Author: Team Starting Line

Former HUD Secretary Julian Castro brought his entire family to the Iowa State Fair, while former Congressman John Delaney flipped some burgers and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard grabbed a root beer. Meanwhile, Andrew Yang gnawed on a giant turkey leg and Marianne Williamson met voters at the Iowa Democratic Party’s booth. Here’s what their days at the Fair looked like: Julian Castro Julian Castro was the first candidate to speak at the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox Friday morning, so he spent the rest of the morning enjoying the Iowa State Fair with his family. Castro’s 4-year-old son, Cristian, quickly stole […]

By now, Iowa acivists have seen in-person or heard on TV more than two dozen Democrats running for president. Whether they attended the Hall of Fame dinner in Cedar Rapids, the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding Friday night in Clear Lake or an intimate gathering at a coffee shop, voters are beginning to narrow down their long lists of favored presidential candidates. At the Wing Ding, Iowans heard from 20 Democratic candidates running to unseat Republican president Donald Trump. The sold-out Clear Lake event, beginning in 2003 as a modest gathering of local Democrats, featured nearly every candidate running for president […]

Welcome to our first Scenes From The Iowa Caucus Trail piece! The Starting Line team has long wanted to do some sort of regular Sunday morning series to give our readers something consistent to read with their coffee and morning news shows. We’ve settled on doing a round-up of all the fun, weird and insightful moments from the Iowa Caucus trail from the past week. There are lots of interesting things we see while out at events that don’t necessarily make for a full story. Some of those we put in our subscription-based newsletter, which comes out Monday, Wednesday and […]

Fresh off her presidential debate performance, one that catapulted her to the top of Google candidate searches for the evening, Marianne Williamson returned to Iowa today for a series of events with local Democrats. At an event in Grimes, the author acknowledged that some of her comments on stage about the lack of importance of policy plans may have come off as “silly.” She noted the social media jokes that followed, but reassured the crowd she both had extensive policy ideas and knew the necessity of getting them passed. “I am a left-wing Democrat. I am a progressive Democrat,” Williamson […]

If you haven’t stopped thinking about Marianne Williamson’s debate promise to harness love to cast out Donald Trump, just know this: that moment was 100% pure, unadulterated Marianne, and yes, she is always in that mode. Iowans have gotten the full Marianne Williamson experience up close for almost a year. She started with early, testing-the-waters visits last fall, and has been sharing her unique, spiritual and anti-establishment message in living rooms, alternative book stores and Yoga studios ever since. Many of those events have started off with a poetry reading and sometimes local musical performances. She’s been a frequent visitor […]