Missing Iowa – With No Regrets

This is the first time in two decades that I was absent as a reporter covering both the Iowa Straw Poll and the Iowa Caucuses. Contemplating this issue over the last month, I have to admit to some moment of painful twangs of nostalgia and yearning. Over the last ten days, however, I must say I am absent with no regrets, Indeed, I am quite grateful that I am far, far away from it all.

First, the nostalgia. I confess to a certain frisson in racing through the ice and snow 12 hours a day, clocking 2-300 miles and covering maybe four or five different campaign events. During the last two cycles, with the boom of the web, it was quite a satisfying feat to cover an event, shoot some video, upload it to YouTube and while it's being processed you knock out your 6-700 words of copy and, zap, 30 minutes later it's all posted live.  It is a privilege (if not a horror) to witness all the presidential candidates up close and personal, often in venues of only 25 or 50 people.

It's heartening to see the level of engagement of the Iowans who take this stuff rather seriously as the window shop for a suitable candidate.  Though the MSM rarely report on it, it's a gas to watch the sausage making inside the various campaigns. There's no shortage of self-important twentysomething brown-nosers strutting around with clipboards and cell phones and quite obviously aping the behavior of the stereotypical campaign aide they have seen on movies and TV.

I readily admit to always choosing a campaign staff that I love to torment (I've always tried to make a fair choice, picking on those who most deserve it). Independent of my own biases, during the 2008 cycle the difference between the Clinton and Obama staffs were like night and say. Or hell and heaven. The polished Obama folks went out of their way to accommodate the media. Hillary's crew was a different story — a pack of beltway dipshits who seemed to be in a contest to be the most arrogant. A good friend of mine (who shall remain nameless and who is on a first name basis with Hill and Bill) and I had a devilish good time tormenting these folks after they had acted like the officious a-holes they were.  Nothing like getting in a shouting match with them in the middle of a hotel lobby where the Clintons were lodged and having the Secret Service break it up. Now, that's some real fun.

And then we'd cap off every evening at the Cero restaurant on Locust Street where ALL the staff of every campaign would ritually gather for dinner and drinks.  You could continue your reporting deep into the night by making the rounds of the tables. Biden's group over there. Obama's folks over there. Hillary's team at the bar and so on.

The caucuses themselves are quite a scene — particularly the Democratic ones. Each one is a mini-debate where neighbors, quite literally, attempt to persuade each other to stand for this or that candidate.  For nostalgia's sake, let's toss in steak and eggs at The Machine Shed on the west side of Des Moines. And, um, I've heard there's a poker room at the race track on the east side in Altoona.

I love the gritty eastern edge of the state. The union city of Dubuque and rusted out Davenport.  In between you can drop by the university in Iowa City and, for a moment, swear you're in Madison — or Berkeley. Along the way, stop by and check out the Amish.  Pretty cool.

So, why no regrets this time around? In short, I don't think I could stand watching repeated versions of the stump speeches of ANY of these Republican candidates. I saw Romney last time around and I can tell you that, like John Kerry, he's even more boring in person than he seems on TV (GW Bush was the opposite by the way).  I wouldn't really want to be in the same room, more than once, with Santorum, Gingrich or, God Forbid, a screaming meemee like Bachmann.  Ron Paul I have seen many times before and I find him — and mostly his supporters– really scary. He's a nice, sweet avuncular type whose program is a radical departure from any shred of human compassion.

Lefties and liberals who like his views on foreign policy and marihuana are completely muddle-headed and fail to see the big picture. (More about that later if he wins in Iowa — which won't matter in any case).

Ron Paul aside, none of these candidates have ANY significant political differences among them. Only different styles and tones. Their political records and positions are as much as identical.

Also, I don't want to be unfairly partisan here, but there is a difference, a big difference, between being immersed crowds of true believer Democrats and militant Republicans. The former have their own particular set of rather predictable illusions about their party and their candidates. At least it's theoretically about Hope or Change, no matter how hollow.

Republican activists, for the most part, are a different breed. How anybody can stand for an hour and actually resonate with or believe a word that, say, a Gingrich or, for that matter, a Romney says, is really a bit too hard for me to fully grasp.  There are certainly nice and sweet Republicans, they'd be fine as your granny or auntie.  But I shudder thinking of their political positions which have a whole lot more to do with fear and revenge than anything resembling hope. In no way has this always been the case.  I hated the Bush administration, but let's remember that George actually campaigned the first time around as a "compassionate conservative." Yes, it was a ruse. His rhetoric, however, evoked some of the better angels lurking among the GOP base. If those same spirits were to show up during any of this cycle's Republican events, they would be shot on the spot.

I want no part of that this year. Especially bundled in a parka and trying to keep my rental Focus from sliding into a snowbank.

One final observation, indeed, a personal lament about this year's caucus. Four years ago I was privileged enough to lead a team of citizen reporters working for the HuffPost's OffTheBus project as we covered Iowa for the final ten days leading to the caucuses. Project Director Amanda Michel did a superb job of online organizing and I can say, with no exaggeration, that because of our effort, HuffPost had the largest contingent of reporters covering the caucuses, peaking at about 25.  Our mandate was to be, in fact, off the bus and report from the ground level, avoiding the official spin and the  predictable horse-race conventional wisdom.

Well, that was then, this is now. In the intervening period I have moved on to become  a full time faculty member at the USC Annenberg School. Amanda moved to ProPublica and recently to the Guardian where she continues her web-based magic.  And the HuffPost, well, its citizen reporting project exists now mostly in name only. And it has merged with the Wal-Mart of media companies, AOL.  If you had told me four years ago that in 2012 the HuffPost would be represented in Iowa by that bottomless font of conventional wisdom, Howard Fineman, I would have told you that you lost your mind. I would have said that has about as much chance as happening as Ron Paul winning the GOP Republican nomination.