for Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd or Joe Biden. Between them there were about eight people in a caucus of 268 Democratic voters.
Local politics aside, I have been trying on t-shirts… it seems pretty clear Elizabeth Warren will be my pick if I do declare before the night of the caucus. Here’s my run-down of the field. Nota Bene: I will work hard and unconditionally to elect the eventual Democratic nominee regardless of who it is.
Based on Iowa polling, and according to 538.com, there are currently only five possible candidates who could win first place in the delegate count: Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. If they had a breakthrough, which is possible this early in the cycle, Corey Booker, Julián Castro, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke or Tom Steyer might be contenders for viability. My hunch is the first five could be viable and the top delegate getter will be one of them.
Narrowing it down, here’s where I land on the five most likely to be viable candidates in February 2020:
One knows there is trouble when Joe Biden’s campaign is weighing whether to scale back his public schedule so he won’t make so many gaffes. He is past his prime and every minute he stays in the race, he blocks others from advancing. I look around my precinct and don’t know who, except the 3-4 people who caucused for him in 2008, might do so now. One of the 2008 group died.
I like Pete Buttigieg but don’t feel he has the right kind of experience to be president. I heard him speak twice in person and each time I marveled at his oratory, but felt empty when he finished. He is clearly an up and comer in Democratic politics and his generational message is important. Sorry Pete, not this time unless you win the nomination.
Kamala Harris is the only one I haven’t heard speak in person. When she came to Iowa her campaign exhibited tremendous energy, of the kind one expects from a presidential campaign. She hasn’t been to Iowa that much. Friends of mine are ardent supporters and that matters in the caucuses. I have a few things to investigate, particularly her idea of privatizing Medicare, but specific policies don’t matter as much as the whole package. She gets positive marks for having won the U.S. Senate in the most populous state in the nation. I have no doubt she could scale her campaign to win the primary.
I haven’t liked Sanders since I met him in 2014. He’s more liberal than most and his policy positions haven’t changed much since he entered politics. I like some of his policy positions. We just didn’t click when we shook hands as he stumped for Bruce Braley. I also don’t see enough support as people who caucused for him in 2016 are finding their way to other campaigns this cycle.
That leaves Elizabeth Warren. I’ve been following her since she was elected from Massachusetts to the U.S. Senate. If she had run for president in 2016 I would have supported her. While concerned about a 70 year-old white woman president, her performance in Tipton allayed my concerns. She has a lot of policy statements and that matters little or not at all. I’ve watched her in the Senate and she supports legislation with which I mostly agree. Is the United States ready to elect its first female president? I have my doubts, but may be willing to throw in with Warren and try it again.
I’m trying on t-shirts, but the only one I bought has Warren’s name on it. If I declare, I’ll do it shortly after Labor Day. What I’ve found this cycle is there aren’t as many choices for president as it appears.
I often forget myself when talking about politics. My mind enters a narcotized, dreamy, transcendent world where rhetoric and action translate into distraction searching for a reality. In such conversations I articulate long-carried ideas and get them out with others. I listen and learn as much as a person with a driving social style can.
It is rarely a good thing. It is seldom a bad thing. It is part of living in society.
Couple things about August 2019 politics.
Iowa Starting Line
Iowa Starting Line has been able to hire a comparatively large number of people to cover the Iowa caucuses. This, combined with a unique editorial viewpoint, enabled them to provide coverage of events the Des Moines Register and others can’t or won’t. Recent stories include a piece by Elizabeth Meyer that compares Burlington visits of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris; a piece by Paige Godden discussing how the Iowa State Fair enabled voters to narrow the presidential candidate field; and coverage of presidential candidate appearances at the Meskwaki settlement in Tama by Nikoel Hytrek. If these three stories were all ISL posted, it would be great. They posted a total of eight articles on Saturday and Sunday. Hats off to Pat Rynard for what he built at Iowa Starting Line, including fund raising to hire staff and a uniquely Iowa editorial viewpoint.
The Biden Narrative
There is a narrative about Joe Biden that focuses on his front-runner status in the polls. Erin Murphy ran a story in this vein in Monday’s Cedar Rapids Gazette, writing, “Biden, the former vice president, has been the leader in most polling on the expansive field of Democratic presidential candidates, both in Iowa and nationally.” While this is journeyman reporting, it misses the point about Biden.
The key question is whether Biden’s showing in polls will translate into wins in the early states. The Biden Iowa campaign was not viable in the 2008 caucuses and little about his campaign seems different today. Compared to others, he got a late start in Iowa and hasn’t established a ground game to compete with Sanders, Warren, Delaney or others.
Just yesterday the Asian and Latino Coalition of Iowa endorsed Kamala Harris for president. They are a group Biden should have won over. On Friday, Sue and Bob Dvorsky announced their support for Kamala Harris. Dvorskys were key Barack Obama supporters and Sue was chair of the Iowa Democratic Party during Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012. What happened there? Biden gets the respect due to being Barack Obama’s vice president but I can’t figure out how he gains supporters over his performance in 2008, or 1988 for that matter. This aspect of his campaign isn’t readily apparent in the news.
The continuous repetition of the narrative of Biden as poll leader may be true, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. It poisons the well. The longer the narrative continues unchallenged, in the media or from other candidates, the more detrimental it becomes to the Democratic party. Biden is blocking space other, more talented candidates could occupy.
An Electorate Re-made
Who are “real people” in the political discussion? Since my first retirement ten years ago I spent a lot of time with them in society, mostly at lowly-paid temporary or part-time jobs. They don’t show up at political party events or usually talk about politics in public. Most don’t like Trump… or the Democrats either. Will they vote in 2020? Many I know didn’t vote in 2016 and won’t vote in 2020. This is a key problem that few seem to be working as Democrats spend time in the boutique-style shopping for “my candidate” in the run up to the caucuses.
The Secretary of State voter registrations are public knowledge. No preference voters outnumber either party’s registrations and have for a few election cycles. People try to make something of these numbers and I shake my head when someone mentions Democratic registrations in a discussion without mentioning the majority of voters in Iowa don’t identify as Democratic. The Secretary of State’s information may be accurate, but it is useless in aggregate when building a campaign. Political parties are not what binds most voters.
The problems Iowans face are common ones. Key among them is the American idea of building a sustainable structure in which to live our lives, including adequate food, shelter and clothing. It also includes modern add-ons of health care, transportation, insurance, education, banking and consumer debt. Real things assault this structure. I mean government policies like the president’s trade policy, climate change, changing demographics, and the hegemony of rich people and corporations. A person doesn’t have to be a Democrat to hate the Walton family which makes more money in a minute than the average Walmart employee makes in a year. Determining the commonality of such an electorate is ever-changing hard work.
My sense is few campaigns are working on this in the long run up to the Iowa caucuses because in those contests being a Democratic voter for the night is all that matters. There is plenty of common ground to be found when the view takes in all of the electorate.
There is no treatment or cure for the political addict.
The Democratic Party seems on the brink of descent into a primal ooze as we now debate political staffers forming unions in campaigns. What’s there to debate?
Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg gets the overarching policy right. “Freedom means the ability to organize in order to hold employers accountable and advocate for fair pay,” according to his website.
To the extent political campaigns employ anyone, those employees have a right to organize. That said, the articles, discussion and posturing about unions and campaign organizers organizing a union are a distraction from the need to defeat Donald Trump, hold the Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and gain a majority in the U.S. Senate.
I have some questions about organizing the organizers.
Why?
Suzan Erem, who has been a consultant to labor unions, recently posted on Facebook, “no self-respecting union organizes workers whose jobs have at best an 18-month shelf life.”
Either an individual campaign provides a living wage and acceptable working conditions for employees or the candidate suffers the consequences in a primary election. If workers organize a union, the candidate should be willing to sign a contract quickly and get on with the campaign. When there are grievances, they should be timely addressed.
It is important to remember pay and benefits are not what leads talented people to work on a political campaign. The question of organizers unionizing should be a self-motivator for Democratic candidates. Employees have the choice to organize and it should mostly be part of the background noise of a campaign. It should be a non-issue.
Bandwidth?
“An unnamed person has alleged to a federal agency that the union representing some employees of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign did not properly address a grievance,” Sean Sullivan wrote in the Washington Post. A dispute between a labor union (United Food and Commercial Workers in this case) and a represented member is never good. When it escalates to the National Labor Relations Board, lawyers get involved.
As Sanders and his staff spend time and resources on this NLRB case and resolving any other grievances with their union, the clock continues to tick toward the Iowa Caucus and the dozen states with primaries and caucuses on or before Super Tuesday. Managing labor, organized or not, will take bandwidth.
When the union appears to botch the process as suggested in Sullivan’s article, it is a burden on everyone involved. Some other priority will be neglected while time is spent on this grievance. News outlets may pick up on the NLRB case and neglect covering candidate policy.
To What End?
The period of employment for paid campaign workers is relatively brief. Anyone who has worked on a campaign knows a lot of hours are involved. If it’s too much, why wouldn’t an employee go to their supervisor and ask for relief. If they are not satisfied with the way it is addressed, move on to what is next. It’s not like campaign organizing is a permanent career even if one is still working at it after beginning in the 2008 cycle.
Organizing a union is not always a speedy process. In the meanwhile, the election is just around the corner, after which employment ends for the most part and any union becomes moot. If the campaign is successful there may be another job in Washington, D.C. If it is unionized it would be a separate bargaining unit.
Most working people have an opinion about unions. I do too, and mine is multi-faceted. Unions have good intentions yet outcomes for rank and file members vary in efficacy. During a presidential campaign, especially during the primary/caucus portion of it, the main organizing has to be getting enough votes to get the candidate to the next stage whether it’s winning the primary or the general election. Organizing a union has to be done quickly and efficiently or it becomes a distraction.
State Auditor Rob Sand and State Senator Janet Petersen waiting to go on stage at the Zach Wahls birthday fundraiser in rural Iowa on July 14, 2019
State Auditor Rob Sand spoke at the Zach Wahls birthday fundraiser in rural Johnson County on July 14. He was brief.
Sand’s brevity is becoming a feature of his political tenure. Those of us who hear a lot of political speeches appreciate his willingness to be brief, be brilliant, and then be done.
Blog for Iowa wanted to hear more from Sand so we asked him to participate in a questionnaire via email. He said yes. The questions and Sand’s responses follow, published without significant editing.
BFIA: What do you feel is most important about the first six months of your tenure as auditor? Why?
Sand: In just six months we have accomplished a lot of what we set out to do during the campaign. The office has never promoted efficiency, which I said I would do. Our new PIE initiative (public innovations and efficiencies) will do just that. In addition, very soon we have two individuals with law-enforcement experience starting in the office. I campaigned on the need for professional diversity in the office, and we are making it happen.
BFIA: In my previous article I pointed out the municipality that was dissatisfied with your predecessor’s annual audit of their books. How do you view the role of the state auditor’s office in helping counties and municipalities meet their statutory audit and financial review needs?
Sand: The most significant departure under my time in office will be that we will begin providing real assistance on efficiency and innovation. Historically, the office has not used its ability to do that. That changes now. We should always be doing everything we can to save taxpayer money.
BFIA: I noticed you are a hunter. How did that become a feature of your public appearances as auditor. What is your view of how Iowa DNR expends resources to support hunting and wildlife in the state?
Sand: I believe that most Iowans are interested in not just policy but also who you are as a person. I grew up hunting and fishing with my dad and still do it today, so it is a way for people to get to know me a little bit. Plus, there are endless puns is to be made about finding bucks.
While I have not done a specific review of DNR in my six months in office, I can tell you that the state needs to do a better job supporting hunting and fishing generally. There were a number of bills last year which were harming the ability to add public land for hunting or any other use.
BFIA: What do you like best about the job? Least?
Sand: Compared to prosecuting financial crime, which I was doing for seven years prior, it’s great to be able to wake up in the morning and work on making systems work better, and preventing bad before it happens. Prosecuting by its nature is entirely reacting to bad after it happens.
As for my least favorite part, I’m sure if I were a better politician I would tell you that every single moment is an honor. But since I’m honest, the part I like least are the trite and formalistic aspects of being an office executive from a paperwork and sign-off perspective. I prefer to dive in and do real work.
BFIA: What areas in state government seem ready to improve from an auditor’s viewpoint? Explain.
We are always on the lookout to make government more honest, operate with better integrity, and improve accountability. We also want to see improved efficiency. That applies to every part of government, and as soon as we stop looking for it or asking for it in one part, that’s where it will be needed most!
BFIA: What is your hope for the future of the state, from a personal standpoint.
Sand: I think we need a better focus on putting the public first. Partisanship needs to take a backseat.
A brief biography of Rob Sand can be found on his Wikipedia Page here.
RAGBRAI riders stopped at the Norwalk Christian Church for pie. Photo Credit – Trish Nelson
Trish Nelson will be returning to the editor’s desk next week.
Among things she did while on hiatus was ride a couple days of RAGBRAI, posting this photograph of pies behind empty church pews. The image says something more although I’m at a loss to put words to it. It can speak for itself.
Time for me to go on hiatus for a while as well.
Tomorrow I return to the apple orchard where I work in the sales barn doing whatever is needed for the season. If I’m lucky, I’ll have great conversations with some of the thousands of guests who show up on a weekend. If I’m extra lucky, those conversations will be about apples, gardening and farming.
We political activists need to do our best work to elect a replacement for Dave Loebsack in the Second Congressional District and a U.S. Senator to make Joni Ernst a one-term senator. We also need to retain the hard-won seats of Cindy Axne in the third district and Abby Finkenauer in the first. If we have a candidate in the fourth district, there’s work to be done there as well. Those campaigns will have to wait until after the presidential preference in February, because a person can land only one plane at a time. I favor Rita Hart in the second district and Theresa Greenfield for U.S. Senate. There are no clinkers among those running in the primary.
As far as the Iowa caucus goes, I’m in the same boat as a lot of readers. I want to pick a candidate for president to work with after Labor Day. If I can’t decide which one by then, I may go to caucus uncommitted and join a group that needs one more person to be viable.
I expect to run our precinct caucus (because of a lack of volunteers) and don’t want to get into the unseemly discussions we had during the vote count in 2008. Being uncommitted would be a positive in that regard.
Democrats can’t afford to have winners and losers this cycle, so the pre-caucus dynamic is different from 2008 when there were 8-10 candidates for president and everyone worked hard for their guy or gal to be the one. The only thing that remains the same this cycle is Mike Gravel is running again. (Update: The afternoon of the day this was posted, Gravel suspended his presidential campaign).
Someone asked me who were my top three potential presidential candidates. I had to think, but came up with this answer:
Anyone other than Biden, Sanders, Warren and Harris needs a breakthrough by Labor Day (maybe Thanksgiving) to ouster these four poll leaders. Polls and second choices will drive the presidential preference Feb. 3.
If not this week, then soon, the less than one percenters will hopefully have made their point and gracefully exited the race to work on other Democratic priorities. I’m very sorry Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is in this group. She couldn’t get over the Franken blow back among Democrats I know and lost important donors. She is uncompromising on women’s rights.
Look at it this way. Once I figure out what/who I’m supporting I’ll swallow the red pill and follow the rabbit hole where it leads. With the primary in June, there’s plenty of time to work on Rita Hart and Theresa Greenfield after caucus.
Or look at it another way. If Warren had run in 2016, I would have worked hard to make her the nominee. I’m satisfied she’s not too old today. There’s no one else left in the top 4 besides Kamala Harris. I’m less than confident a woman can get elected in 2020. I don’t like most of the men.
So there’s my indecision. If I can’t decide by Labor Day I may not declare and throw my one preference to which ever group could be viable with it, except maybe Sanders.
The most important endgame is coming together once we have a nominee. Keeping the red pill in a waterproof vial for now.
Hope readers enjoy the rest of summer. Thanks for the clicks during the last five weeks.
Jimmy Carter at the Iowa State Fair, August 1976 – Photo Credit – Des Moines Register
On Jan. 19, 1976, the day of the Iowa precinct caucuses that started Jimmy Carter on a path from relative obscurity to becoming the Democratic nominee for president, I was in U.S. Army Basic Training at Fort Jackson, S.C.
I didn’t really care who became president because anyone would be better than Richard Nixon.
As we now know, “Uncommitted” won the presidential preference that year getting 37 percent of the delegates with Carter coming in second with 28 percent. He became president and served for a single term from 1977 until 1981.
On July 19 Carter announced he was losing his religion. “Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God,” he said.
After six decades in the Southern Baptist Convention, at the point when leadership determined that women must be subservient to men, he decided to leave.
“At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime,” Carter wrote. “But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.”
The view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief, he said.
Read Carter’s entire article in The Age here. What is the context for Carter losing his religion?
Earlier in July and before Carter’s letter, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced creation of the Commission on Unalienable Rights to examine the role of human rights in US foreign policy. It is expected the commission will be a vehicle to roll back protection of human rights in US diplomacy.
“What does it mean to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human right,” Pompeo said at the State Department according to CNN. “How do we know or how do we determine whether that claim that this or that is a human right, is it true, and therefore, ought it to be honored?”
“Words like ‘rights’ can be used for good or evil,” he said.
What is or isn’t a human right has been debated even though the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 by the United Nations. One can assume the same impetus that led Pompeo to embrace the Rapture is at work in this commission. I expect a new attack on women’s rights driven by the same prejudices Carter discusses in his letter.
At 94 years, Jimmy Carter continues to serve our nation and a global community. If there is justice God will forgive him for losing his religion to continue his efforts in pursuit of women’s rights.
It must be hard for out of state political organizers to penetrate the shield of work, family and friends behind which many Iowans spend most of their time.
That’s especially true as the large field of presidential candidates self-sorts in the polls, resulting in what seems an inevitable field of Biden, Harris, Sanders and Warren. If they can gain traction through some sort of campaign breakthrough, maybe add Booker, Buttigieg, Klobuchar and one or two of the others people recognize. A recap of 20 Iowa polls from 538.com is here.
According to a June CNN poll 44 percent of primary voters had decided their first choice for president, with most of the rest saying their choice is subject to change. There is a long Iowa tradition of waiting until the last minute to decide for whom to caucus in presidential years. What plays a role this cycle is the common statement, “I support X, but will vote for whoever the party nominates because we have to beat Donald Trump.” Against this background, organizers have to identify voters to support their candidate, knowing minds could change in the more than six months until the Iowa caucuses. Based on my experience there will be a groundswell behind candidates who are perceived as potential caucus winners.
The basics of political organizing haven’t changed in a long time. My father explained how he organized for the 1960 campaign of John F. Kennedy. The union provided mimeographed 8-1/2 x 14 inch sheets with a blank grid of homes on it. Dad’s job was to contact people in each house on the blocks he was assigned, discuss the election with them, and record the results on the sheet. The completed sheets went back to the union hall. Dad had no trouble completing this work in a timely manner and he enjoyed meeting with neighbors. It was pretty basic, and of course Kennedy won that cycle.
Things are different in 2019. To be successful, candidates have longer range plans than contacting voters and dutifully recording their opinion in a database. For example, Elizabeth Warren has organizers holding “office hours,” working on art projects, tabling at farmers markets, attending local events, and working on farms. There may be some payoff to such activities in the form of signed commitment cards. What seems more important is outside organizers become part of the community. When we think of the candidate, we can put a face with that name and have a contact for outreach if there is a question. It is not just Warren using a longer term approach and candidates who don’t seem unlikely to gain traction.
There is also the money issue, which has rendered contact with most candidates via email, social media and other communications methods meaningless. People get it. Campaigns cost a lot and sending me three or four emails per day soliciting donations is a numbers game in which you hope to wear us down with repetition.
What makes this year different is the shield. It is hardening. In case you missed it, things are not great in America these days. Beginning with health care, including Medicaid, Medicare and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Republicans are trying their best to undo it all. The care provided in these programs has never been the best. Just ask someone who needs care or knows someone who does. At the same time, they represent something positive in our lives. Social Security is a target even though it is funded separately from the government and viable at least until 2034. Republicans also seek to break up the scientific approach to problem solving in USDA, EPA and other government agencies turning them more political. The Justice Department re-instated the death penalty this week. Government is becoming more political than it was. Post-World War II progressive initiatives are being rolled back.
Whatever the outcome of these long-standing Republican initiatives, voters are withdrawing into smaller, isolated communities where they protect their own interests first. As others have noted, this gives rise to an us vs. them view of the world with which political organizers have to work. People have become skeptical that participating in politics has much meaning and push back on politics except within their group. Under the shield, political discussions can be very active, but mostly among group members regarding their core concerns.
Community organizing remains an important aspect of penetrating the shield of isolation. Finding common ground with friends and neighbors and with others in the community, is no panacea, yet it remains a centerpiece of problem solving. The trouble is picking an action, and there has been little agreement in groups to which I belong or with which am familiar unless a problem is obvious and significant.
Behind the shield, behavior harkens back to tribal both in selection of targets for action and in attitudes and methodologies used to achieve them. If a community’s drinking water is sub-standard, members are likely to take action if they can. Politics? Not so much.
It is difficult to see how the Democratic presidential nominating process will turn out. What seems clear is voters’ disaffection with politics has created a type of isolation that requires a new kind of campaigning. Someone will be the Democratic nominee for president and a majority of Democratic voters will support him/her. However, the thrill is gone in primary campaigns among Democrats, which makes traditional, individual campaign strategies and tactics less useful in producing a winning candidate.
There are no easy answers. Hard work and grit will play a role as they always have. Voters will be canvassed as they have been for generations. To the extent campaign organizers don’t work to penetrate the shield, their efforts seem unlikely to produce a winner in the Iowa caucus.
In the meanwhile, summer is here and is fit distraction from political talk. Maybe people will engage outside their tribe when the new year begins. For now we need protection from the harsh summer of Trumpism.
Racism is a feature of the Trump administration geared toward activating marginal voters who support his racist statements to get them to vote to elect Republicans, posits Thom Hartmann in the clip below.
“When Trump said this he knew exactly what he was saying,” Hartmann said on his eponymous program, referring to the president’s statement addressing four Democratic U.S. Congresswomen, “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Hartmann explores racism related to the president’s comments, answering the questions “Why won’t the GOP comment on Donald Trump’s racist comments?” and “Has the GOP now moved so far to the right that this will get Trump re-elected?”
He suggests politics as we know it — each party’s base voting for their candidates with the middle or swing voters being targeted for conversion each election cycle — has been turned on its head by the president.
I don’t know if he’s right, but it’s food for thought as we enter a high summer of RAGBRAI, sweet corn, tomatoes and vacations.
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