Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

December 31, 2007: Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) and his mother make a campaign stop at the Ames Public Library (Story County). Catherine Biden died three years later.

New Year’s Eve 2007 — four days before the caucuses — was just as full of events as the previous days, and two Democrats had events in counties next door to each other in central Iowa.

In Ames, Joe Biden name-dropped world leaders he had talked to as a senator, but said he knew just talking to them didn’t make him important (a veiled dig at Clinton). In the Q&A, he said “I’m not going to take the time to explain the background” repeatedly… and then did.

My conclusion written hours later: “No handshake because of time, he had to get to mini-press conference nearby (reporter from Boston TV station among others). Big on foreign policy and leadership, lots of experience, ready to take action. Light on domestic aside from a good chunk on health care. He knows what he’s talking about, but is anyone listening?”

It would turn out no one was; Biden ended up as a rounding error in the caucus totals. Months later, all that foreign policy talk would turn out to be just the thing the Iowa Democratic caucuses’ winner needed…

December 31, 2007: Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) speaks at the Boone County Fairgrounds.

A train delayed Barack Obama’s whistle-stop appearance in Boone County by nearly half an hour. But just like Clinton, a warm welcome came once he was in the room. The following is lightly edited from my notes.

The biggest applause line was “George W. Bush isn’t on the ballot next November.” Applause/laughs followed “Neither is my cousin Dick Cheney.” He systematically hit on criticism against him, plus poked at Clinton (“There are some people digging through my kindergarten papers”).

Americans can change America if they hope for and want it enough, he said. (Maybe not exactly those words, but some parts sounded naive even while he tried to debunk that they were naive.) Plenty of optimism.

Light on foreign policy, a reverse from Biden, aside from applause-getting lines about ending the war in Iraq in part because it’s costing too much.

BOTH Biden and Obama talked about health care using an example of a diabetic going to an emergency room for a foot amputation, but heath plans won’t cover going to a dietitian before the need for the amputation happens. I have no idea where that example came from.

If Obama was 3 years into his second/third Senate term, or 3 years into his first Senate term after 4-8 years as governor, he’d have a good shot.

(“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” — Yogi Berra, or possibly Niels Bohr)

December 30, 2007: Chelsea Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Tom Vilsack at the Traer Memorial Building. It’s weird to attend a political event when people you know are in the audience.

After Christmas, Hillary Clinton was in a flat-out sprint toward Jan. 3. Events were announced maybe 48 hours in advance. Among the five(!) events set up for Dec. 30 was a stop at the Traer Memorial Building. This was her “Tama County Picks a President” stop and I had to be there. It’s not every day a candidate visits your home town — although in Iowa, of course, the chances are better than the rest of the country.

Chelsea Clinton had only begun hitting the campaign trail herself at the beginning of the month. She was there with former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who gave a speech beforehand (and also stalled since Clinton was late). Clinton arrived to enthusiastic cheers — Tama County had voted Democratic the last five presidential elections — and gave a wide-ranging, but well-practiced, stump speech.

After you see enough of these, you understand why candidates have talking points — they have to be repeated often and one slip-up earns exactly the coverage you don’t want.

Because this was the final countdown, national media turned up in Traer in force, and OMG I look hideous. (So, the usual. — Ed.) This would be the last campaign cycle where the vast majority of pictures were taken with cameras instead of phones.

Clinton was the second presidential candidate to appear in Traer, about 20 years and a month after the first.

December 5, 1987: Vice President George H.W. Bush (right) at the Traer Memorial Building. Family archive photo.

It is a well known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. — Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

As an Iowan and political junkie (back before constantly drowning in covfefe), I have a collection of obscure-candidate items from the past three election cycles that would make Jake Tapper jealous. From my vantage point, I have seen enough of the sausage factory to know that I don’t want any part of it.

There’s no better encapsulation of this than the last three days of 2007 (thanks, Florida), when a bit of fortune and a bit of strategery enabled me to do something few Americans get the chance to do. Through my own notes, pictures, and contemporary coverage, here’s a journey with five presidential candidates in five counties in three days.

December 29, 2007: Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani stops at his campaign headquarters in Clive.

In the five months preceding the caucuses, Rudy Giuliani was in Iowa six times, and only three involved Polk County. My merely getting into the building for his last was a victory. People wanted to see him, but he didn’t really want to see Iowans; he had staked everything on winning Florida (see intro). I found myself standing shoulder-to-shoulder with political columnist David Yepsen, nowhere near the front, trying to get a glimpse of what turned out to be Giuliani mostly signing a few things and saying very few words. (This was a blessing because a small, packed room with everyone in winter coats is no bueno.) Rudy finished sixth in Iowa and his campaign cratered in Florida.

December 29, 2007: Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee talks with an Iowan at Signature Bar and Grill, Indianola (Warren County).

After the Giuliani appearance I drove to Indianola in time to see most of a media availability with Mike Huckabee. See this short story from a CBS reporter who also made both those events for more background. Huckabee, neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney in the polls at the time, defended his new aggressive stance against Romney. In the 2008 campaign cycle, authenticity was a thing on the Republican side, and Romney supposedly didn’t have it. C-SPAN had a 25-minute session with him shortly afterward. Huckabee would score an upset victory in the caucuses, propelled in no small part by Iowa social conservative voice Steve Deace. The eventual winner of the Republican nomination, though, would be John McCain, who I saw Sept. 12 shortly after his campaign was left for dead (NYT) and he was testing his “No Surrender” theme in front of veterans.

The town of Delphos snuffed itself out this fall, and no one noticed.

The community of 25 submitted a notice of discontinuance to the City Development Board that was accepted Oct. 4 (PDF).

A lot of the people in the town are people you wouldn’t want on the Council, to put it nicely. We can’t keep a City Clerk—we don’t pay enough as an incentive for someone to do the bookwork. It just came to the point where we just need to give it up.

Delphos, in southwestern Ringgold County, is so remote Google Street View hasn’t been there yet. The county road that serves it is a narrow blacktop, not uncommon in that part of the state. I passed through in 2014 and didn’t see anything that merited a picture.

I have expected a cascade of disincorporations to start at any time; so far, though, it’s only about one a year. We ended up with two in 2017 because Mount Union’s dissolution got messy.