2015

After five days on the road with the top three Democratic presidential candidates, I’m back at home decompressing and sorting through all the interesting tidbits that didn’t make it into my main posts. Here’s some good odds and ends of what I saw out at eight Sanders events, four Clinton events and an O’Malley one:…

Update 9/8: The O’Malley campaign released a list of 17 Iowa endorsements the day after Labor Day, framing it as part of their entrance into a new phase of campaigning in the Iowa Caucus. A handful of these names were already known from a while ago (well, to me anyway), but there’s several important new…

It was a pleasant, laid-back setting on a warm afternoon in State Senator Liz Mathis’ backyard, where about 125 local Democrats sat around folding picnic tables to listen to Hillary Clinton speak. The day was a sleepier affair than some of the recent Iowa events held by other candidates, but not every Iowa Caucus event…

Bernie Sanders may not be appearing at any Labor Day events in Iowa today like Hillary Clinton and Martin O’Malley are, but his presence will certainly be felt after winning over many union members with a campaign stop three days ago. At an informational picketing demonstration outside of Penford Products in Cedar Rapids on Friday,…

The sun had begun to drop behind a picturesque Iowa cornfield as Bernie Sanders took to the stage at a rally in Burlington on Thursday. By the time he was finished, it was pitch black outside. His voice turned scratchy by the end of the day, and his Brooklyn accent got thicker as the night…

Iowa will retake its position as number two in the nation for wind energy production by the end of 2015, organizers of the Iowa Wind Power Conference said on Wednesday. The state’s wind industry will accomplish that by generating 5,700 megawatts of electricity. Moving back up in the rankings is an impressive feat, the conference’s…

Like a swarm of minimum wage-raising locusts, Democratic candidates will barnstorm Iowa cities over the next five days, hitting many Labor Day-related events. Bernie Sanders is first up with a two-day swing through mostly eastern and southeastern Iowa. Martin O’Malley lands in the state on Saturday for a three-day, nine-stop tour, checking in on central…

A little over a week after the 95th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, Hillary Clinton’s Iowa campaign brought together their newly-formed Women for Hillary organization to mobilize support to elect the first female president. A good crowd of over 100 met at a private home in Des Moines’…

If you didn’t know any better, you might have thought Tom Harkin was Bernie Sanders’ surrogate speaker at Progress Iowa’s Corn Feed event on Sunday. Actually, scratch that – you might have concluded that Harkin was using his speech to push Sanders to the left. To a crowd of a couple hundred, Harkin laid out…

Endorsements are a complicated issue. For one thing, there is always an open question about if endorsements matter. (Is anyone really swayed by the fact that Lil B has endorsed Bernie Sanders?) Additionally, there is a concern about why someone would choose to endorse; if there’s quid involved for the quo. In Iowa, these concerns…