My apologies for not continuing my daily posts, but the polling took a downturn of a couple percent for Amy over the weekend and I knew better than to cast doubt on my candidate. The polls got weird too, with the Selzer Poll for the Register and CNN and the hour long primetime broadcast featuring it pulled at :00 due to possible interviewing error(s). Then with us Iowa pundits best navigation device down, CBS news dropped a poll Sunday which appeared then quickly disappeared from 538’s roster of Iowa polling. 538 has serious scruples, suggesting that poll had problems and 538 didn’t want to include it.

So caucus afternoon I road tripped to Sioux City Precinct 20 armed with a small collection of Amy lit, stickers, buttons, and signs. Told to report to campaign HQ there to pick up a “caucus box” of supplies, by late afternoon that had been picked over to comprise more of the above and I had to supply the box. Had a pre-caucus dinner at Culver’s then dutifully showed up at Precinct 20’s caucus in Augustana Lutheran Church’s gym at 5:30. The caucus was well and efficiently run by the book and by 8:30 Amy got no delegates and I was making time northbound on The King of Trails, AKA US75.

The after caucus routine is turn on Iowa Public Radio’s news network and by the time I arrive home in Minnesota a couple hours later the’ve communicated to me a pretty good idea of the results. Instead we got a lot of time killing interrupted by occasional missives from the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) assuring us that everything was under control and just be patient. After a bit of this the candidates realized there was dead air to be filled and pretty much gave their stump speeches to their assembled supporters at the victory parties and the rest of us waiting for real news. 

Got home and online around 11 and noted that the conspiracy theorists were having a field day  while 538 was pumping out their usual reasoned analysis of the debacle. Then a couple campaigns tried to be clever, first with Buttigieg all but claiming victory based on reports from their caucus captains. Then Bernie’s campaign tweeted their own caucus captain’s take based on reports from 40% or so of the caucuses. 

So based on this spotty data it looks like Pete and Bernie may be about tied for the lead, with Liz trailing by a bit and Amy and Joe barely in double digits. If that’s true Pete is now the moderate challenger to Bernie, Liz fulfilled expectations and Amy exceeded them, and Joe should work on an exit strategy.

The Iowa Democratic Party promises at least partial results at 4pm, which the candidates who didn’t meet expectations will plausibly deny, going on to New Hampshire and beyond ’til the money runs out… Sometime in June, maybe?

Full house… And Amy ain’t even due for another half hour!

I counted about 200 in attendance today in Sioux City, better than Biden drew a couple days ago in much more populous Iowa City. If you want a seat where Amy’s speaking, you’d best get there a half hour early. These are the marks of a surging candidate- A room full of energetic supporters and note the plentiful media in the back. This is what the campaign that will make it out of Iowa and maybe lead the rest out of Iowa looks like- Broad appeal to all democrats with a positive message and electability that wins in purple and even red districts.

Been following the Iowa polling and Amy’s been surging and is polling in double digits in 7 of the last 9 polls. Even the cautious handicappers at 538 have noted the trend in this post: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-is-klobuchar-having-a-last-minute-surge-in-iowa/

One of the latest of these polls by well regarded pollster Emerson College has Amy passing Elizabeth Warren to move into 3rd place behind Sanders and Biden, here’s the link: http://emersonpolling.com/2020/01/27/iowa-2020-sanders-solidifies-frontrunner-status-in-iowa-while-klobuchar-nears-viability/  

This is the only recent poll of Iowa that broke down results by congressional district, and it showed Amy over performing her statewide result of 13% with 16% in northeastern Iowa’s 1st congressional district and 15% in southwestern Iowa’s 3rd congressional district. This means Amy will probably have the support to pass the 15% threshold for earning delegates at many caucuses as well as at these congressional district conventions. 

Nice to have some good news for Amy and all democrats on a day when the republicans put party before country and made Trump the Imperial President. I’m off to Sioux City tomorrow to catch Amy’s appearance and pick up some signs, I’ll be back in Iowa Monday night to speak on behalf of Amy at a caucus, and I might make it home Sunday… But I’ll update the blog daily through caucus.

The silver fox of the stump speech brought to you by Hillary campaign 3.0?

It was deja Hillary when I arrived an hour early- seats for maybe 200 and darn near as many press and a carefully arranged backdrop of flag, signs, and seats behind the candidate that were slow to fill. I was underwhelmed, and then our candidate arrived on “Clinton Standard Time”, over a half hour late. Then the silver fox, the master politician, went to work… Old school, but most impressive delivery and some fiery content. We had the pleasure of watching a master of political communication at work, the kind we don’t see much anymore and may never again when they’re gone.

Unfortunately, the masses no longer appreciate oratory like Joe Biden’s… The crowd was maybe 250 while Pete Buttigieg draws near twice that in a county with a 20th of Iowa City’s hordes of democrats. The enthusiasm was lacking too, the audience being way too Iowa nice to interrupt Joe with frequent applause.So will those silent Iowans attend the caucuses en masse and provide Joe a victory? Or will Joe again be the odd and now old man out in the Iowa caucuses?

That’s Amy packin’ ‘em in to the rafters at the historic Orpheum Theater in Sioux City last Thursday. Been the same story at every stop in Iowa lately, a few days before Amy drew damn near a hundred democrats and a few sensible republicans in a county with barely a thousand registered democrats. Those numbers match the record turnouts Obama drew in 2007 and these were middle of the workday events!

Polling belatedly tells the same story, Amy has risen from the rabble of candidates and qualified for the January debates, one of only five candidates to do so. The campaign is gaining experience too- A month ago they made the newbie mistake of stashing chairs while the cameras rolled when the crowd didn’t match the room’s capacity due to poor scheduling communication… Now they’re hunting up chairs for overflow crowds and holding regular door knocks out of busy campaign offices while other candidate’s offices are closed.

So it’s time to take Amy seriously- She really can win Iowa, she’s pulling  the same huge crowds and polling well too in New Hampshire, and some of my “snowbird” friends from here in Minnesota are campaigning up a storm of support for Amy in Nevada, and I’m sure our snowbirds are doing the same in South Carolina! So take Amy seriously, a vote for Amy sure as heck ain’t wasted, and a few small donations would help too!

Got the annual holiday call from my republican brother from Iowa the other day, and he noted the vast choice of candidates he’d have at the caucuses this year. What? 

Yup, my brother, who unlike the rest of the family has been a republican all his adult life, is caucusing as a democrat! Heck, he’s even been a republican candidate and local party officer. In opinions he’s still pro-life and capitalist, but Amy Klobuchar has won him over. Like my brother, Amy wants a “public option” so everyone can afford health insurance. Like Amy, my brother believes in civility and decency. And my brother knows that Amy is our most electable candidate because she appeals to democrats, independents, and moderate republicans… and that’s why he’s supporting Amy!

And my brother ain’t the only republican following Amy- Who should I see at an Amy campaign stop in Esterville, Iowa than a well known republican party leader from my county? This is how Amy wins over all democrats, independents, and thoughtful republicans with policies that work for all of us and a campaign that welcomes everyone. This is how Amy has won landslide victories in Minnesota with more votes than any other statewide democratic candidate, winning in red districts where no other democrat can. This is how Amy will win the Iowa caucuses, our democratic party’s nomination, and the presidency!  

Amy visits every last Iowa county!

As a retired truck driver and now motorcycle tourist I’ve visited over a thousand counties… But I think Amy has me beat! Having already visited all of Minnesota’s 87 counties several times over, Amy’s talking to residents of every one of Iowa’s 99 counties. That’s what makes a great progressive democratic president- The tenacity to talk with and win over voters everywhere!

Amy started the day with county number 97, Emmet County, with a stop in Esterville. Amy -:30 and the place is packed. NBC network has a full crew here in a TV dead zone that is usually lucky to see a small market local affilliate. Amy’s gettin’ Big Mo!

Medicare is not one glorious socialist panacea, more correctly it’s a massive government/private insurance program that comes in a variety of flavors depending on what option the insured selects. And it doesn’t cover everything, in fact Medicare insureds are having the same problems with “surprise!” bills as everyone else. But Medicare is damn efficient, especially when it’s allowed to control prices. That said, Medicare can and has been ripped off for millions of $$$. Rapidly expanding Medicare would make these shortcomings even worse- Think of it as all the ACA rollout problems multiplied by most of our nations population. And even after a decade or so when those growing pains have gone away, with no remaining competition, what’s to keep Medicare from becoming a bloated overpriced insurer that we have no alternative to?

So clearly, a rapid transition to Medicare For All won’t solve the problem.

What can get us there is tweaks to the system, and not just ordinary tweaks, I mean “demon tweaks”. That’s a term invented by Brit car racers for small inexpensive “tweaks” that greatly increased the performance of a car. In government, many of the big changes for the better of us citizens came not from massive highly publicized legislation like Medicare For All, but instead from “demon tweaks” buried in bills hundreds of pages long. 

One of the best legislative “demon tweaks” ever was the language that made it easier for disabled adults over 50 to qualify for Social Security Disability. That change, passed during the last recession, allowed a lot of older workers for whom vocational rehabilitation and further education would be a poor investment to gracefully retire a few years early and open up jobs for younger workers. Our more thoughtful candidates for president are offering a similar “demon tweak”, a “Public Option” to provide access to affordable health insurance for millions who do not have the good fortune of having good insurance through work or other connections.

That’s just one of the “demon tweaks”  that can fix our health insurance system without too rapidly forcing everyone into Medicare- For example, Senator Amy Klobuchar is working on legislation that will reduce the minimum bed requirement for Critical Care Rural Hospitals so they don’t have to waste millions on oversized facilities that will never be used to capacity. Throw in some more just plain common sense tweaks like allowing small federal contractors and their employees to buy into the Federal Employee Health Benefit plans and a bunch of similar tweaks to allow all Americans to take advantage of the purchasing power of large health care purchasers and we provide the benefits of Medicare For All and then some while giving consumers more choices in programs that won’t take a decade or more to roll out.

Demon Tweaks… If I can tweak my car, why can’t we tweak our health care for the better?

Here’s the link

Being familiar with Amy Klobuchar as a Minnesotan, she was a natural first choice for me. As her campaign initially stumbled I supported Warren. But all along I knew if Amy broke 5% in the polls and made the November debates, I’d be back on board. She did both, so I decided if she broke 10% polling by January I’d keep backing Amy. Not even half way through december Amy has surged past 10% and qualified for the december debate. 

Here’s a link to more polling: link

Yup, those polls are old, from 2003-4. At this point in the race, december 16 years ago, John Kerry was polling at 9% in 3rd place behind Howard Dean at 26% and Dick Gephart at 22%. On caucus night Kerry won with 38% of the delegates with Edwards winning 32% and Dean 18%. Dean’s “Iowa Perfect Storm” was overhyped as many winter storms are, and Iowa democrats went for the moderate they trusted instead of Dean’s progressive promises.

Also notable is Warren’s drop in the polls… Perhaps Iowa democrats flirt with the progressives, then vote for the moderate candidates?

Iowa’s 4th congressional district AKA Northwest Iowa and then some is a field operations nightmare with barely 118 thousand registered democrats in a district a couple hundred miles across that is darn near half of Iowa. To put that in perspective, there’s damn near as many registered democrats, 116 thousand, in just Polk County AKA Des Moines. And while parts of the district get as far blue as purple, this is the white homeland of neo-nazi congressmen Steve King, though democratic opponent J.D. Sholten is doing his best to retire him. For democratic presidential field operations, this is one of their toughest challenges.

So it was that I wandered to Sioux City in search of some “ground truth” as to just what was happening on the ground in Iowa 4. ’Twas perfect weather for doorknockin’, with no snow and temps into the 50s, and the Amy Klobuchar campaign was taking advantage of it as at least 15 staffers and volunteers feasted on pizza before heading out to knock some turf, A good sign for a campaign getting off to a slow start.  

Cross the street and round the corner I checked in with the Bernie campaign where a couple staffers kept the place alive while doorknockers were out in the streets. They’re tightly targeting to voters that have responded to previous contacts and events, suggesting Bernie’s campaign is looking to stay alive and win some delegates in Iowa rather than an outright win. They talked of 4 thousand contacts by noon and 35 thousand next weekend- Respectable numbers, but there are over six hundred thousand registered democrats in Iowa. Nice folks, and thanks for the donation of some Bernie lawn signs which will raise funds for our local democratic party units.

Next up was Pete’s campaign office, nice and neat inside with a couple cars parked out front and a closed sign on the door… At 1pm on a beautiful Saturday not even two months away from the caucuses? Ditto at the Warren campaign office, but not a single car out front. Checked the listed Steyer campaign office around the corner, and no sign of human habitation- not a single sign out front and blackness inside. Would one expect any less from a campaign where “cutting turf” probably means deciding what TV markets to saturate?

Biden’s campaign office was in a bit more upmarket ‘hood in a strip mall, but there were signs of life at least- One staffer present, some moderate clutter, and they wouldn’t let me smuggle any of their nice 3 by 5 lawn signs back to Minnesota in deference to their Iowa needs. Got some more background on the heckler that harassed Joe the other day from an eyewitness- Good to see Joe make an example of that indecent Trumpster. As I suspected, Joe’s choice to confront such harassment is playing well in rural Iowa.

Checked Liz and Pete’s campaign offices again, still MIA… If someone had to close up while they ran an errand, they’d be back by now. So what the heck is going on with half the major candidate’s offices in a county with 17,380 registered democrats being closed? A messy campaign office is a sign of a winning campaign, and looks like Pete and Liz’s campaign offices are too tidy. Both campaigns may simply be overextended- That day Pete’s campaign had eight “flights” of doorknockers heading our of four northwest Iowa locations, But Liz’s campaign only had three flights out of that sole Sioux City office in northwest Iowa.  Closing the campaign office to send every last person out door knocking is a desperation move, like pulling your goalie in hockey. So while Pete’s campaign may be just spread too thin which is not always a bad thing in rural areas, Liz’s MIA campaign staff is ground truth to my suspicions that her campaign has stalled. Steyer is clearly running a ghost campaign that only appears in 2D. Joe’s campaign is clearly hitting on at least a couple cylinders. And Amy’s. campaign is  “punching above their weight” , exceeding expectations as she’s moving up into the top tier.

Finally, every campaign trying to meet Iowa’s 600,000+ registered democrats at their front doors at a rate of maybe 20 per doorknocker on a good day has my utmost respect!