One Dem against withdrawal

Stopping in Iowa City in hopes of giving the Republican frontrunners some exposure after covering a Democratic event in Council Bluffs was probably a bad idea.

The socially conservative Republicans have pretty much abandoned the biggest college town in Iowa. Rudy Giuliani was the only hopeful with any noticeable effort – or even an office here.

Mitt Romney, John McCain, Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson don’t seem interested in the college-age group. And even Rudy has abandoned the state in hopes of greener pastures closer to his New York base in New Hampshire.

So when we saw a small military surplus store on the outskirts of the city, we couldn’t help but stop in to find out what the proprietors of what might be presumed a traditionally conservative establishment might think. Interestingly enough, we found two pro-war liberal-leaning single mothers.

Brenda Roe, who works the register at CC Military Surplus, has an interesting view on foreign policy for a Democrat.

While she is not sure which Democrat she supports right now, she says Hillary has the most practical outline for withdrawal from Iraq and the best health care plan out of any of the candidates she has heard from. Like many other Iowans, however, she will walk in to her caucus on Thursday night on the fence between a decision on one of the big gun lefties.

Brenda described people in the Iowa City area as either conservative and elite or liberal and poor or not strongly tied to the city.

“It’s conservative for the doctors and attorneys and people who own stuff, but the college is all liberal,” she said.

But her situation on the margins is a little different.

While selling Editor-in-Chief David McSwane a paratrooper knife, Brenda explained that, though she has never caucused before, she is considering it this year because of the complicated issues at stake.

Moving her short, stocky figure around the shop, she helped us with notes and told us about the store’s inventory with help from her boss, the store manager Missy Michel-Daugherty.

Neither of the women, who are also sisters, have caucused before. Brenda hasn’t because she used to work as a legal secretary for a very politically active law firm and didn’t want to deal with political bullshit on her time off. Missy never caucused because she has always been too busy working nearly 100 hours a week to keep surplus moving through her store. Still, she can’t afford to supply her employees with health care because of the small-business nature of the surplus industry.

Roe had worked for a trucking company the year before, but quit this year to work for Missy. After leaving her comprehensive health care plan along with her trucking job, Brenda now has to worry about her 14-year-old’s well-being, despite working as hard as she ever had.

“It’s not because we’re not doing our job,” she said. “It’s because (health care’s) not available.”

Clinton’s plan would mandate continued health care, when a consumer switches job.

The surplus store, located in a shopping center on the frigid plains east of town, is filled with Airsoft and Paintballing supplies, pro-war bumper stickers that say things like “Got Freedom? (Iraqis don’t),” olive green anglehead flashlights and American flags.

Roe’s views on the war reflected the ambience in the shop. She wants the war in Iraq to continue until the country is established as a sovereign entity in order to ensure a stable environment in the Middle East.

While most Democratic candidates are one way or the other on Iraq, Hillary is the only candidate with a health care plan that Roe likes and wants to keep U.S. military presence in Iraq until the civil unrest ends.

And the GOP doesn’t offer her solace either.

With the Republican candidates focusing their attention on the conservative, rural western half of Iowa and the New Hampshire primaries, Roe finds some of their policies hard to swallow. Mitt and Mike don’t strike her fancy because of their hollow talk, she said.

“Lots of pretty words and nothing behind it,” she said of the Huckabee campaign.

But with the frontrunners stoking pissing matches in the tense days leading up to the premier presidential event in the country, Brenda and Missy keep paying attention to the lighter aspects of life, encouraging a young group of college reporters to spend New Year’s Eve taking advantage the biggest hot female contingent in the state courtesy of the University of Iowa.

“It’s New Year’s,” Brenda said. “You’ll like the way the ladies are dressed.”

Hoping for some fun tonight and a more promising conservative base awaiting us in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines tomorrow, my colleagues and I keep bringing you coverage as the race unravels.

-Hedgefund

Paul-change: How the Paul campaign plans to revamp ... everything

Rolling into Council Bluffs last night two hours later than we had planned, I was immediately presented with a perfect opportunity to demonstrate how much a nasty hangover can fuck up an interview. But William Muller didn’t seem to mind, recognizing that journalism is, by nature, a perfect facilitator of alcoholism.

Our conversation about Ron Paul and how Mitt Romney’s perfect Ken-Doll appearance mixes with his message of family values and Tom Clancy conspiracy theories was highlighted with Muller giving our photographer strange, hard-to-interpret looks over his coffee cup and the surroundings of the grossest Village Inn I've visited.

The interview was supposed to take place in a nearby coffee shop, but another thing my hangover prevented me from doing was calling ahead of time to ensure the place would be open, which it wasn’t – I’m an idiot.

So within the confines of the Bluffs restaurant, Muller told Brandon Iwamoto and me why taxes should exist on a minimal level, conspiracy theories should be taken with a grain of salt and why self-admitted crazies like Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel deserve the presidency.

The Paul campaign, which Muller, a 30-year-old Public Relations senior at the University of Nebraska at Omaha is a big fan of, is probably the most bizarre facet of the campaign trail (with the possible exception of Dennis Kucinich’s UFO sighting accounts). Even Muller admits that Paul has no chance for the Republican ticket.

The Republican Party of New Hampshire excluded hopefuls Paul, Duncan Hunter and Alan Keyes from participation in their debate next month, a possible precursor for more underdog exclusions from the GOP.

"I don’t think the GOP will allow (a Ron Paul ticket)," Muller said. "I think they will move Heaven and Earth before they let that happen ... because he scares the neoconservatives and they've taken over the party."

Sure, the candidate has some wild, controversial ideas, like the eradication of the federal tax system.

To do this, Paul would oust the Department of Education, the Department of Homeland Security and repeal the PATRIOT Act -- views that have garnered a tidy sum of oppositional anecdotes from the GOP.

The Texas senator would also pull U.S. troops out of Iraq ASAP, take the U.S. out of the free trade agreements like the North American Union that have been the target of work-government conspiracy theorists, and instill family values into the educational attitude of the nation’s schools.

By all partisan accounts, some of these ideas don’t exactly mesh with any well-established set of ideals.

But Muller, who identifies himself as a true blue Libertarian, finds this recipe for national sovereignty an appeal to his deepest values, which have not been catered since the 1930s.

"We seem to have lost our way in what is important; we’ve consistently sacrificed security for liberty," he said.

Growing up in Houston, Texas, and later serving the Air Force as a linguist speaking Serbian and Croatian, Muller had never been political. But when the Paul campaign started garnering national attention, especially among college-age libertarian groups, Muller had found what he called in a round-about way his political soul mate – someone who promised tax reduction with sensible (and not-so-sensible) spending cuts.

"I give a thumbs up on (tax eradication) ... the income tax is a big one, as well as most taxes. I feel that they’re unnecessary. Most taxes are just used to support this burgeoning welfare state in this country,"he said.

Muller believes education should be localized and any interference from the federal government in the institution "screws it up in a bad way."

"Every time government tries to step in and standardize education, it just goes by the wayside," he said. "And as the government becomes more and more involved in people’s lives, the people become more dependent on the government, and less dependent on themselves and the community."

But the conundrum remains that in the unlikely situation of a Paul presidency, he would have to work with the most liberal Congress and Senate in over a decade to support the biggest bureaucracy in the world. The resulting trifecta of extremism would be quick to get rid of right-wing bureaucracy like the Department of Homeland Security, but would most certainly clash when discussing the end of federal education funding.

Muller said his ideal Paul-Kucinich ticket would fix a lot of the problems America has.

"This is my dream line-up, I’d like to see Ron Paul get the Republican nomination and Kucinich get the Democratic nomination," he said. "I know at least we’ll be out of Iraq and we can probably get rid of that PATRIOT Act. That would make me happy."

He organized a grassroots, Internet-connected group of UNO students in support of Ron Paul earlier this month. People have been signing up every day to support the candidate that he says students can identify with since he started the group.

Paul, an underdog of the race has five percent of Iowa’s support right now according to polls.
On a lighter note, a bunny trail from a side-conversation we had with Muller had about Mitt

Romney’s private equity firm buying out Clear Channel Communications inspired me to name my first-born son Jazz Murdoch, assuming I have kids.

-Hedgefund