Radio Iowa

Tuesday morning with Iowa Democrats

Governor Chet Culver talked for 25 minutes; Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal told a joke about the Cornhuskers (he's from Council Bluffs); Obama campaign insider Paul Tewes (read about his visit below) stopped by and SEIU president Andy Stern was there to give a stemwinder.  Those are the highlights I can remember on Tuesday afternoon from the Tuesday morning breakfast for the Iowa delegation at the Democratic National Convention, brought to delegates by Culver and Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge, who bought the breakfast buffet for delegates.

There were other moments, for sure, as when the aforementioned Gronstal ribbed former legislator Dick Myers of Iowa City about his age, suggesting Myers had been around for the "recession of 1890."  Former Iowan Chuck Manatt stopped by to visit. John and Jackie Norris showed up for breakfast wearing identical black t-shirts with words in white on front: "Got Hope?"  Jackie Norris is Obama's Iowa general election campaign manager.  John Norris,a long-time party person who ran John Kerry's 2004 Iowa Caucus campaign, is currently chairman of the Iowa Utilities Board.  They were always in motion, so I never got a side-to-side photo of them.  The two are in motion all afternoon and evening, too, as whips on the floor of the convention.

Paul Tewes: the lessons of Iowa

Paul Tewes, the manager of Barack Obama's Iowa Caucus campaign, spoke earlier this morning to the Iowa delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver (Audio: 8 min MP3).  He's now working with the DNC, but revealed he has maintained an apartment in Des Moines and will use that as his official residence -- meaning he will csst his vote in the general election in Iowa.  When asked by yours truly if he'd be flying back to Iowa to vote or casting an absentee ballot, he laughed.  (Tewes will cast an absentee ballot.) 

Tewes, introduced by Iowa Democratic Party chairman Scott Brennan as a "friend" of the Iowa Caucuses, spent most of his seven minutes reliving the Caucuses.  "What you pulled off in January was amazing," Tewes said. "...I don't want to come and give you a big old strategic thing because there's press in the room

Tewes said Iowa was a sort of proving ground for the young operatives who learn the craft of organizing voters.  "It's always what they learned in Iowa from you -- that taught them how to organize...know that this campaign started in Iowa and know that even when it left Iowa, what you taught these folks msttered and they used it."

Leach speaks on first night of DNC in Denver

Former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach spoke this evening at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.  Leach, a Republican who endorsed Obama in mid-August, is no Zell Miller, so I doubt he is -- as I type -- challenging Chris Matthews to a duel like Miller, the Democratic senator from Georgia who spoke at the GOP National Convention in 2004.  Leach is a Princeton professor, however, and part of his remarks was a sort of history lesson, from the Leach perspective.  The Harkin campaign helpfully provided the text of his remarks to reporters.  The Obama campaign did not provide Leach's remarks, but I transcribed them.  They're posted below, aa are the remarks of Candy Schmieder -- the Marengo, Iowa woman who spoke for three minutes just before Leach.

Music

Just an observation:  how likely will it be that sa song with lyrics, "We're going to have a funky good time," will be played by a live band at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul?  That tune was played in Denver at the Democrats' shindig, just after a Lenny Kravitz tune "Are You Gonna Go My Way"

C-SPAN blackout

You know when there's a big game on the telly and they block out the broadcast in the city where the game's being played, so people will buy tickets and go to the game?  Well, that may be happening to some extent in Denver.  The Courtyard Marriott, where the Iowa delegation to the Democratic National Convention is staying this week, has C-SPAN on its roster of cable stations.  There's a very clear picture of Nancy Pelosi on the screen as I type this, but no sound. 

UPDATE:  the hotel rebooted its system and C-SPAN came back on loud and clear -- well at least audible and clear.

Monday morning breakfast in Denver

It wasn't possible to live blog, take pictures, dash around to do interviews with delegates as they finished their breakfast and tape the speakers, so the live blogging was jettisoned this morning as I covered the morning meeting for the Iowa delegation at this Democratic National Convention.

The Iowa delegation's hotel is in a prime spot of real estate in downtown Denver -- along the 16th Street Pedestrian Mall and within walking distance of the Pepsi Center.  What it lacked was a big enough room for all the Iowa delegates and their guests to be seated in the same room, so the doors were flung open to the very small Cosmopolitan Room and tables were set up in the lobby outside.  A sound system was rigged up so the remarks of Brennan and others who addressed the delegates could be heard in both spaces.   

Scott Brennan, the Iowa Democratic Party's chairmn, started things off with the Pledge, then he revealed that he is among the 37 Iowa delegates who are attending their first convention.  Brennan briefed the delegates on the convention schedule and the group applauded when Brennan mentioned former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach  -- a "highly-respected Republican" according to Brennan -- will be speaking this evening.  (Leach, a Republican, endorsed Obama in mid-August.)  Senator Tom Harkin told the delegates he would be on stage to introduce Leach. 

Brennan had all the delegates introduce themselves.  When it was Congressman Bruce Braley's turn, Braley said: "I'm Bruce Braley from Waterloo,  I do advance work for Senator Harkin."  The other delegates laughed, and Brennan added:  "I do, too."

Sunday sights in Denver

The Iowa delegates to the Democratic National Convention are staying in the Courtyard Marriott in downtown Denver.  It's located on the 16th Street Pedestrian Mall.  This is the view to your left, as you walk outside the hotel.  The clock tower has a night-time cabaret show according to my male friends who noticed the adverts on the building as we walked by in the daylight hours.

The pedetrian mall was crowded today, as news accounts indicate about a thousand anti-war protestors showed up to, um, protest.

One fellow who was beating his drum in front of the Starbucks that's next door to the Iowa delegation's hotel was chanting, but forgot how the chant went in the middle of one of the verses.  Folks sitting on the sidewalk patio at Starbucks laughed.  Many pedestrians were taking pictures.

There are cops walking.  There are cops riding bikes.  There are cops riding horses. All amid the common franchise stores we see on streets in every city in America. 

Harkin goes higher than "Mile High" city

Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) hosted a party for the Iowa delegation this evening on the eve of the Democratic National Convention in Denver.  The venue was a rather posh Irish bar in downtown Denver which sides with Murphy's Irish Stout in the Murphy's versus Guinness debate (I know this because I know someone who tried to order a Guinness).  I failed to check on whether Beamish was on tap..

A group of Iowa reporters interviewed Harkin just outside the bar, on the sidewalk, and Harkin told the group he and his wife, Ruth, arrived in Colorado on Thursday.  "My wife and I went to Leadville, spent the day at around 10,000 feet and yesterday both Ruth and I climbed our ninth 14-er."

That word -- fourteener -- means a peak of at least 14,000 feet.  "Which one was it?" asked Ed Tibbetts of the Quad City Times. 

"Sherman.  We did Sherman yesterday," Harkin replied.  Mount Sherman reaches 14,036 feet above sea level  "We tried Sherman once before and we ran into both a time crunch and a weather crunch and we didn't make it -- this was several years ago  -- and so I thought:  'Well, we'll do it.'  So, we do Sherman and we get up there.  It's a long climb. That's a long climb.  It took us almost five hours from where we started, the trailhead.  So we got up there, just had our lunch and the storms came out and -- I don't know if you know Sherman; there's some real narrow passages on Sherman and, God, the winds started and the storms started and all of a sudden we were in a hail storm.  So we put on our rain gear and stuff -- and coming down these slippery slopes with all the hail and all of a sudden this lightning hits. I thought to myself: 'God we're Democrats.  They need all of our votes this year.  Please, not like this.' So, we scrambled coming down...but we got down alright.  It was interesting being in a hail storm."

"So why do you do this?" I asked.

"I love climbing mountains," Harkin said.  "It's good exercise.  It's good for the lungs, but I started too late in life. I'll never get all 53 done."  There are at least 53 peaks in the Rockies which reach 14,000 feet or above. Some sources I just checked on-line indicate there are as many as 55.

"Have you done Long's?" Tibbetts asked. Long's Peak reaches 14,259. 

"I haven't done Long's yet.  You see, that's so far up north.  I always do the ones down south and they're all bunched up. I actually did two in one day once, but you see I started too late in life," Harkin said.

"These are all in Colorado?" Rod Boshart of The Cedar Rapids Gazette asked.

"Yes," Harkin said, adding that he'd "been taking potassium pills since yesterday."

Just to recap, Harkin is climbing mountains at the age of 68.  Iowa's other United States Senator, 74-year-old Chuck Grassley, runs up to 15 miles a week.

Leach to speak at DNC

A source in the Obama campaign says former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach, a Republican from Davenport/Iowa City/Harvard/Princeton, is scheduled to speak Monday night at the Democratic National Convention. For those of you who hadn't heard, back on August 12 Leach endorsed Obama. 

The theme of Monday night's convention is "One Nation" and Leach's role as one of the Republicans now backing Obama fits into that theme, according to the source.

Pelosi to visit Iowa

Iowa Republicans have been criticizing Democrats like Nancy Pelosi for adjourning the U.S. House in late July -- and not planning to reconvene until September -- without taking action on a flood relief package.  Today, two of the three Democrats who represent Iowa in congress issued statements announcing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) will visit Iowa in early September.  The statements from Congressmen Braley & Loebsack are copied below.