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Iowa Episode 1: The Stakes · Pod Save America

0:04
Speaker 1: Back in August, I went canvassing with Matt Felsenfels, an
0:07
Speaker 1: organizer for the Warren campaign. We're in the Northridge area,
0:11
Speaker 1: like less than a half mile that way. It's just
0:13
Speaker 1: like fields. It's a beautiful late summer evening in suburban Iowa.
0:17
Speaker 1: Matt's knocking on doors, but no one is home.
0:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's, you know, it's hit.
0:28
Speaker 3: Or miss at this time.
0:29
Speaker 1: You know, you're either going to get a.
0:30
Speaker 4: Ton of people home or.
0:32
Speaker 1: What happens next, though, is important. It's not super dramatic,
0:35
Speaker 1: but it's important. Matt spots an older guy out walking
0:46
Speaker 1: his dog. He's literally the only potential voter we've seen
0:49
Speaker 1: since we got there.
0:50
Speaker 4: What are you doing tonight?
0:53
Speaker 5: Actually, I'm Senator Warren's organizer here in this part of Maine.
0:58
Speaker 6: Are you planning on caucusing this year?
1:01
Speaker 4: What party?
1:03
Speaker 3: Democratic Party.
1:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, I could do that. Awesome.
1:06
Speaker 6: Love to hear it.
1:07
Speaker 5: Do you know who you're going to be caucusing for
1:09
Speaker 5: yet this year?
1:10
Speaker 4: Do you have some.
1:10
Speaker 1: Candidates in mind?
1:12
Speaker 4: No, I really don't.
1:13
Speaker 1: Totally up in the air?
1:14
Speaker 5: Well, I encourage you to check out Senator Warren.
1:17
Speaker 4: Well, Elizabeth Warren has been a good candidate as far
1:21
Speaker 4: as I can see in all the debates and so
1:25
Speaker 4: on and so forth. Awesome.
1:28
Speaker 2: I don't know if you'd be willing to grab a
1:29
Speaker 2: cup of coffee or something sometime this week?
1:32
Speaker 4: Sure could.
1:33
Speaker 7: Love it.
1:33
Speaker 4: What's your.
1:34
Speaker 1: What's your schedule looking like?
1:37
Speaker 4: Let's see, I'm retired, so nothing. Nothing?
1:41
Speaker 1: Love it, love it.
1:42
Speaker 2: Do you want me to just come by?
1:43
Speaker 6: Or do you want to meet somewhere?
1:44
Speaker 4: We could do a cafe deal. You can just come by.
1:47
Speaker 4: Sounds good.
1:48
Speaker 1: In just a couple minutes, Matt had turned small talk
1:51
Speaker 1: about a dog into a pitch for Elizabeth Warren. And
1:54
Speaker 1: that is how you win in Iowa.
1:57
Speaker 5: Man, you're a pro.
2:01
Speaker 1: Every moment's an opportunity to organize it. I'm Tommy Vitor,
2:05
Speaker 1: and this is a special Pod Save America series from
2:08
Speaker 1: the ground in Iowa. Today, what I learned in Iowa
2:20
Speaker 1: on the Obama campaign. Next episode, we're going to look
2:23
Speaker 1: at how Iowa got to go first. We'll look at
2:25
Speaker 1: all that history. In episode three, we're going to talk
2:27
Speaker 1: about what it takes to win in Iowa. And then
2:29
Speaker 1: in episode four, we're going to explore some potentially better
2:32
Speaker 1: ways to pick the nominee. Iowa is a weird place.
2:37
Speaker 1: Not the state. The people in Iowa are wonderful. But
2:39
Speaker 1: it's strange that the state holds so much power in
2:42
Speaker 1: our presidential politics. The caucus rules are Byzantine and they're
2:46
Speaker 1: arguably undemocratic. The voters skew old and white, especially when
2:50
Speaker 1: you compare them to Democrats nationwide. And the campaigning in
2:53
Speaker 1: Iowa is intense to the point of just being absurd.
2:56
Speaker 1: When I was working for President Obama in Iowa in 2008,
2:59
Speaker 1: a staffer named Dennis McDonough was on the ground for
3:02
Speaker 1: that final sprint. Dennis is an experienced foreign policy expert.
3:05
Speaker 1: He actually went on to be the White House chief
3:07
Speaker 1: of staff. And he was so hellbent on signing up
3:11
Speaker 1: one couple for Obama that he got their policy questions
3:13
Speaker 1: personally answered by Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader.
3:17
Speaker 1: And when a huge snowstorm hit, Dennis shoveled out their driveway.
3:21
Speaker 1: They still caucus for Hillary Clinton. But Obama won the state.
3:25
Speaker 1: And I'll be honest, the fact that we won is
3:28
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I have such fond memories
3:30
Speaker 1: of the Iowa caucuses. But there's a lot of people
3:33
Speaker 1: that hate them, and we're going to get deep into
3:35
Speaker 1: all the reasons why in this series. But before that,
3:39
Speaker 1: I want to talk about what a caucus even is,
3:42
Speaker 1: how they work, and what it takes to win in Iowa.
3:45
Speaker 1: And we're going to ask the question that comes up
3:47
Speaker 1: every time these candidates descend on Iowa, is this really
3:50
Speaker 1: a good way to pick a president? Here's where I'm
3:55
Speaker 1: going to ask you to go on a little sentimental
3:56
Speaker 1: journey with me. It's July 4th, 2007. We are in
4:00
Speaker 1: a little town called Pella. in southeastern Iowa. It's me,
4:04
Speaker 1: the press corps, about 30 Iowans sitting on folding chairs
4:07
Speaker 1: on someone's front lawn, and Barack and Michelle Obama. Malia
4:10
Speaker 1: and Sasha were there, too.
4:12
Speaker 3: This is a special day for us because our oldest daughter, Malia,
4:16
Speaker 3: is nine years old. And she was so kind to
4:21
Speaker 3: come along with us on this tour. She's back and
4:24
Speaker 3: back jumping on the trampoline, so you may never see her.
4:28
Speaker 3: This is a family affair for us. This campaign... is
4:32
Speaker 3: a tremendous journey for us, and we are honored to
4:36
Speaker 3: do it.
4:37
Speaker 1: I was 27 and working as the press secretary for
4:39
Speaker 1: the Obama campaign in Iowa, which at that point was
4:43
Speaker 1: kind of rough going. We were way behind Hillary Clinton
4:46
Speaker 1: and John Edwards in the Iowa polls and the national polls.
4:52
Speaker 1: So in Pella, this family showed up with a basket
4:54
Speaker 1: of toy horses from a leader. Wow! If y'all ever
4:58
Speaker 1: want a play date, you can come to our house.
5:00
Speaker 4: We have two.
5:02
Speaker 1: For most of us in America, political campaigns play out
5:04
Speaker 1: on TV, not in Iowa. They're used to seeing presidential
5:07
Speaker 1: candidates up close. And it's actually not that weird to
5:10
Speaker 1: invite them over for a play date, in part because
5:13
Speaker 1: there's a decent chance that they'll show up. David Plouffe
5:16
Speaker 1: was Barack Obama's campaign manager in 2008.
5:19
Speaker 8: July was when I think Obama really began to click in.
5:24
Speaker 8: He was starting to hit his stride.
5:27
Speaker 1: Paloalene's pretty red, and most campaigns weren't spending much time there.
5:30
Speaker 1: But we knew we had to because our only hope
5:33
Speaker 1: was to contest every part of the state.
5:35
Speaker 8: You know, in a general election, there's going to be
5:37
Speaker 8: plenty of counties you lose. But what if you lose
5:39
Speaker 8: them 58-42 instead of 70-30?
5:43
Speaker 1: Matters.
5:43
Speaker 8: I mean, you want to be broad based. You just
5:46
Speaker 8: don't want to like do great in the African-American areas
5:48
Speaker 8: or college educated areas. So I think in the beginning,
5:50
Speaker 8: a lot of people thought, you know, Obama, he'll do
5:52
Speaker 8: well in Iowa City.
5:53
Speaker 4: Right.
5:54
Speaker 8: And he'll do well, you know, in Ames where Iowa
5:56
Speaker 8: State is and Grinnell. But, you know, can this guy
5:59
Speaker 8: from Illinois, an African-American guy against Clinton and Edwards, do
6:04
Speaker 8: well in Pella and in Kossuth County and in Sioux
6:07
Speaker 8: County and in Lyon County? And, you know, we did.
6:11
Speaker 8: And that was such a huge part of winning. Like,
6:13
Speaker 8: we did not suck anywhere. It didn't mean we won
6:17
Speaker 8: every county, you know, but we did what we needed
6:19
Speaker 8: to do everywhere.
6:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, we really did. On January 3rd, 2008, Barack Obama
6:24
Speaker 1: won the Iowa caucuses.
6:26
Speaker 6: On this January night, at this defining moment in history,
6:33
Speaker 6: you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do.
6:40
Speaker 1: A few years ago, President Obama sat down with a
6:42
Speaker 1: guy named Chris Liddell Westefeld for an oral history of
6:45
Speaker 1: the Iowa caucuses. Here's how he described the feeling of
6:48
Speaker 1: winning that night.
6:50
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's my favorite night of my entire political career.
6:55
Speaker 5: To me, that was a more powerful night than the
7:01
Speaker 5: night I was elected president.
7:05
Speaker 8: He saw that night what we had worked so hard
7:08
Speaker 8: to build.
7:10
Speaker 1: Here's David Plouffe again.
7:11
Speaker 8: Here's an African-American candidate probably turning in the best performance
7:15
Speaker 8: in the Iowa caucuses we've ever seen and certainly built
7:18
Speaker 8: the strongest organization. So part of that is because he's
7:20
Speaker 8: a community organizer. He knows that, you know, that wasn't
7:24
Speaker 8: a great speech he gave or all the money we raised.
7:27
Speaker 8: It was just good old-fashioned shoe leather and digital organizing.
7:32
Speaker 8: For me, much more meaningful to me than the night
7:35
Speaker 8: we'd secure the nomination in June of 08 or even
7:38
Speaker 8: beating McCain and Romney. It's that Iowa caucus night. And
7:42
Speaker 8: it's rare in life that you do your best work
7:45
Speaker 8: and you're your best selves in a mission that you
7:49
Speaker 8: consider to be so important.
7:51
Speaker 1: Winning Iowa made people believe that Barack Obama could be president.
7:55
Speaker 1: It proved his argument that he could get new voters
7:58
Speaker 1: to participate in democracy and turn out to vote for him.
8:01
Speaker 8: Lots of candidates, whether it's in the Iowa caucuses or
8:04
Speaker 8: primaries or general elections, say, we're going to turn out
8:07
Speaker 8: young people. We're going to change the electorate. And generally
8:10
Speaker 8: it hasn't happened. And what we were able to do
8:12
Speaker 8: in Iowa was we had enough people commit to caucus
8:16
Speaker 8: for Obama and almost all of them turned out. And
8:19
Speaker 8: I think that's what surprised people. And that's where the
8:21
Speaker 8: increase came in. It was Republicans. It was independents. It
8:23
Speaker 8: was young people. It was people who never caucused.
8:26
Speaker 1: That win proved that white rural voters would support an
8:29
Speaker 1: African-American candidate. And it helped us raise money and gave
8:32
Speaker 1: us momentum that we desperately needed after Hillary Clinton beat
8:35
Speaker 1: us in New Hampshire a week later. The other thing
8:39
Speaker 1: that happened in Iowa was the Obama team learned how
8:41
Speaker 1: to caucus. And that proved to be critical down the road.
8:45
Speaker 8: Well, there's no doubt if you look at some of
8:47
Speaker 8: the caucus states, Idaho, Minnesota, Colorado, Washington, that's where we
8:52
Speaker 8: built our delegate lead because you don't really get a
8:55
Speaker 8: delegate advantage by winning a state narrowly. You've got to
8:57
Speaker 8: win it in a landslide. And so, so many of
9:00
Speaker 8: those victories, you know, Iowa has a hand in them,
9:04
Speaker 8: both because it informed our strategy and tactics, but a
9:07
Speaker 8: lot of the people who worked in Iowa then went
9:09
Speaker 8: on to those states and wore senior leadership roles. So
9:11
Speaker 8: we got really good at caucuses. Iowa was our proving ground.
9:17
Speaker 1: I promise this show doesn't just exist so that I
9:19
Speaker 1: can get a bunch of Obama people into a studio
9:21
Speaker 1: and revisit the glory days. I'm talking about 2008 because
9:25
Speaker 1: that experience is useful in helping explain what's happening on
9:28
Speaker 1: the ground right now and how things might unfold. Okay,
9:32
Speaker 1: so the first obvious thing, campaigning starts really early in Iowa.
9:37
Speaker 1: I moved to Iowa about a full year before the
9:39
Speaker 1: 2008 caucuses. It was pretty ragtag at first. For a while,
9:42
Speaker 1: I crashed with coworkers and then with my friend's aunt.
9:45
Speaker 1: We cycled through temporary office space and worked off of
9:49
Speaker 1: card tables before opening our Des Moines headquarters in an
9:52
Speaker 1: old tile company on Locust Street in East Des Moines.
9:55
Speaker 1: Apparently no one was worried about situating ourselves on a
9:57
Speaker 1: street named after a swarming insect commonly associated with the plague. But,
10:01
Speaker 1: you know, that office is now a church, so do
10:03
Speaker 1: what you want with that information. That was the first
10:06
Speaker 1: of dozens of campaign offices across the state. And in
10:09
Speaker 1: every one of them, there was a sign on the
10:11
Speaker 1: wall that said, Respect, Empower, Include.
10:17
Speaker 7: Presidential campaigns are a direct reflection and probably the only
10:19
Speaker 7: reflection that voters get to see, caucus goers get to
10:23
Speaker 7: see how this person's going to govern. So your campaign
10:28
Speaker 7: is really the test of how you're going to operate
10:31
Speaker 7: as president.
10:32
Speaker 1: That's Paul Tooze. He was Obama's Iowa state director. He
10:35
Speaker 1: was a grizzled campaign veteran leading a bunch of 20-somethings.
10:39
Speaker 1: Think of that job as sort of like being an
10:41
Speaker 1: NFL head coach. You have a bunch of regional coordinators
10:44
Speaker 1: who handle the day-to-day management of a pretty big team,
10:47
Speaker 1: but Paul set the culture of the campaign.
10:50
Speaker 7: You know, there's a saying kind of in campaigns, you know,
10:54
Speaker 7: if you're really good at what you're doing and, you know,
10:57
Speaker 7: you're making great strides, you kind of manage yourself out
10:59
Speaker 7: of a job. So for the, at least for the
11:01
Speaker 7: first three or four months, you know, it was just
11:04
Speaker 7: finding people, training them, building a culture, which I think
11:08
Speaker 7: was very important, you know, building a culture of organizing,
11:11
Speaker 7: building a culture of, how we wanted the campaign to
11:13
Speaker 7: be run.
11:15
Speaker 1: Part of that culture was making sure that everyone on
11:17
Speaker 1: staff did every job, especially field work, like knocking doors
11:21
Speaker 1: and making phone calls. That included me, even though my
11:23
Speaker 1: job was dealing with reporters. I will admit that initially
11:26
Speaker 1: I wasn't thrilled about it, especially the Saturday when I
11:29
Speaker 1: had the canvas in Worth County, which is basically in Minnesota.
11:32
Speaker 1: So I drive to Worth County and I'm going door
11:34
Speaker 1: to door and I'm just getting nowhere. No one's answering,
11:37
Speaker 1: no one's home. And eventually I just see a woman
11:41
Speaker 1: on a riding mower cutting her grass. And I thought,
11:43
Speaker 1: you know what? She's not on my list. I'm not
11:45
Speaker 1: supposed to knock on that door, but why not try
11:47
Speaker 1: to talk to her anyway? So I walked across the
11:49
Speaker 1: yard and waved. And finally, she turned off the mower
11:52
Speaker 1: and sat there listening to my pitch. And after a
11:54
Speaker 1: few minutes, she signed a supporter card and committed to
11:57
Speaker 1: caucus for Barack Obama. And it is one of my
12:00
Speaker 1: proudest memories from my time in Iowa.
12:02
Speaker 7: I do think it makes us all better. Like, you know,
12:05
Speaker 7: if you're in a campaign and you're trying to direct
12:07
Speaker 7: traffic without knowledge of how the traffic is moving, that's dangerous.
12:10
Speaker 7: And so Part of it is like I think you
12:15
Speaker 7: as the press secretary getting out there and hitting doors,
12:18
Speaker 7: you just had a greater appreciation of what we're trying
12:20
Speaker 7: to say when we talk to the press.
12:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, seriously.
12:23
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I think it's important to the culture too.
12:25
Speaker 1: Paul, do you remember the Kupka Challenge?
12:27
Speaker 7: I do, yes.
12:28
Speaker 1: Can you describe the Kupka Challenge?
12:31
Speaker 7: Well, so I think it was one of the hottest
12:33
Speaker 7: parts of July. We had a contest to see who
12:36
Speaker 7: could knock on the most doors in a given day.
12:39
Speaker 7: And a great day normally would be 75 to 100 doors.
12:42
Speaker 7: Like that would be a great day and a normal day.
12:45
Speaker 7: This fellow, Joe Kupka, who was organizing in Ames, in
12:48
Speaker 7: the Ames area, just north of Des Moines, I think
12:51
Speaker 7: ended up doing about 236 doors.
12:54
Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
12:55
Speaker 7: That's like 12 hours. People were bringing them Gatorade.
12:59
Speaker 1: But you created this, you like made it fun, right?
13:01
Speaker 1: And so organizing became part of everybody's day-to-day life.
13:04
Speaker 3: Yeah.
13:05
Speaker 1: Ronnie Cho and Quinn Stout would go to the burger
13:07
Speaker 1: bar to get a cheeseburger, and they would end up
13:11
Speaker 1: bringing supporter cards because they tried to recruit the people
13:13
Speaker 1: behind the counter. It was like breathing to them, trying
13:16
Speaker 1: to get people to caucus for Obama.
13:18
Speaker 7: Yeah, and one thing, back to the respect and power
13:20
Speaker 7: include thing, too, is that I think this emanated from him.
13:23
Speaker 7: This was the first campaign that I was on or
13:25
Speaker 7: experienced where you didn't feel like you were treating voters
13:30
Speaker 7: as stupid. Your job as an organizer wasn't just to
13:35
Speaker 7: organized for him, but it was also to serve that
13:38
Speaker 7: community you were in. So, you know, one of the
13:41
Speaker 7: reasons for Offices Everywhere is that it had this sense
13:46
Speaker 7: of permanence, that we were going to be here, we
13:47
Speaker 7: were going to listen to you, we were going to
13:50
Speaker 7: respect you, we were going to be part of your community.
13:52
Speaker 7: You know, we had a lot of staff that would
13:54
Speaker 7: go out and volunteer in their community. You know, the
13:57
Speaker 7: people that saw that, the people that would come in
13:59
Speaker 7: and out of these offices, people that would come in
14:01
Speaker 7: and out of contact with these young organizers, would show
14:04
Speaker 7: up to caucus because they wanted that person to succeed.
14:08
Speaker 7: That's just, that's so true. And I think just human nature,
14:13
Speaker 7: you know?
14:13
Speaker 4: Yeah.
14:14
Speaker 1: So do you think that the Iowa process and the
14:18
Speaker 1: way politics are conducted in Iowa serves the nation well?
14:22
Speaker 3: Yes.
14:24
Speaker 4: Yes, very well.
14:26
Speaker 7: The nature of a caucus is, it's not like asking
14:29
Speaker 7: somebody to vote. You know, voting is a 10 or
14:32
Speaker 7: 15 minute enterprise. This is asking people to be active
14:38
Speaker 7: public participants in the process of their democracy. And I
14:43
Speaker 7: think people that do participate have a great love of country,
14:47
Speaker 7: have a great love of potential of this country. Because
14:50
Speaker 7: of that, they take their role very seriously. There's an
14:55
Speaker 7: earnestness about it. A candidate can't get through Iowa just
14:59
Speaker 7: being a 30-second soundbite. You have to get out there
15:02
Speaker 7: and press the flesh and answer questions and be accessible.
15:06
Speaker 7: And that makes our candidates better, way better. The other
15:10
Speaker 7: real thing about it is you're in Iowa for a year,
15:14
Speaker 7: a year, and you're doing retail stuff. And you're getting
15:18
Speaker 7: asked about life and death issues to what's your favorite color?
15:24
Speaker 7: You like the Cubs or the White Sox? It gives
15:28
Speaker 7: people a lens for which to see you and judge you.
15:32
Speaker 7: as the leader of the free world that no other
15:34
Speaker 7: place would or could because you're not there long enough.
15:38
Speaker 7: And I bet you, Tommy, at the end of the day,
15:40
Speaker 7: there's activists. They probably saw Obama 15 times, heard from
15:45
Speaker 7: the campaign 30, 40 times, you know, and we're still undecided.
15:51
Speaker 1: I know. It made us crazy.
15:54
Speaker 4: It's great, though.
15:55
Speaker 7: Yeah, but also made us better.
15:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
15:57
Speaker 7: It made us better. Made you go that extra mile.
16:00
Speaker 4: That's right.
16:00
Speaker 7: Made you answer that. question or find out what it
16:05
Speaker 7: would take.
16:06
Speaker 1: So in hindsight, it's very clear that everything rode on
16:11
Speaker 1: his success in Iowa. In the moment, did you feel
16:14
Speaker 1: like everything rode on Iowa?
16:16
Speaker 3: No.
16:17
Speaker 7: I don't think we ever sat around and said, hey,
16:19
Speaker 7: we got to win.
16:21
Speaker 4: Right?
16:21
Speaker 7: Do you remember that?
16:22
Speaker 1: Oh, we certainly never said it out loud if we did.
16:25
Speaker 7: And that, you know, was, I think, kind of the
16:27
Speaker 7: beauty of the culture, which is let's do our best.
16:30
Speaker 7: Let's do it from a place of the heart. Let's
16:32
Speaker 7: be respectful and empowering and inclusive on the way. Let's
16:35
Speaker 7: honor him. Let's honor his message. Let's honor Iowa. Let's
16:38
Speaker 7: honor the process. And if we did that, we knew
16:43
Speaker 7: we were going to be successful in whatever term that meant.
16:47
Speaker 7: We knew we would do our best. But I remember
16:50
Speaker 7: his second trip in, we were in Davenport, Iowa, and
16:56
Speaker 7: there were about 4,000 people there. And I remember seeing
17:00
Speaker 7: that and saying, you know what, he's going to be president.
17:05
Speaker 7: And you just knew you were dealing with a once-in-a-250-year
17:09
Speaker 7: candidate in a once-in-a-250-year moment. I don't think we talked
17:13
Speaker 7: about we had to win, but, you know, when you
17:16
Speaker 7: witnessed him and the reaction people had, you sure as
17:20
Speaker 7: heck knew you could.
17:21
Speaker 1: The stakes felt huge to us in 2008, and they were.
17:26
Speaker 1: As David Plouffe said, if we don't win Iowa, Barack
17:28
Speaker 1: Obama doesn't become president. But the stakes today feel even bigger.
17:33
Speaker 1: I mean, every Iowa Democrat I've spoken with cares deeply
17:36
Speaker 1: about the issues, but they will tell you that the
17:39
Speaker 1: only thing that really matters is beating Donald Trump. And
17:42
Speaker 1: the staffers feel that, too. More than one of them
17:44
Speaker 1: told me that they feel the weight of the world
17:47
Speaker 1: on their shoulders. How they, the voters, the staffers, the candidates,
17:51
Speaker 1: are dealing with all that pressure? After the break. I'm
18:02
Speaker 1: Tommy Vitor, and this is a special Pod Save America
18:05
Speaker 1: series from Iowa. Back in August, I spent a few
18:12
Speaker 1: days in Iowa talking to campaign staffers and voters, but
18:15
Speaker 1: really it was an excuse to go back and hang
18:17
Speaker 1: out at the Iowa State Fair. The State Fair is
18:22
Speaker 1: my favorite stop on the Iowa campaign circuit. Candidates spend
18:26
Speaker 1: most of their time just kind of walking around. They
18:28
Speaker 1: check out the butter cow. It's literally a cow made
18:30
Speaker 1: of butter. They flip pork chops on a grill. Maybe
18:33
Speaker 1: they eat a fried Twinkie or a Snickers. But the
18:35
Speaker 1: best part is that anyone can just come up to
18:37
Speaker 1: them and ask a question. And that kind of accessibility,
18:40
Speaker 1: it actually really matters.
18:41
Speaker 3: I have to be honest, I don't know if.
18:43
Speaker 5: I ever vote for someone if I hadn't shaken their
18:45
Speaker 5: hand or met them, because if you're out here, you
18:48
Speaker 5: have the opportunity and the responsibility.
18:51
Speaker 1: If you just want to shake their hand, that's great.
18:53
Speaker 1: But if you also want to hear them speak, just
18:55
Speaker 1: about all the candidates give a speech at the Des
18:57
Speaker 1: Moines Register political soapbox.
18:59
Speaker 3: Hello!
19:02
Speaker 6: Welcome to the Des Moines Register of Political Thoughts.
19:06
Speaker 3: I'm Rachel Statenberger, the politics editor for the paper. Let
19:11
Speaker 3: me go over the ground rules because we've got some newcomers.
19:14
Speaker 9: Hi, guys.
19:16
Speaker 3: The rules are Iowa nice, so you don't hold up signs.
19:19
Speaker 4: Why?
19:20
Speaker 3: Because people behind you can't see. Feel free to cheer,
19:23
Speaker 3: as I've already heard you can, but don't jeer because
19:26
Speaker 3: that's not very Iowa nice.
19:29
Speaker 1: I caught up with Mayor Pete right after he had
19:31
Speaker 1: flipped pork chops at the Iowa Pork Producers tent. Hey Pete,
19:35
Speaker 1: how are you?
19:36
Speaker 4: Good to see you.
19:37
Speaker 1: The fundamental question is sort of like, is this a
19:39
Speaker 1: good way to pick a president? And I know there's
19:41
Speaker 1: no better time to ask you that than when you're
19:43
Speaker 1: literally chewing a pork chop while surrounded by 400 of
19:46
Speaker 1: our closest friends. The main thing is, there's not a
19:49
Speaker 1: lot of spontaneity.
19:50
Speaker 4: In politics, right?
19:51
Speaker 5: You know, anything that compels people to have.
19:53
Speaker 1: Human interactions, I think is good.
19:55
Speaker 5: And there's definitely plenty of that here.
20:00
Speaker 1: Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado was there with his family.
20:03
Speaker 4: Good to see you, Tommy. I'm sorry.
20:04
Speaker 9: How have you been?
20:05
Speaker 1: Sorry, it's sweltering here. We talked for a minute as
20:07
Speaker 1: they walked to find some food other than frozen apple cider.
20:11
Speaker 4: Anne, what are you drinking now?
20:13
Speaker 3: An apple slushie.
20:15
Speaker 9: How many is that?
20:17
Speaker 4: Two.
20:18
Speaker 9: I've actually come to really admire how seriously people in
20:22
Speaker 9: Iowa take this. And it's a rigorous and challenging vetting
20:28
Speaker 9: of the candidates that are running for president. So I
20:30
Speaker 9: think these guys are actually doing.
20:33
Speaker 4: some pretty important work on behalf of the American people.
20:35
Speaker 9: I mean, as you know better than anybody, there were
20:39
Speaker 9: 9 million people or so probably who voted for Barack
20:41
Speaker 9: Obama twice and for Donald Trump once. We need to
20:44
Speaker 9: get those people back if we're going to win this election.
20:51
Speaker 1: The mood at the fair felt pretty different than in 2008.
20:55
Speaker 1: Back then, Bush was done with his second term. Democrats
20:58
Speaker 1: were hopeful about what came next. Now everyone is just terrified.
21:02
Speaker 1: When you ask voters about their priorities, they'll talk about
21:05
Speaker 1: health care, they'll talk about the environment. But when you
21:07
Speaker 1: really press them, they basically end up saying that they
21:10
Speaker 1: just want someone to beat Donald Trump. The word you
21:13
Speaker 1: hear over and over again is electability, even if no
21:17
Speaker 1: one really knows what that means. Every Democratic candidate is
21:21
Speaker 1: making the case that they're the one who can beat Trump.
21:24
Speaker 1: But they can't be everywhere in the state all the time.
21:27
Speaker 1: So that job mostly falls to their young field organizers,
21:30
Speaker 1: like Matt, who you heard at the top of the episode.
21:33
Speaker 1: If you had an org chart of the Iowa campaign,
21:35
Speaker 1: the field organizers, or FOs as they're called, would be
21:37
Speaker 1: the bottom rung. They're usually fresh out of college. They
21:40
Speaker 1: make no money. But they are, without a doubt, the
21:43
Speaker 1: most important part of any campaign. Mitch Smith is an
21:47
Speaker 1: FO for Cory Booker's campaign in Polk County. And this
21:50
Speaker 1: team is very committed to the job. Someone asked Senator
21:54
Speaker 1: Booker to write, we rise, I believe, on a piece
21:56
Speaker 1: of paper and then got bat tattooed on their arm.
21:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that was Shay, one of my fellow organizers
22:02
Speaker 2: here in Polk County. And I think we had, and
22:05
Speaker 2: I don't know whether this is Iowa specific or campaign specific,
22:09
Speaker 2: but I think we had like over 15 people around
22:12
Speaker 2: the country, volunteers and staff who all participated and have
22:17
Speaker 2: either gotten tattoos already or are planning to in the
22:20
Speaker 2: near future.
22:22
Speaker 1: All right, Mitch, level with me. Did you get a tattoo?
22:25
Speaker 8: No.
22:29
Speaker 2: I did not get a tattoo. I think my mom
22:31
Speaker 2: would fly out here to Des Moines and murder me.
22:33
Speaker 4: If I did.
22:34
Speaker 2: But I have so much appreciation for so many people
22:38
Speaker 2: on the team who decided to get tattoos.
22:42
Speaker 1: There were some guys I worked with in 08 that
22:44
Speaker 1: got like one, three 2008 tattoos to memorialize the caucuses. And,
22:50
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like it's a good idea in
22:52
Speaker 1: the moment, but maybe longer term, you're making the right
22:55
Speaker 1: call here.
22:56
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I hope that you're wrong. She's going
23:03
Speaker 2: to have President Cory Booker's handwriting, you know, we rise
23:07
Speaker 2: on her arm. That's going to be pretty darn cool.
23:10
Speaker 1: Olivia Ellis packed up her life in Massachusetts and moved
23:12
Speaker 1: to Iowa to work for Elizabeth Warren's campaign.
23:15
Speaker 10: So I, when I first got to Iowa, I wasn't
23:19
Speaker 10: organizing in Ames. I was organizing in in Marion and
23:23
Speaker 10: Jasper counties, which is very, very rural Iowa. And I
23:26
Speaker 10: was living with a woman on a farm and there
23:31
Speaker 10: was no cell service and they actually just had baby goats.
23:35
Speaker 10: And so at 4 a.m., basically on the dot, I
23:39
Speaker 10: was woken up by baby goats. And I think Elizabeth
23:44
Speaker 10: was going to be in my turf that week and
23:46
Speaker 10: I had to organize a massive town hall and it
23:49
Speaker 10: was just kind of a mess. And so I just
23:51
Speaker 10: had to get out. I couldn't stand to be woken
23:53
Speaker 10: up by another baby goat at 4 a.m. And so
23:56
Speaker 10: I had reached out to one of the first people
23:59
Speaker 10: I met here on the ground and I asked if
24:02
Speaker 10: she happened to have an extra room in her house.
24:05
Speaker 10: And her response was like, hell yes, come over. And
24:09
Speaker 10: she wasn't even committed to Elizabeth at the time, which
24:13
Speaker 10: was pretty awesome. So Yeah, I moved in and I
24:16
Speaker 10: got to know her pretty well. We had a lot
24:18
Speaker 10: of late nights, like talking about the state of our
24:23
Speaker 10: government and how Elizabeth Warren is the one to fix it.
24:27
Speaker 10: Turns out she is on our campaign, what we call
24:30
Speaker 10: a GSD, like a get shit done person.
24:32
Speaker 4: Yes.
24:33
Speaker 9: Yeah.
24:34
Speaker 10: So it was pretty awesome that I happened to move
24:37
Speaker 10: in with her. because she'll basically move mountains for the
24:41
Speaker 10: candidate that she ends up supporting. So, yeah, before I
24:46
Speaker 10: moved out and moved turf to Ames, Iowa, she ended
24:50
Speaker 10: up committing.
24:52
Speaker 1: How loud is a baby goat?
24:54
Speaker 10: Oh, my God. I wish that you could hear what
24:58
Speaker 10: a baby goat sounds like at 4 a.m. It'll really
25:02
Speaker 10: change you.
25:02
Speaker 1: I bet it will. Did you name a baby goat
25:04
Speaker 1: Elizabeth by any chance?
25:05
Speaker 10: No, because I didn't want to have negative emotions. But actually,
25:10
Speaker 10: there's another organizer and another rural part of Iowa who
25:14
Speaker 10: was also living on a farm, and he got a
25:18
Speaker 10: goat named after him.
25:19
Speaker 1: That's cool.
25:19
Speaker 4: Yeah.
25:26
Speaker 1: Following the news every day and reading the latest Trump
25:28
Speaker 1: tweet can make you feel like you are trapped in
25:30
Speaker 1: a never-ending nightmare. But the time I spent in Iowa
25:33
Speaker 1: over the last few months... has been an antidote to
25:35
Speaker 1: that feeling. It gives you hope when you meet with
25:38
Speaker 1: voters who take the process so seriously. And when you
25:41
Speaker 1: talk with these young field organizers who believe so deeply
25:44
Speaker 1: in their bosses that they've dedicated their lives to the campaign,
25:47
Speaker 1: it's genuinely inspiring. I have no idea who's going to
25:50
Speaker 1: win the Iowa caucuses, but my time in Iowa in
25:53
Speaker 1: 2008 taught me what a winning campaign looks like. It's
25:56
Speaker 1: part candidate, it's part message, it's part luck and timing.
26:00
Speaker 1: along with having a relentless field organization that can turn
26:03
Speaker 1: enthusiasm into support on caucus day. So come with me
26:07
Speaker 1: to Iowa as we try to figure out which candidate
26:09
Speaker 1: can recapture that Obama campaign magic and win the Iowa caucuses.
26:13
Speaker 1: In the next episode, we'll watch Mitch try to win
26:16
Speaker 1: over a living room full of undecided voters. We'll explain
26:19
Speaker 1: how the caucuses work. And we consider how the mimeograph
26:22
Speaker 1: machine gave Iowa Democrats all this power. The audio from
26:30
Speaker 1: Pella is courtesy of Amy Rice and Alicia Sams. The
26:33
Speaker 1: audio of Obama talking about his caucus night win is
26:36
Speaker 1: courtesy of Chris Liddell Westefeld's book, They Said This Day
26:39
Speaker 1: Would Never Come. A special thank you to Tanya Somanator,
27:01
Speaker 1: Sarah Wick, Michael Martinez, Kyle Seglin, Brian Semel, Nikki Fancy,
27:06
Speaker 1: and Jordan Silver from the Crooked Media team. Tune in
27:09
Speaker 1: next week. We'll be back in Iowa.