I am just an ordinary citizen going to observe the Iowa Caucus in this wintery wonderland. Catch up on my journey by reading this post.
This will be a mega weekend consisting of the Super Bowl on Sunday, Iowa Caucus on Monday and the President’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. All under the shadow of a very long and drawn out impeachment trial.
I was worried about not being able to make any candidate events because I couldn’t leave Florida until Sunday afternoon. I already knew I was missing Vampire Weekend perform for the Bernie Sanders campaign. Thanks to the trial, at least half of the field missed the vital last week before Iowa caucus Monday. So hopefully many candidates may squeeze in events at the last minute!
Chandra Says
Going to the Iowa Caucus
Once I decided to go to Iowa, I had to figure out the details. My first step was to email the Drake professor who introduced me to this process. I thought she would be able to guide me on where to start.
Her initial comment was this:
- the smaller precincts outside of urban areas are hit or miss
- Des Moines, Ames, and Iowa City are likely to have massive turnout and they will be particularly chaotic.
- Drake University: to see first-time caucus-goers,
- For a big caucus that is likely relatively well-organized the outskirts of Des Moines — West Des Moines or Clive or Johnston or Ankeny or Altoona.
- All the big candidate “victory parties” will be around Des Moines that night (the main reporting center will be in Des Moines)
After some research, I initially selected Ankeny. I wanted to go somewhere with some diversity. Based on city stats, this seemed like the closest (although it is still pretty homogeneously white) to what I was looking for.
However, after remembering the sky tunnel system of walkways to access downtown Des Moines, I thought better of going out into the suburbs of Iowa. It must be really cold. I don’t want to venture too far away from those beautiful barriers of the wintery wind chill.
Besides…did someone say party?!
Finding an Iowa Caucus to Attend
I went on the Iowa Caucus website to find the caucus locations. They seem to be assigned by the voting precinct using their home address.
Using the address of the hotel I will be staying at, I found one right around the corner. This one possibly may be filled with older residents of downtown and/or young executives. I found out that Drake University is still looking for volunteers. This may be interesting because a lot of them will be passionate young students who will be caucusing for the first time. I am interested to hear their debates.
Side note: This is the first year Iowa is allowing satellite locations to caucus. Meaning there will be caucus sites in Florida for their snowbirds to participate in! I was a little perturbed to learn that, but whatever, I’m going to see snow! Just like my decision to not observe Nevada caucus, I am opting to see the original, real deal Iowa experience.
So many reasons to be excited!
First, I can’t wait to see behind the scenes of the media circus. Thanks to attendance at Florida Blog Conference I realized that I can be considered media! This burgeoning world of social media influencers and bloggers means that news comes from more places than the big 5 networks. I will totally geek out if I run into any of my favorite journalists. My celebrities are Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid! Not to mention the commentators such as David Axelrod and Micheal Steele. It will be so amazing to watch them as they report from the scene!
Secondly, the city of Des Moines was so pretty this July and I wonder what the winter does to this city! There is a beautiful river running right through the city. Will it be frozen?
Finally, I will have an entire hotel room to myself for 2 glorious days! What will I do with myself?! Stay tuned to find out!
The biggest question I have right now is…
How do I survive this weather? It will probably be the coldest thing this Southerner has ever seen!
Chandra Says: Girl, Get Going!
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