After putting 10 months of tears and toil into the presidential race for their respective candidates, campaign staffers and volunteers from around Iowa and the rest of the country saw their efforts in the state com to an end for better or worse when voters voiced their opinions and possibly dictated the futures of people around the world in a scattered, grass-roots process known as the Iowa caucus.
Republicans and Democrats told the world that the men they wanted to run our country were presidential hopefuls Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama respectively.
The Democratic caucus process is much more complex and confusing than the Republican one. People from around each precinct in the state gather in a school hall, church or volunteered house and sit at a table that is designated for their candidate.
At 6 last night, precinct Director Angela Connelly was running around Hoover High School’s kitchen, where Des Moines precinct Webster 1 held it’s caucus, shuffling papers, barking orders and joking with her staffers and representatives from each campaign who sat at their folding lunch tables. Obama staffers served cookies, Hillary Clinton representatives made sure everyone there was registered to vote, and John Edwards advocates debating politics with the other tables.
By 7, 58 voters had shown up, the majority of them sitting at the Edwards and Obama tables and the rest showed their support for Hillary Clinton. But the weaker showing from Clinton supporters caused Webster 1, which is only allowed two delegates, to be divided between Edwards and Obama.
After intense debate and juggling of voters by both tables, the two candidates tied. The final head count was 29-29.
When all was said and done, Connelly called the results in to the Polk County Convention Center, where the results from each Polk County precinct were compiled and sent to the Iowa Democratic Party.
But it could have gone much different. Had over 85 percent of the 58 voters at the caucus been sitting at Edwards’ table, Obama would have been declared not viable and Edwards would have received both delegates from that precinct. Larger precincts are allowed more delegates. In the room across from the kitchen, Precinct 9 voters gave a delegate a piece to Clinton, Obama and Edwards.
Three doors down the hall in the school’s auditorium a quarter after 6, Republican Precinct 12 was filling up and Director Lawrence Cooper running back and forth across the room, printing more copies for the waning stack of registration forms, trying to make sure the room had an American Flag for when the voters would sing the Star Spangled Banner just before casting their vote and greeting right wingers as they entered the room.
The Republican process is much simpler – the voters wrote the name of their
candidate on a three-by-five note card and tossed it into a hat after listening to representatives from each campaign office give their spiel as to why their candidate is better.
Lawrence then took the results back to his house, called the Polk County GOP and told them that 67 people voted for Huckabee, 26 for Mitt Romney, 16 for Ron Paul, 16 for Fred Thompson, four for Duncan Hunter and two for Rudy Giuliani.
And just like that, what has been hailed for 36 years as the premier political event in the country and possibly the world was over.
This is democracy at it’s most visceral stage. “They came, they debated, they cajoled, they decided,” said an ABC reporter to the camera. This is where the most important political decision in the world starts every four years – in an old fire hall with ten people arguing their positions or in a big-city convention center where one representative from each candidate gives their leader’s final push in Iowa to 500 people.
There nothing more for Iowans to do now but wait until November, when they will cast their votes for Democrat or Republican.
-Hedgefund
Friday, January 4, 2008
Democracy survives in Iowa
Now that the dust from the Iowa caucuses is settling and the winners have been selected, the media has already turned to the speculation about the New Hampshire primaries.
Unfortunately, in the pursuit of the getting the scoop on the winners, another, more important, story is often left by the wayside – what actually happens within a given precinct on caucus night.
To get to the bottom of this mysterious system, the Collegian crew set out last night to Hoover high school, which hosted the caucuses for multiple Des Moines electoral districts for both the Democrats and Republicans.
After arriving more than an hour early, we decided to meet with some of the precinct captains to see just how things were scheduled to go down.
To get the scoop on the Democratic side, I eavesdropped a conversation between News Editor Aaron Hedge and Weber One Precinct Captain Angela Connelly as she laid out the process for the Dems.
The doors were to open at 6:30 p.m., at which time all voters needed to check in and then sit with their difference preference groups. And if a caucus-goer has not yet decided, that is perfectly acceptable, too.
At about 7 p.m., the doors would be locked and the number of members needed to meet the 15 percent requirement for a candidate's viability is announced. At that point, members of the different preference groups, especially those struggling for viability, can travel to other groups and try to convince their members to change their minds.
After 30 minutes, the process ends and delegates are divvied out according to the candidates with the highest number of supporters. In addition, if an undecided group is large enough, they, too can have a delegate.
The twist for Weber One, though, is that they only get two delegates, so all attendees could only pick a maximum of two candidates.
When we rolled over to the Republican precinct for District 12, their captain Lawrence Cooper explained the Republican system, which was almost identical to that of the Democrats, except that under their system, the selections were made by a show of hands or secret ballot, as determined by the respective precincts.
Here, rather than giving delegates proportionally, though, all delegates go toward the candidate with the most supporters, which, for District 12, ended up being Mike Huckabee.
Finding my interest more drawn towards the Democrats and finding that, in general, my presence was far less welcome in the Republican precincts, I returned to Weber One, armed with the knowledge of how the process was supposed to occur in theory, to see how it all played out in practice.
At first, it looked as though the whole process was a joke.
The preference groups – the largest for Obama and Hillary – didn't move, even though there were two smaller preference groups that needed convincing – the inviable Bill Richardson and barely viable John Edwards group.
After a couple of uncomfortable minutes, though, people left their seats and started communicating peacefully with each other about why they should change their vote. And slowly but surely, people began to move.
Soon, there were no Richardson supporters left.
For a few minutes, it looked as though all supporters were flooding to the Obama and Clinton tables. Then, something unexpected happened.
As Edward's supporters like CSU Alumnus Robert Johnson began chatting with the Clinton folks, they began to defect.
Before my very eyes, I saw the population of the Clinton table dwindle and then die.
This particularly interested me, as neither Edward's supporters nor the man himself seemed to particularly active in the state, so I turned to Johnson to find out how this was happening. He pointed me to Edward's record with helping the middle class.
“I think he has an understanding of poverty and the needs of the middle class,” he said.
A few holdouts for the Hillary campaign, including resident Gary Carr, who supported Hillary because of her more extensive experience as a “great first lady” and senator, held on almost until the end, but by the end of the night, the precinct was divided into two camps – Obama and Edwards.
The delegates were then selected from each camp, each given healthy applause, and the citizens were dismissed.
I was floored by how smoothly the whole process ran.
Not once during the evening were their shouts or heated arguments. Instead, there was civil debate and compromise between people with a common goal – selecting the best presidential candidate to represent the interests of not just themselves, but their neighbors, too.
What happened in Iowa tonight was democracy at its purest. One can only hope the Colorado caucus on Feb. 5 is equally civil and productive.
-S.R.
Unfortunately, in the pursuit of the getting the scoop on the winners, another, more important, story is often left by the wayside – what actually happens within a given precinct on caucus night.
To get to the bottom of this mysterious system, the Collegian crew set out last night to Hoover high school, which hosted the caucuses for multiple Des Moines electoral districts for both the Democrats and Republicans.
After arriving more than an hour early, we decided to meet with some of the precinct captains to see just how things were scheduled to go down.
To get the scoop on the Democratic side, I eavesdropped a conversation between News Editor Aaron Hedge and Weber One Precinct Captain Angela Connelly as she laid out the process for the Dems.
The doors were to open at 6:30 p.m., at which time all voters needed to check in and then sit with their difference preference groups. And if a caucus-goer has not yet decided, that is perfectly acceptable, too.
At about 7 p.m., the doors would be locked and the number of members needed to meet the 15 percent requirement for a candidate's viability is announced. At that point, members of the different preference groups, especially those struggling for viability, can travel to other groups and try to convince their members to change their minds.
After 30 minutes, the process ends and delegates are divvied out according to the candidates with the highest number of supporters. In addition, if an undecided group is large enough, they, too can have a delegate.
The twist for Weber One, though, is that they only get two delegates, so all attendees could only pick a maximum of two candidates.
When we rolled over to the Republican precinct for District 12, their captain Lawrence Cooper explained the Republican system, which was almost identical to that of the Democrats, except that under their system, the selections were made by a show of hands or secret ballot, as determined by the respective precincts.
Here, rather than giving delegates proportionally, though, all delegates go toward the candidate with the most supporters, which, for District 12, ended up being Mike Huckabee.
Finding my interest more drawn towards the Democrats and finding that, in general, my presence was far less welcome in the Republican precincts, I returned to Weber One, armed with the knowledge of how the process was supposed to occur in theory, to see how it all played out in practice.
At first, it looked as though the whole process was a joke.
The preference groups – the largest for Obama and Hillary – didn't move, even though there were two smaller preference groups that needed convincing – the inviable Bill Richardson and barely viable John Edwards group.
After a couple of uncomfortable minutes, though, people left their seats and started communicating peacefully with each other about why they should change their vote. And slowly but surely, people began to move.
Soon, there were no Richardson supporters left.
For a few minutes, it looked as though all supporters were flooding to the Obama and Clinton tables. Then, something unexpected happened.
As Edward's supporters like CSU Alumnus Robert Johnson began chatting with the Clinton folks, they began to defect.
Before my very eyes, I saw the population of the Clinton table dwindle and then die.
This particularly interested me, as neither Edward's supporters nor the man himself seemed to particularly active in the state, so I turned to Johnson to find out how this was happening. He pointed me to Edward's record with helping the middle class.
“I think he has an understanding of poverty and the needs of the middle class,” he said.
A few holdouts for the Hillary campaign, including resident Gary Carr, who supported Hillary because of her more extensive experience as a “great first lady” and senator, held on almost until the end, but by the end of the night, the precinct was divided into two camps – Obama and Edwards.
The delegates were then selected from each camp, each given healthy applause, and the citizens were dismissed.
I was floored by how smoothly the whole process ran.
Not once during the evening were their shouts or heated arguments. Instead, there was civil debate and compromise between people with a common goal – selecting the best presidential candidate to represent the interests of not just themselves, but their neighbors, too.
What happened in Iowa tonight was democracy at its purest. One can only hope the Colorado caucus on Feb. 5 is equally civil and productive.
-S.R.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
In nick of time, GOP faith established, Democrats back idealism
The political climate is heating up in a race that began at boiling point 10 months ago. James Lynch, a political reporter with the Cedar Rapids Gazette said the 2007 competition for the White House began with as much intensity as it had ended with in 2004.
Republicans
When it comes to the public opinion in Iowa on presidential viability, the Republicans have had a much more confusing race than the Democrats – at least up until a couple of months ago when Iowa’s Republicans realized that Mike Huckabee represents everything for which the neoconservatives stand.
With his charismatic stage presence (unless he is playing the bass guitar), attractive mind set on the issues that matter to the religious right and his new secret weapon, Chuck Norris, the Huckster has taken the state by storm and surprised the nation with his climb from mediocrity to superstar status.
In the first 10 months of what is to be the longest, most crowded presidential race in the history of America, Republicans didn’t know where to turn. Their party was in shambles after further reports of failure in Iraq and failed foreign, education and security policy caused the Bush administration’s popularity to fall to dismal depths. This was not helped by a series of GOP sex scandals which destroyed their only good card, that moral values.
Mitt Romney was Mormon and a little fake; Rudy Giuliani was a cross-dressing, pro-choice, anti-gun, border security conundrum who ran his entire campaign off of fuel from his performance after the 9/11 attacks; and John McCain was more polarizing than Hillary Clinton. The rest of the candidates, including Huckabee, were no-name representatives, governors and actors with little to no political experience or bad track records.
But when Huckabee employed Chuck Norris as a volunteer campaign tool and started pandering to the right wing as a former Baptist pastor who knows what Christian values mean, he saturated the trail with what Norris calls “Chuck Norris facts” and religious candor.
The Republicans had found their candidate. Giuliani, who was the most viable option at the beginning of the race, kept making an ass of himself by mentioning 9/11 in his answers to every question and Romney began his smear campaign on Huckabee, leaving a bad taste in the mouths of many Republican voters.
“I don’t want to hear what one candidate is doing wrong, I want to hear what Romney’s going to do as president,” said one zealous Huckabee supporter plastered in stickers, holding a “Faith, family, and freedom” sign at a Des Moines ballroom after Norris spoke on behalf of Huckabee.
Meanwhile, Ron Paul and other marginalized candidates have been exposed to de facto exclusion from the race by FOX News when the conservative media outlet decided to host several Republican debates in New Hampshire and not invite the fringe candidates. Supporters of Paul say the GOP doesn’t want him to get the ticket because of his unconventional policies.
But each candidate has his merit and a large support base. Even Paul returned from the campaign trail in Florida to hold a Des Moines rally Wednesday night to which more than 600 people showed up.
Huckabee told reporters that the polls don’t necessarily reflect the public opinion. A state poll on Friday had Romney ahead by a big lead. Two days later, a Des Moines Register poll showed Huckabee nine percentage points ahead of Romney.
So with polls showing Huckabee in lead; Romney, McCain and Giuliani losing favor from Iowa voters; and Fred Thompson and Ron Paul fighting for fourth place, Iowa will have never been louder than they will be tonight.
Democrats
The Democratic presidential race was much easier to predict than that of the GOP.
The trend throughout the 10 months leading up to tonight has been clear. Hillary Clinton was ahead for most of the race, keeping her percentage in the polls hovering around 25 percent. The same happened with the John Edwards campaign. But as underdogs Dennis Kucinich, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and Mike Gravel became increasingly unpopular, Barack Obama gained the majority of the state’s youth favor, constantly playing his “Change we can believe in” card.
In November, that card put him ahead of everyone else in the minds of Iowans for the first time on the campaign trail, according to polls, and he has widened his lead ever since.
At a rally Wednesday night at Hoover High School in West Des Moines, Obama spoke to a crowd of over 2,000 students, community members and the press. Sure at this point that he will gain the Iowa vote as he is ahead of Clinton and Edwards by six percent and eight percent, respectively, Obama’s message was one of pending change.
He has scheduled a post-caucus event in what sounds like anticipation of a win.
But as he counts on the idealistic youth vote to push him over the hump of his inexperience, there is one problem, the 18- to 24-year-old demographic is the least likely to show up on caucus night. So banking on a maybe is certainly a gamble, but is one that must be taken by Obama, who has been criticized for not being able to gather large support from anyone but nation’s youth, including the black community.
And Clinton has garnered a handsome amount of approval from older female voters by playing to their emotions on issues like health care and advocating her Iraq withdrawal plan, which many voters view as the most sensible.
Historically, middle-aged white women show up in greater numbers than any other demographic on caucus night, which is why former President Bill Clinton stumped for his wife in a frigid cold, corrugated tin storage building outside of the Amana Colonies to crowd of several hundred rural Iowans New Year’s Day, saying that Hillary has the right mix of experience and ideology to fix the health care crisis, our failing energy policy and the U.S.’s spider web of education problems.
With Bill's record and respect in his party, Democratic voters not lured by Obama see a two-for-one when caucusing for Hillary.
But Hillary’s deepest criticism among voters is that she is polarizing and cold. She is largely viewed as too driven to pay attention to the human interest.
One Hillary supporter, however, is quick tell people that she is just opposite.
“She is extremely warm and welcoming,” said lawyer Karen Lines of San Francisco, Calif., who came to Iowa to campaign for Hillary. Lines and her friend Colleen Wilcox, who tagged along on Lines’ trip said the public opinion on Hillary is a byproduct of sexism and circumstance.
“It has to do with being a woman and being Bill Clinton’s wife,” Wilcox said. “People are resistant to change.”
And the sleeper, John Edwards, is banking on support from Iowa voters that he gained as Sen. John Kerry’s running mate in 2004. One end-of-the-year poll actually had him pegged as the front runner in Iowa after the Clinton-Obama mudslinging battle became a hot topic last month.
His appeal to the Iowa farming communities as a candidate who will keep their interests at the top of his priority list consistently puts him in third place in the polls.
How it will end in Iowa for the Democrats looks much clearer than for the Republicans, but only tonight will tell what Iowans really think. Then, Iowans, at the forefront of the 2008 election, will send a message to states like Colorado.
-Hedgefund
Republicans
When it comes to the public opinion in Iowa on presidential viability, the Republicans have had a much more confusing race than the Democrats – at least up until a couple of months ago when Iowa’s Republicans realized that Mike Huckabee represents everything for which the neoconservatives stand.
With his charismatic stage presence (unless he is playing the bass guitar), attractive mind set on the issues that matter to the religious right and his new secret weapon, Chuck Norris, the Huckster has taken the state by storm and surprised the nation with his climb from mediocrity to superstar status.
In the first 10 months of what is to be the longest, most crowded presidential race in the history of America, Republicans didn’t know where to turn. Their party was in shambles after further reports of failure in Iraq and failed foreign, education and security policy caused the Bush administration’s popularity to fall to dismal depths. This was not helped by a series of GOP sex scandals which destroyed their only good card, that moral values.
Mitt Romney was Mormon and a little fake; Rudy Giuliani was a cross-dressing, pro-choice, anti-gun, border security conundrum who ran his entire campaign off of fuel from his performance after the 9/11 attacks; and John McCain was more polarizing than Hillary Clinton. The rest of the candidates, including Huckabee, were no-name representatives, governors and actors with little to no political experience or bad track records.
But when Huckabee employed Chuck Norris as a volunteer campaign tool and started pandering to the right wing as a former Baptist pastor who knows what Christian values mean, he saturated the trail with what Norris calls “Chuck Norris facts” and religious candor.
The Republicans had found their candidate. Giuliani, who was the most viable option at the beginning of the race, kept making an ass of himself by mentioning 9/11 in his answers to every question and Romney began his smear campaign on Huckabee, leaving a bad taste in the mouths of many Republican voters.
“I don’t want to hear what one candidate is doing wrong, I want to hear what Romney’s going to do as president,” said one zealous Huckabee supporter plastered in stickers, holding a “Faith, family, and freedom” sign at a Des Moines ballroom after Norris spoke on behalf of Huckabee.
Meanwhile, Ron Paul and other marginalized candidates have been exposed to de facto exclusion from the race by FOX News when the conservative media outlet decided to host several Republican debates in New Hampshire and not invite the fringe candidates. Supporters of Paul say the GOP doesn’t want him to get the ticket because of his unconventional policies.
But each candidate has his merit and a large support base. Even Paul returned from the campaign trail in Florida to hold a Des Moines rally Wednesday night to which more than 600 people showed up.
Huckabee told reporters that the polls don’t necessarily reflect the public opinion. A state poll on Friday had Romney ahead by a big lead. Two days later, a Des Moines Register poll showed Huckabee nine percentage points ahead of Romney.
So with polls showing Huckabee in lead; Romney, McCain and Giuliani losing favor from Iowa voters; and Fred Thompson and Ron Paul fighting for fourth place, Iowa will have never been louder than they will be tonight.
Democrats
The Democratic presidential race was much easier to predict than that of the GOP.
The trend throughout the 10 months leading up to tonight has been clear. Hillary Clinton was ahead for most of the race, keeping her percentage in the polls hovering around 25 percent. The same happened with the John Edwards campaign. But as underdogs Dennis Kucinich, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and Mike Gravel became increasingly unpopular, Barack Obama gained the majority of the state’s youth favor, constantly playing his “Change we can believe in” card.
In November, that card put him ahead of everyone else in the minds of Iowans for the first time on the campaign trail, according to polls, and he has widened his lead ever since.
At a rally Wednesday night at Hoover High School in West Des Moines, Obama spoke to a crowd of over 2,000 students, community members and the press. Sure at this point that he will gain the Iowa vote as he is ahead of Clinton and Edwards by six percent and eight percent, respectively, Obama’s message was one of pending change.
He has scheduled a post-caucus event in what sounds like anticipation of a win.
But as he counts on the idealistic youth vote to push him over the hump of his inexperience, there is one problem, the 18- to 24-year-old demographic is the least likely to show up on caucus night. So banking on a maybe is certainly a gamble, but is one that must be taken by Obama, who has been criticized for not being able to gather large support from anyone but nation’s youth, including the black community.
And Clinton has garnered a handsome amount of approval from older female voters by playing to their emotions on issues like health care and advocating her Iraq withdrawal plan, which many voters view as the most sensible.
Historically, middle-aged white women show up in greater numbers than any other demographic on caucus night, which is why former President Bill Clinton stumped for his wife in a frigid cold, corrugated tin storage building outside of the Amana Colonies to crowd of several hundred rural Iowans New Year’s Day, saying that Hillary has the right mix of experience and ideology to fix the health care crisis, our failing energy policy and the U.S.’s spider web of education problems.
With Bill's record and respect in his party, Democratic voters not lured by Obama see a two-for-one when caucusing for Hillary.
But Hillary’s deepest criticism among voters is that she is polarizing and cold. She is largely viewed as too driven to pay attention to the human interest.
One Hillary supporter, however, is quick tell people that she is just opposite.
“She is extremely warm and welcoming,” said lawyer Karen Lines of San Francisco, Calif., who came to Iowa to campaign for Hillary. Lines and her friend Colleen Wilcox, who tagged along on Lines’ trip said the public opinion on Hillary is a byproduct of sexism and circumstance.
“It has to do with being a woman and being Bill Clinton’s wife,” Wilcox said. “People are resistant to change.”
And the sleeper, John Edwards, is banking on support from Iowa voters that he gained as Sen. John Kerry’s running mate in 2004. One end-of-the-year poll actually had him pegged as the front runner in Iowa after the Clinton-Obama mudslinging battle became a hot topic last month.
His appeal to the Iowa farming communities as a candidate who will keep their interests at the top of his priority list consistently puts him in third place in the polls.
How it will end in Iowa for the Democrats looks much clearer than for the Republicans, but only tonight will tell what Iowans really think. Then, Iowans, at the forefront of the 2008 election, will send a message to states like Colorado.
-Hedgefund
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Some of us heart Huckabee
Mike Huckabee jumped on his New Year’s Day stage, fresh through the doors of his tour "Huckabus" and the Cedar Rapids Elks Lodge at 12:30 p.m.and established his presence by immediately by strapping on the bass guitar and playing renditions of old blues songs like "Mustang Sally" and "Blue Suede Shoes" with an international blues band.
The two-member band is made up of a long-haired lead guitarist wearing a brown corduroy blazer and stoner glasses and a bald, goateed biker-looking drummer in blue jeans and a Larry the Cable Guy shirt.
After changing the line in "Mustang Sally" line that goes "you better slow your Mustang down" to "you better start following Mike Huckabee around," Craig Erickson, the Cedar Rapids-born guitarist who has played with Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix gave the stage up to Huckabee’s wife, Janet, who introduced her husband to the crowd of 200 plus northern Iowans in the lodge as the next president of the United States.
The majority of supporters at the Huckabee stump had never heard of him until the past few months, when he quickly ascended in the polls and finally overtook Mitt Romney this month.
Mark and Marie Scherbaum, of Marion, Iowa, have been taking their five home-schooled children around to as many Huckabee events as possible after they took their support away from Sam Brownback.
They said they realized Huck was the only candidate to support their traditional family values, much like many conservative religious groups who have backed the candidate in light of his recent surge in Iowa.
His ascent is largely fueled by his days as a Baptist minister, giving him favor in the religious
community.
"His whole train is pro-life from birth ‘til death," Marie said, illustrating the cycle of life with elaborate hand gestures.
"He has everyday values," Mark said.
The family also said Huck was the only truly comprehensive candidate who doesn’t give his ear to any special interests.
Indeed, the Huckster knows how to play on the emotions of his neoconservative base who want to see the GOP return to it’s core traditional values of small government and an expressed willingness to work with both ends of the political spectrum on any issue
But in a ballroom that could easily be converted to a sleezy strip club in west Des Moines seven hours after the Cedar Rapids event, he strengthened his newly-acquired lead in the polls with a special message from Chuck Norris while one of the only representatives of Iowa’s black community at the event slumped behind his complex switchboard and shook his head over Huckabee policy.
The sound technician who didn’t give me his name was probably the only person in the building who would say "He’s really not my type of guy" beside his workmate who was the spitting image a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war. He was too drunk to talk.
"Politics is more commons," the black man said, asserting that a representative of the country’s working class should not be elite.
"I’m not a fat cat," he said. "I don’t have money."
The skinny black man, who appeared to be in his late 50s, bared his gnarled teeth in a sarcastic snarl while he talked about how Huckabee’s proposed energy independence plan would be counterproductive for the country.
He asked if foreign oil reserves were not needed, why would we be buying from foreign sources?
He said substantial U.S. oil reserves didn’t exist.
"If that was the truth, we’d be using it right fuckin’ now," he said.
The governor wants to exempt the U.S. from deals made in the 1960s with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that bound the U.S. to Middle Eastern oil exports. The plan Huckabee wants to implement would utilize untapped domestic oil reserves, alternative energy sources like biodiesel and wind energy, and get rid of what Huckabee’s Web site calls OPEC’s "energy embargo against us."
Sounds slick, but Democrats don’t buy it.
"(Huckabee) sounds charismatic and good, if you don’t pay attention to what he’s saying," said Colleen Wilcox, a recently retired school superintendent who came to Iowa Friday to advocate for the Hillary Clinton campaign after Bill Clinton stumped for his wife in Amana, Iowa.
While polls show that Huckabee will probably win the Republican nomination in Iowa and ultimately the country, he will still have to run the gauntlet of a more diverse society and play on the emotions of people across the country who aren’t as stuck to tradition and deregulation as conservative Americans.
Looking up at the "Chuck and Huck" event like he was forced to experience Alex DeLarge’s horrific cleansing in "A Clockwork Orange," the sound technician illustrated his disdain for Huckabee’s pander to his new base.
"Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining," he said.
-Hedgefund
The two-member band is made up of a long-haired lead guitarist wearing a brown corduroy blazer and stoner glasses and a bald, goateed biker-looking drummer in blue jeans and a Larry the Cable Guy shirt.
After changing the line in "Mustang Sally" line that goes "you better slow your Mustang down" to "you better start following Mike Huckabee around," Craig Erickson, the Cedar Rapids-born guitarist who has played with Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix gave the stage up to Huckabee’s wife, Janet, who introduced her husband to the crowd of 200 plus northern Iowans in the lodge as the next president of the United States.
The majority of supporters at the Huckabee stump had never heard of him until the past few months, when he quickly ascended in the polls and finally overtook Mitt Romney this month.
Mark and Marie Scherbaum, of Marion, Iowa, have been taking their five home-schooled children around to as many Huckabee events as possible after they took their support away from Sam Brownback.
They said they realized Huck was the only candidate to support their traditional family values, much like many conservative religious groups who have backed the candidate in light of his recent surge in Iowa.
His ascent is largely fueled by his days as a Baptist minister, giving him favor in the religious
community.
"His whole train is pro-life from birth ‘til death," Marie said, illustrating the cycle of life with elaborate hand gestures.
"He has everyday values," Mark said.
The family also said Huck was the only truly comprehensive candidate who doesn’t give his ear to any special interests.
Indeed, the Huckster knows how to play on the emotions of his neoconservative base who want to see the GOP return to it’s core traditional values of small government and an expressed willingness to work with both ends of the political spectrum on any issue
But in a ballroom that could easily be converted to a sleezy strip club in west Des Moines seven hours after the Cedar Rapids event, he strengthened his newly-acquired lead in the polls with a special message from Chuck Norris while one of the only representatives of Iowa’s black community at the event slumped behind his complex switchboard and shook his head over Huckabee policy.
The sound technician who didn’t give me his name was probably the only person in the building who would say "He’s really not my type of guy" beside his workmate who was the spitting image a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war. He was too drunk to talk.
"Politics is more commons," the black man said, asserting that a representative of the country’s working class should not be elite.
"I’m not a fat cat," he said. "I don’t have money."
The skinny black man, who appeared to be in his late 50s, bared his gnarled teeth in a sarcastic snarl while he talked about how Huckabee’s proposed energy independence plan would be counterproductive for the country.
He asked if foreign oil reserves were not needed, why would we be buying from foreign sources?
He said substantial U.S. oil reserves didn’t exist.
"If that was the truth, we’d be using it right fuckin’ now," he said.
The governor wants to exempt the U.S. from deals made in the 1960s with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that bound the U.S. to Middle Eastern oil exports. The plan Huckabee wants to implement would utilize untapped domestic oil reserves, alternative energy sources like biodiesel and wind energy, and get rid of what Huckabee’s Web site calls OPEC’s "energy embargo against us."
Sounds slick, but Democrats don’t buy it.
"(Huckabee) sounds charismatic and good, if you don’t pay attention to what he’s saying," said Colleen Wilcox, a recently retired school superintendent who came to Iowa Friday to advocate for the Hillary Clinton campaign after Bill Clinton stumped for his wife in Amana, Iowa.
While polls show that Huckabee will probably win the Republican nomination in Iowa and ultimately the country, he will still have to run the gauntlet of a more diverse society and play on the emotions of people across the country who aren’t as stuck to tradition and deregulation as conservative Americans.
Looking up at the "Chuck and Huck" event like he was forced to experience Alex DeLarge’s horrific cleansing in "A Clockwork Orange," the sound technician illustrated his disdain for Huckabee’s pander to his new base.
"Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining," he said.
-Hedgefund
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
