Koni Steele 1968-2026

Koni Sue Steele, 57, of Iowa City, passed away on January 23, 2026, at University of Iowa Health Care while awaiting approval for an organ transplant.

Koni will be missed by her husband John Deeth, their sons Hayden Cox and Ethan Cox, Ethan’s fiancee, Caraline Ainesworth and granddaughter Hazel Cox, her sisters Keri Steele and Lori Steele, Lori’s husband, Mickey Cook, nephew Owen Cook, and her beloved dog Teddy. She was preceded in death by her parents Bob and Judy Steele and many other relatives in the Steele and Zeigler families.

Koni has been cremated per her wishes. Burial will be alongside her parents at Pratt Cemetery near Novinger, Missouri in the spring.

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If you asked her family to describe Koni, you’d hear the same words over and over: warm, charming, thoughtful, smart, fun-loving, wildly creative… and just mischievous enough to keep things interesting. Koni loved fiercely. She made people feel seen, important, and supported. And if someone needed standing up for, Koni was already halfway there, probably with a plan, a speech, and snacks.

She always had a sense of humor when anyone pronounced her name "Coney," which everybody did the first time they saw it.

She was born December 18, 1968, in Kirksville, Missouri, to Bob and Judy Steele, and spent many of her early years in Lost Nation, Iowa. From the very beginning, Koni was busy. She packed her childhood full of Girl Scouts, 4-H, Rainbow Girls, gymnastics, roller skating, swimming laps across the street at the Nicelys’ pool for the American Red Cross, and delivering morning newspapers. She also spent treasured time with extended family in Kirksville and at the family’s wooded property, floating on the frog pond her grandfather created in 1963, swimming at Aunt Wanda’s pool, and pontoon boating with the Stanley cousins.

Koni was intensely creative and perfectly happy entertaining herself for hours, reading and writing stories and poems. She once buried a “treasure box” in the yard, then became convinced the neighbor boys had seen her do it. This led to a recurring routine of digging it up and reburying it… often at night… just to be safe.

Keri and Lori relied on Koni to help with poetry homework — usually the night before it was due. Procrastination may have been a group activity, but talent was all Koni. She won the Lost Nation School Spelling Bee, advanced to win the Eastern Iowa Regional Spelling Bee, and competed in the Des Moines Register State Spelling Bee — proving that all those hours reading paid off.

Koni’s creativity was also proudly displayed in her fashion choices. While delivering newspapers as a young teen, she designed her own uniform/costume: a coat, Mom’s pink bathrobe hanging well below it, pajamas, and slippers. The old men at the corner café teased her dad, asking, “Don’t you buy her any clothes?” Koni considered that a success. She loved giving people something to talk about. Her newspaper career ended in January after she slipped on the ice wearing those slippers, and her dad laid down the law, she had to wear shoes or boots to deliver newspapers. Shoes or boots ruined the look, so Koni was done delivering newspapers.

Koni provided nonstop entertainment for family and friends. At just five years old, during her great-grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary party, she spontaneously jumped up onto the pool table and launched into a full-volume rendition of “On Top of Spaghetti.” She brought the house down — and earned a standing ovation, proving very early on that Koni never needed an invitation, a stage, or a microphone. She once nearly got herself, her sister, and cousins kicked out of a bowling alley because she kept throwing the ball while the machine was down clearing pins. She wasn’t being reckless — she was too busy entertaining the crowd to pay attention to actual bowling.

Koni could tell incredible whoppers, complete with different voices. She loved to make people laugh. Keri remembers Koni writing, rehearsing, directing, and performing an entire play down in the creek, starring Barbie dolls and neighborhood kids. Koni also thrived on pranks and neighborhood shenanigans. When neighbor boys once showed up at the front door wearing only shaving cream, Koni didn’t hesitate — she yelled, “Grab the hose!”

As a kid, Koni woke up every day and chose fun, and she enlisted the neighborhood kids as co-conspirators. One of their favorite hobbies was tying fake snakes to fishing poles, plopping them in the street, and hiding by the house like tiny goblins. When a car came along, they’d reel the snake across the road like it was late for an appointment. Drivers would either swerve dramatically or try to commit vehicular snake-slaughter. Quality entertainment. Zero regrets. 

Then Koni entered her artist era in home ec and produced the most realistic stuffed skunk ever created by human hands. This thing deserved a museum. Naturally, they decided it deserved… the road. They set the skunk down in the road, hid by the house, and waited. A car approached. Koni began reeling the skunk across the street. The driver panicked, ran straight over it, then slammed on the brakes. Physics took over. The skunk launched into the air and landed squarely on top of the trunk like it was claiming the car. The driver floored it. The skunk flew off and hit the road again, dignity shattered. And then the horror hit them. That car belonged to their brand new principal. Like, freshly hired. Still-new-smell principal. They did not wait to see if he noticed them hiding by the house like tiny goblins. They scattered in every direction like startled raccoons, fully convinced their criminal skunk era had just ended their academic careers.

Koni never met a stranger. As a child, she often disappeared for hours, visiting elderly neighbors, listening to their stories, exploring their attics, and admiring their treasures. Upon meeting a new elderly person, she often asked, without hesitation, “Do you have an attic? What’s in it? Can I see it?” They usually said yes. Koni could be pretty convincing.

She formed a special bond with an elderly war veteran named Austin, spending countless hours listening to his life story and admiring his treasures with him. Koni meant so much to him that when he passed away, she was asked to spread his ashes at Eden Valley.

Her sense of right and wrong ran deep. When she discovered gravestones at Rustic Park in Lost Nation had been vandalized, Koni carried the broken pieces home to her dad — some of them very heavy — and made sure he contacted Benny Bentrott, who was able to get them restored. It mattered to Koni that the people buried there were respected.

In junior high and high school, Koni sang in choir, ran cross country, and played drums in the marching, pep, and jazz bands. The family’s Dodge MaxiVan — tricked out by Bob with shag carpet, CB radio, TV, 8-track and cassette players, surround sound, seating for ten, and absolutely no seat belts — became the center of countless adventures.

Koni and Keri loved filling the van with friends. They learned the hard way that 21 people was one too many when they pulled out of the Fareway parking lot in Maquoketa, busted a back shock, and sent sparks flying.

In 1984, the Steele family moved to Oxford, Iowa. At Clear Creek, Koni became manager of the Clipperettes Softball team and made lifelong friends. She also hosted a sand dune party that ended with the MaxiVan stuck in sand up to the undercarriage. Friends either helped pull it out — or Koni charmed a local farmer into doing it. She spent the rest of the night at the car wash vacuuming and washing the van. The next morning, Bob her dad opened the hood, discovered the engine encased in sand, and yelled, “KKKKOOOOONNNNNI!” She was busted.

In high school, Koni worked at Eagle’s Market in Coralville and quickly found her calling in the deli. From that moment on, the family had its first true foodie. Koni cooked for every holiday, could make potato salad for 50 as easily as for five. When John’s mom got overwhelmed at her last Thanksgiving, Koni stepped up on zero notice and saved the day.

She also took industrial arts, where she “made” a wooden jewelry box for Keri — with a lot of help from classmates. That jewelry box, now a treasured heirloom, sits here today holding Koni’s cremains.

Koni graduated from Clear Creek Amana High School in 1987 and attended Kirkwood Community College and the University of Iowa, graduating in 1994.

Koni worked as a call center trainer and teacher in both community college and corporate settings in Missouri from 1997 to 2004. During this time, Koni also served as a United Way Coordinator, helping support United Way efforts in Central Missouri. But Koni's proudest accomplishments in this era were her sons Hayden and Ethan. Both births were challenging but both boys were healthy and have grown into good young men.

Koni returned to the Kirksville house in the woods in 2004 to be a full time mom and help care for Bob and Judy.

In 2006, Koni met John Deeth on MySpace, and she decided she liked him enough that she cyber stalked his phone number. The first time she called, John was hiding in the basement of Gaslight Village during the 2006 tornado. They had their first date, with Hayden and Ethan as chaperones, at the Mark Twain Cave in Hannibal, Missouri. 

John quickly fell in love with Koni’s beautiful phone voice, but long distance wouldn’t do. Koni returned to Iowa City and married John on September 14, 2007. It was a small secret wedding at the magistrates office. John’s friend Brian Flaherty was best man, sister Lori was maid of honor, and two month old nephew Owen was the only guest! John rode his bike to the wedding so Brian had to give Koni a ride home. When they got home Koni and John told the boys they were married, and they all went to hang out on the Ped Mall.

Back in Iowa City, Koni renewed many of her old high school and college friendships. Koni, John and the boys lived in the little rented house with the big backyard on Benton Street for ten years. It was the perfect size when the boys were 7 and 5, but way too small when they were 17 and 15. At Christmastime 2017 they bought their home on Little Creek Lane, and the very first thing they did was get the boys their own dog, Teddy, on Christmas Eve. As the boys got older, Teddy decided he was Mama’s dog. 

Koni was also responsible for John’s turtle obsession. When Ethan wanted a turtle, she got Ginga (pronounced Jinja), and John doted on her so much that Koni and the boys decided “daddy needs his own turtle.” So one day Koni surprised John in the front yard with a little pet store box. When John asked what was in the box, she said it was a piece of chicken! But it was really Shelley the turtle.

Koni put up with all John’s repetitive jokes and long election seasons. As she became a part of the Deeth family, she learned all about Wisconsin lore, like the Fargo accent (which is real!), Ole and Lena jokes, and the history of the Green Bay Packers. 

In Iowa CIty Koni worked in several call center roles. During peak COVID some of those were work at home jobs, which Teddy loved because he could be on Mama’s lap all day. She also shared many adventures with John, Hayden and Ethan. The Deeth-Steele-Cox family vacationed to Orlando in 2012, and John and Koni saw a total eclipse of the sun together on the banks of the Mississippi River in Cape Girardeau, Missouri in April 2024. Koni drove the whole way on both trips because she loved to drive and knew how easily John got distracted!

Koni was also a member of the P.E.O. Sisterhood and a volunteer for the Johnson County Democrats. Sometimes Koni would go along with John on his blogging assignments and take pictures while John wrote. She helped John manage a 750 person caucus at the IMU in 2020, and she ran the location at her old school in Tiffin in 2024.

While Koni was mostly homebound in her final months, she tallied one last proud achievement when, thanks to Ethan and Caraline, she became a grandmother to little Hazel. The big blended Deeth-Steele-Cox-Ainesworth-Cook family celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years together on Little Creek Lane this year.

Koni never gave up. Her last weeks were spent working hard toward her goal of an organ transplant. While she was unable to receive one in time, she believed in organ donation and was able to donate her eyes to the Iowa Eye Bank.


Koni wrote a poem in memory of her mother, the family has asked me to share:

When You Are With Me

When you are with me, I am home.
But I woke up this morning, without a hand to hold.
Thoughts and memories remind me,
That your love and kindness stays with me.
But when you're not here, where is my home?

These empty feelings, they say will pass, like an empty pond, once rain comes again.

It's just that, when you are here, I am home

When I woke up this morning, I was alone.

There is a beauty left, in the space you made, I can hear your sweetness echo, with the softest sound. 

You said, with our breath together, we can make a hurricane of change.

With my hand in yours, there was a certain peace, even in times of pain.

I can still feel you here, even though you are gone. When you are here, I am home.

WITH ALL THE LOVE, TO YOU

Koni Steele, 2023

Open Letter To DNC Rules And Bylaws

 Yesterday (1/16/2026) was the deadline for state parties to file applications with the Democratic National Committee for an early date in the 2028 nomination calendar.

As expected, the Iowa Democratic Party filed for an early date, as they did in 2024 without success. Earlier in the week, IDP solicited statements of support from party leaders to include with the application. I replied with a statement of opposition. Since I'm skeptical that IDP passed along my thoughts, I'll share them here.

As of Friday, no bill for a presidential primary has been filed in the Iowa Legislature. I understand that Democrats are on defense and that there are many priorities. However, Democrats found time to introduce several other no-chance messaging bills in the opening week of the session.

My statement of opposition: 

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Dear Rules and Bylaws Committee members:

I strongly oppose the Iowa Democratic Party's application for inclusion in the carveout window. No state with a caucus process should be considered for an early date. I encourage RBC to follow the position of former President Biden, who in December 2022 said "our party should no longer allow caucuses as part of our nominating process," and enact a ban on caucuses for presidential preference effective immediately for the 2028 cycle.

I have volunteered for the Johnson County, Iowa Democratic Party since my move to the state 35 years ago. I have worked professionally in election administration for our local election office for 28 years. I have assisted with the logistics of caucus organizing since the 2004 cycle, and in 2016, 2020, and 2024, I was the county party's lead organizer for the presidential caucuses. I oppose caucuses in a way that only someone who has done the work on the ground can. I have written extensively on the subject for many years and I can provide more information at whatever level of detail you wish. 

There are many problems with caucuses as a process. 

You are well familiar with the problems caucuses have with the inclusion of voters who cannot attend a long meeting at one time and in one place. But you may be less familiar with the severe overcrowding issues we have had in our largest and most Democratic precincts. 

Instead of spreading turnout across a whole day as in an election, caucuses require all voters to be present at the same time. The number of people who want to attend a First In The Nation Caucus is larger than the capacity of the largest available public buildings. We began to exceed building capacity as long ago as 2004. The average caucus attendee in 2020 was in a caucus of 191 people, straining the capacity of a grade school gym, the largest commonly available public space. Some caucuses had turnout of 500, 700, even 900. Dividing into smaller precincts does not help, as it does not create additional public spaces. 

As lead caucus organizer for our county, I can recruit more volunteers. I can train them better. What I cannot do is build buildings.

When confronted by these numbers, Iowa activists from smaller counties either a) scoff in disbelief; b) don't care, because it's OK for urban counties to suffer as long as presidential candidates visit the smallest towns; c) dismiss it as "it's only a problem in the college counties" which does not solve the problem; or d) say "high attendance is a good problem to have." 

It is not a good problem to have. A three hour, 700 person caucus does active damage to our organizing efforts. You can't do "organizing" in a crowd of 700. All you can do is crowd control and anger management. People leave in disgust, and never attend a party event again until the next caucus comes around and they are forced to if they want to vote. And they invariably blame the local volunteers, who did not make the rules.

While Iowa Democrats have made some good efforts at reform, the problem of building capacity cannot be solved without a complete change to a primary election.

Chair Hart is correct when she notes: "As a practical matter, it’s important to emphasize that any change to Iowa law with respect to a state-run primary or caucus is a non-starter at the Iowa statehouse. Iowa Democrats are compelled by state law to conduct an in-person party-run presidential delegate selection process. "

However, that rings very hollow without some indication that Iowa Democrats actually WANT to move to a primary. Unfortunately, there is no solid evidence of that. The in-state discussion continues to focus on First In The Nation and not on reform.

The first ever bill for an Iowa presidential primary was introduced only in 2025, and attracted no co-sponsors. Frankly, such a bill should be supported by every Democratic legislator. Instead, our state House Minority Leader urged on statewide television that we should openly defy the DNC if we are not rewarded with an early date. (If this should happen, I urge RBC to impose the strictest possible penalties on our state, and on New Hampshire as well.) 

Additionally, our platform process will also be completed this year before RBC makes its final decision. I had hoped to get our state party platform to include support for a presidential primary; instead, it says the opposite (page 15).

Given the limits of state law, Hart and IDP are to be commended for the program they developed for the 2024 cycle: 1) a caucus for party business only on a First In The Nation night. This meets the requirements of state law, which does not require a presidential vote. It only requires election of party officers. Indeed, Iowa Republicans did not have a presidential vote in the 1984, 1992 or 2004 cycles. 2) A mail in party run primary at a calendar compliant date. That process could use some improvement, but was a good first effort in what was at the time a relatively uncontested nomination contest. My hope is that IDP has a similar process for 2028.

However, such a party-run process should not be rewarded or encouraged with early state status, at least not until and unless Iowa Democrats start to show serious support for a state-run primary election.

The Democratic Party is the party of voting rights. It is time our nomination rules fully reflect this, with a ban on caucuses.

I am happy to discuss this issue in more detail with the committee members. 

Sincerely,
John Deeth
Iowa City, Iowa

The Family Conversation Splits Down The Middle

Yesterday the Iowa Democratic Party released the results of its "Family Conversation" about Iowa's role in the presidential nomination process and The Future Of The Caucuses As We Knew Them.

I don't envy Rita Hart and the rest of the party's leadership. The outcome of the survey shows a sharp and nearly even division. There's an almost dead even split between respondents who want to accept the DNC's calendar decisions (51.7%) and those who support some version of going rogue (48.8%). No matter what IDP does, nearly half of the activists are going to be unhappy. 

That is to some extent inevitable. There's no way to satisfy both the primary advocates (a group which now includes former IDP chair Derek Eadon, so I can no longer call myself "the highest ranking") to the 🤬 The DNC, Go First Anyway crowd who insist that having insanely overcrowded urban precincts is "a good problem to have" (pro tip: it isn't). 

First off, let's jump to the end. The report indicates that IDP "will respond to the DNC by Jan. 16, 2026 seeking a waiver to participate in the early window." I'm against that. It's doomed to fail, it's a distraction, and every minute and dollar spent on it is time and money wasted. But given that roughly 2/3 of respondents want Iowa to be early or (delusionally) First, I can see why IDP feels the need to at least apply. 

I'm also a little disappointed that feedback from the open ended comments section was not included, though hopefully some of that will get released eventually. These raw numbers don't address the problems large counties face in holding in person caucuses - specifically, the lack of enough large public spaces to hold the number of people who want to attend want to vote but have no choice but to attend.

One overall observation I have is that younger respondents are more likely to prioritize the old fashioned in person caucus and the First role. I'm old, but I was young once so I understand. First was (past tense) fun and in my experience young voters really love the excitement of seeing and meeting the candidates; they also haven't had the years of opportunities that us old timers have. It's easy for me to say "that stuff doesn't matter" when I've had face time with a sitting president.

But younger voters are also less likely to have had to organize and manage a caucus. It's not directly addressed in the survey but my experience as I advocate for a primary is that the more work someone has had to do to organize a caucus, the more likely they are to want change. (I've probably done the most work, so I'm the one who's most opposed to the old system.) Younger people are less likely to have the kind of job and kid commitments that can keep people from attending. And they are also generally more able to endure the crowded rooms, the long meetings and the hours of standing.

One specific that I'm pleased with: A near consensus level 75% want to "maximize participation or provide accommodations for Iowans who cannot participate on caucus night." That points to some kind of absentee process, which will help get people out of the overcrowded rooms. 

However, that contradicts the 60% of respondents who "would like to see some kind of traditional 'in the room' caucus night experience." Most people do NOT want to attend a "party organizing meeting." They want to vote and leave like they do in a real election. If an absentee process is completely opened up, an overwhelming majority of people will choose that option. 

This isn't directly linked to the absentee issue but it's a critical explanation: "Support for Iowa being first was lowest among respondents who have never attended a presidential caucus, with only 34% supporting it and 32% responding they did not care." There's a reason for that: A lot of people who are interested enough to respond to a self-selected survey about a VERY inside baseball subject are at the same time not able or willing to attend an all evening meeting! They would rather just be able to vote than fight over this First thing.

Here's another very interesting yet contradictory finding: 

"More than 60% of respondents support Iowa Democrats standing up to any attempt by Republicans in the legislature or Brenna Bird to force action on our party-run caucus process." The most likely Republican driven change would be to force Iowa Democrats back into the 2020 and before system that required no-exceptions in person attendance. 

So 60% want to fight that and 75% want to "maximize participation"... but 60% also want "an in the room experience." So, is that overlap a group of people who recognize the problem of people who can't attend, but want to force attendance as much as possible and limit the absentee process to excused absences?

A system of excused absences doesn't do enough to solve the overcrowding issue. Johnson County was overcrowded in 2004, and that was with HALF the attendance of 2016 and 2020! We need to get more than half the people out of the rooms, and WAY more than half would be happy to not be there!

And who decides what's an excused absence? And how do those decisions become non-controversial in a contested race environment? In 2016 and 2020 there were HUGE differences in presidential preference by age and geography. That means deciding whether "away at college" or "elderly" are valid excuses has an outcome impact. 

Finally, one interesting geographic split: "59% of urban voters supported devoting more resources to the caucuses compared to 48% of rural voters." Rural counties probably have fewer issues finding sufficient rooms to hold the attendees. Here's how I'd support "more resources": If the state party wants to force large urban counties to use a voting system that doesn't work for us, then the state party, not the county party, should be the ones paying the thousands of dollars to rent large theaters and hotel ballrooms.

It's clear from this survey that those of us within the Iowa Democratic Party who want substantive reforms have made a lot of progress. A lot of us are willing to let go of the fantasy of getting First back and accept the new reality. But unfortunately there are still too many people clinging to false hope, so we still need to do a lot of persuading. 

That should start with our Democratic legislators. Another session is coming up, and even though there is no hope of passage, Democrats should be sending a message to the voters, to our own activists, and to DNC Rules And Bylaws getting behind a presidential primary bill.

The Cosplay Revolution At The Gates

One of the few ideas that stuck with me from grad school (other than the self-awareness that I didn't belong in grad school) was the notion of, as Eric Hoffer titled his book, The True Believer. It was an early version of what we now call horseshoe theory - the idea that as politics and political activists approach the extremes, they become more similar - both the views themselves and the personalities and rhetorical styles of the individuals. 

Horseshoe theory is how you explain the journey of Tulsi Gabbard, or the under-reported overlap between the Bernie Sanders crowd and Ron/Rand Paul supporters. This year I learned there is such a thing as the Socialist Rifle Association (complete with North Korea styled logo).

We definitely see horseshoe theory in the free speech issue. 

America's political climate has become hostile to the point of deadly in the past decade. To be honest, that has made me hesitant to write. The once universal value of free speech is under attack from both the right and the left. Online bullies dismiss calls for common courtesy and civility as "tone policing," a stance which slams the door on any rebuttals, especially when they come from an old straight white guy like me. 

So do I. But they get to speak.

Locally we've seen attempts to shut down free speech (dismissed as "hate speech") by force, with the would-be censors expecting to be treated as heroes and granted legal immunity. Support for these kind of shutdowns has even been called a "litmus test" of who's a "real progressive."

That's a complete misunderstanding of the concept of civil disobedience. We cheer when the Blues Brothers chase them off the bridge, but the Illinois Nazis were real and they got to have their march. That's the whole point of free speech - everyone gets to have it. If you disagree with someone, you don't just get to flip their table or dump marbles on the stairs to keep people from attending. You have to out-argue them, which shouldn't be difficult, but is more work and doesn't look as cool on short attention span social media.

This past decade, both of our major political parties have been the target of hostile takeover attempts.  I don't mean to both-sides this because the cruelty and rage on the right is a far more serious problem, threatening democracy itself. The hostile takeover of the Republicans was fully successful, but if I had the answer to Trumpism I could be president today. 

In contrast, the hostile takeover attempt against the Democrats failed in 2016 because it just plain couldn't persuade enough voters, despite very favorable conditions and no other opposition. But they deluded themselves into thinking every single vote was for Socialism! when half of it was simply for Not Her. With a wider menu of options for voters in 2020, they fared even worse. 

But it has left the Democrats with an internal faction that supports candidates who openly despise our party and use it only as a vehicle to hasten its own destruction. "I hate your organization, but I demand the right to choose its leaders." 

Meanwhile, the mainstream Democrats who have worked to build and improve the party - and our local mainstream is much closer to Elizabeth Warren than Joe Manchin - are held responsible for the positions and behavior of the most extreme people who want to destroy.

Over the past ten years I have read and re-read far too much 1930s history, and one of the many parallels I see is the far left treating the near left as a greater enemy than the far right. In 1932 Germany, the Communists and the Social Democrats, combined, outnumbered the Nazis. Together with the center parties, they could have commanded a majority. 

But Stalin decreed that "Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism." So the German Communists treated the Social Democrats as greater enemies than, well, literally Hitler. They were convinced that fascism was the last stage of capitalism and that The Яevolutioи would soon follow - just as Susan Sarandon said “some people feel that Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately, if he gets in" in 2016. 

But as it turned out, the Nazis locked up the Communists even before they went after the Jews.

"The fanatic cannot be weaned away from his cause by an appeal to his reason or moral sense. He fears compromise and cannot be persuaded to qualify the certitude and righteousness of his holy cause." Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

I see the same dynamic today, in America and in Iowa City. Differences of tone and rhetoric and style and nuance and emphasis are treated as betrayals. People are called "fascist" not because they disagree on substance but because they choose not to lead their messaging with causes that, while just, are our least popular, or with issues that, while important, are not directly relevant to the office and the level of government at hand. 

Our community, our little blue island in a sea of red, faces very real constraints and is under a very real microscope. The Ministry is interfering at Hogwarts, undercutting the values of an academic community in an effort to force us to bend a knee to rural parochialism. Traps are being set for us - and some in our community, in the name of "resistance," want us to march headlong into those traps. 

If we do so, we run a very real risk of losing our local authority over substantive matters. 

Hunter S. Thompson, in the very piece in which he advocated for "Freak Power" in electoral politics, wrote of "the basic futility of seizing turf you can't control." If I am accused of "hating socialists more than I hate Trump," it is only because the right has largely abandoned our local politics, preferring instead to focus on state and federal races where they have more success. We saw that in this month's election, where the Republicans, already outnumbered four to one on registration within the Iowa City limits, turned out at less than half the percentage rate of Democrats. For every one Republican who voted, nine registered Democrats showed up. The electorate was, more or less, a Democratic primary universe. 

So I'm focused on the left side of the equation because it's more relevant to our community. Our local contests are no longer between liberals and conservatives - they're between liberals and leftists. Republicans watch from the sidelines and if they don't like the outcome, either electoral or policy, they just go over our heads and get the state to over-ride us. We have already seen that play out several times in the relationship between The People's Republic Of Johnson County and the State of Iowa, with the banning of our local minimum wage being just one example.

The governor and attorney general and legislature are playing gotcha games, trying to trigger the left, just waiting for someone to cross some line so they can impose their will on us - sometimes, simply out of spite (stay tuned for supervisor districts next year). At some point, the state will step in and make us do it their way. 

And if that happens, all of the local reforms and innovations we have worked on for decades that radicals dismiss as "incrementalism," the drug courts and the diversion programs, will be swept aside, and we will be forced into least common denominator lock `em up policy.

Demanding loud and specific ideological statements is like asking Oskar Schindler to post The List. But low-key quiet work to fix problems the state and the feds have created is not good enough for some people. A certain breed of cat likes the attention and the excitement of Defiance and Refusal. Then, when the shit hits the fan, they can wash their hands of responsibility for the unfortunate outcomes and feel good about themselves because they "resisted."

The story may be apocryphal but it is said that Adlai Stevenson once gave a deep and thoughtful and intellectual speech and an audience member said, “Every thinking person in America will be voting for you.” Stevenson supposedly replied, "That’s not enough. I need a majority.” He lost two landslides to Ike (the original Antifa candidate).

"Demand" is a big word on the left. But before we can demand, we need to persuade. We need to persuade people who do not share all of our values and views, and we have to do so in the face of cynical manipulation of powerful cultural symbols. We must not fight on weak ground, and we must speak in a recognizable language, not "Hey hey, ho ho." And sometimes we need to not insist on 100% agreement on our least popular issues as the price of a place under what is supposed to be a big tent.

Talk is important. Symbolism is important. Ideology matters. There are times to push the boundaries.

But there are times when substance and pragmatism are more important than symbolism and ideology. And sometimes the symbolism gets in the way of the substance. That is where our community now finds itself. 

For a couple years, we were choosing symbolism over substance. Granted, elections don't happen in vacuums and individual candidates have flaws. But three times in a row, with relatively low turnout each time, we chose protest candidates over pragmatic mainstream liberals.

• November 2023, Iowa City: 9,989 (split outcome)
• June 2024, Democratic primary, countywide: 6,847
• March 2025, Iowa City: 6,902

On November 4, with high turnout, and with control of city government hanging by one seat, we came to our senses and dodged a bullet.

• November 2025, Iowa City: 11,176 

It's an indicator that the extremists, who excel at low turnout conventions and caucuses, are noisy out of proportion to their real numbers.

But that was just the first of three important rounds of local elections. 

We face big choices again in June and next November. We face choices between responsible progressive policy within the unfortunate constraints of the current federal and state governments, or symbolic gestures based on rigid ideology.

We face choices between making real peoples' lives better, sometimes in small ways, or making ourselves feel better through purity and self-righteousness.

We need to choose whether we want to do the real work of government, or if we'd rather just be the cosplay revolution. 

This Is What Joe Strummer Trained You For

Winston Churchill, one of the original Antifa, is often quoted as saying “a man who is not a liberal at 16 has no heart, but a man who is not a conservative at 60 has no head.” The actual origins of that aphorism are lost to time, but whoever said it, it speaks to a truth about political evolution as one ages.

I had an excess of heart in my youth, and I may suffer from a deficit of brain as I approach retirement age. It's been more than a decade now since I retired this site's slogan "too old to be cool, too young not to care" because I was, in fact, too old. And my cultural touchstones show that age.

My first political hero was a musician, not a politician. At the impressionable age of 17 I discovered the Clash and their leader and lyricist, Joe Strummer. It was the dawn of the Reagan Time and I was terrified of getting drafted and sent to Central America, and Joe Strummer had written a gigantic record just for me, with the in your face title "Sandinista!". It taught me about draft resistance and revolution and imperialism.

 

I went through a grad student proletariat phase when I fancied myself quite the political expert. I didn't do or accomplish anything, but I talked a good game and I insufferably thought I knew it all. 

Then I got to Iowa City intending to pursue a Ph.D. and instead I walked into a campaign headquarters, where my real postgraduate education begin. I still had a lot of Joe Strummer in my head, and there's a third party vote in my past that I can't honestly say I regret. But bit by bit, I grew more pragmatic and gained more experience: as a volunteer, as a campaign staffer, a failed run for office, and finally the career in government where I found my calling.

Sometimes I cringe at my younger self, especially when faced with people who remind me of myself at that age. For those who are going to attack me: I get it. I was you once. Sometimes I still look deep inside myself and wonder "what would Joe Strummer do?"

Strummer struggled with contradictory goals. He struggled with it within the music itself, self-awarely noting the irony of "turning rebellion into money." He wanted to keep the uncompromising purity of punk rock yet he also wanted the mass popularity and success that would allow his message to reach a mainstream audience. The dissonance eventually destroyed the Clash right at their moment of commercial breakthrough.

Unfortunately Joe Strummer can't speak to today's events. He died at age 50, far too young, in 2002. The autopsy found an undiagnosed congenital heart defect, though personally I think the only thing wrong with Joe Strummer's heart was that it was too big.

During those grad school days, I found another musician who has now become a role model: Peter Garrett. He is a gigantic man, an imposing presence with an intense stage manner and a shaved head. (He may have been separated from J.D. Scholten at birth.)

Garrett's band Midnight Oil was big in their native Australia in the early 80s, and Garrett ran for office as a third party candidate of the Nuclear Disarmament Party  while still in the band. They had a very brief window of American and global success with their album "Diesel And Dust," a thematic record about the very Australian yet universal issue of native land rights. It was uncompromising - "it belongs to them, let's give it back."

This platform was not enacted, the international success did not last, and Midnight Oil faded back to their previous rank of being big only in their home country.

 

Garrett left the band in 2002, and two years later announced a run for Parliament - but now as a member of the Labor Party (the mainstream center left party filling the role the Democrats play in the USA).

This time Garrett won. He served a decade and was in two cabinet posts, Environment (where he was a friend of endangered turtles) and later Education, until stepping down in the wake of an internal party power struggle. Then he called the guys up and joined Midnight Oil again.

Henry Rollins, 2017

Musicians only need to get support from a niche, a relatively share of the audience. Protest vote politicians can also push the limits.

But serious politicians? They need to win a majority.

 

 

 

I still ask myself "what would Joe Strummer do?" 

But now I also ask "what would Peter Garrett do?"

All of this, somehow, relates to our local politics of the moment. Stay tuned for that.

City Election Recap: Part 1

Local elections in Iowa City aren't like general elections, and aren't even like local elections in other places. We have some conservatives here, sure; Republicans come in here and raise money from them at closed door events all the time. But true conservatives have long since checked out of local government.

Instead, our local elections have become contests between mainstream, Elizabeth Warren type liberals vs. the Sandersesque left. That's an oversimplification, but it pretty much captures the flavor.

More on this later.

That was sharply drawn in last week's Iowa City election between two de facto slates. At large liberal incumbents Bruce Teague and Megan Alter, with Shawn Harmsen in the separate District B race, defeated the leftist challenger slate of Clara Reynen and Newman Abuissa in the at large race and Amy Hospodarsky in District B. 

It's the first win for the mainstream liberals in three local cycles. In 2023, Laura Bergus, who took a sharp left turn after winning her first term, switched races and defeated fellow council incumbent Pauline Taylor. Mandi Remington knocked off Royceann Porter in the June 2024 supervisor primary, and self-described anarchist Oliver Weilein won big over Ross Nusser in a March 2025 city council special election.

Turnout saw a sharp jump over the past few cycles to 11,174 in Iowa City. It's the highest ever, setting aside three elections with extreme extenuating circumstances (the 2007 and 2013 elections that saw student turnout spikes due to ballot issues on the bar admission age, and the 2005 election with a public power measure that prompted Midamerican Energy to spend $400,000 on a No campaign). In real terms and taking into account growth, it's a return to the levels we saw in 1997 (10,097) and 2001 (10,668).

That turnout growth, compared to the March special election (6,902 - pretty good for a special and rivaling recent regular city election cycles) was uneven across precincts, and that may be the big story as to why the outcome was so different. Of course, in this election the mainstream liberal candidates were all experienced people who have won elections before, unlike first time candidate Nusser in March. All other things being equal, someone who has won an election before is usually more likely to win than someone who has not.

The turnout increases were smallest in the core downtown/student precincts, with precincts 5, 11, 20, 21 and 25 at 100% to 113% of their March turnout (this includes absentees) and precinct 19 actually dropping to 79% of the March turnout.

In contrast, ten precincts saw turnout more than double the March numbers. The biggest jumps were on the south and southeast side (precinct 10 at 277%, precinct 12 at 263%, and 27 at 226%) and on the west side (26 at 242% and 8 at 228%). 

These precincts saw turnout between 215 and 279 voters, other than 8 at 471, and there were some split outcomes. In 10 and 27, the liberal incumbents all won. But in 8, 12 and 26. Hospodarsky led Harmsen while Teague and Alter led the at large contest.

But elections are counted in raw numbers, not percentages, and the big numeric spikes were in older established east side precincts like 1, 16, 17, 23 and 24 and west side precinct 2. These precincts all had between 558 and 861 voters (with increases of 152% to 210%) and Harmsen won all with 57 or 58% (except for 55% in 24).

Harmsen's strongest vote was in these precincts along with 60% of the absentee (which is not broken out by precinct). Hospodarsky had several hot spots on the southeast side and west side and in the core campus precincts.

The geographic patterns were simpler and different in the vote for two at large race. Most precincts finished in the citywide order: Teague, Alter, Reynen, Abuissa. There was no precinct where Alter ran ahead of Teague, and nowhere that Abuissa was ahead of Reynen. (The part I can't figure is why, in a race that was so polarized, Abuissa ran 1000 votes behind Reynen.)

The exceptions were the core five student precincts - 3, 5, 11, 19 and 20 - which all finished Reynen, Teague, Abuissa, and Alter. But of those five precincts, only 20 saw significant turnout; the others had the four lowest vote totals. And, again, these were the places where turnout increased the least over March. Just anecdotally, this election seems to have attracted fewer of the young voters who don't normally participate in local elections than the special election did - or maybe they just got hidden in the higher overall turnout. My sense is that Weilein had a particularly strong personal following.

The least controversial item in the election was the local option sales tax referendum. That's odd for those of us with long memories. Johnson County has long been the last holdout in the state on LOST, with the regressivity argument having more strength here than anywhere else. Iowa City briefly and narrowly passed a sales tax in 2009 for flood relief (Coralville just as narrowly voted it down), but that expired after four years. There were landslide defeats in 1987 and 1999 (the exquisitely poor timing of scheduling the 1999 vote the day before property taxes were due didn't help) and a narrower loss in 2014.

This time, the liberals and the left seemed to be in agreement that the state had given the cities few revenue options, and the inclusion of affordable housing in the resolutions made the regressivity pill easier to swallow. There was no visible organized No campaign like there was in 2009.

In any election involving money in Johnson County, there's about a 15 or 20% unpersuadable vote that I call the Automatic No. They're just going to vote against taxes, period. That means a Yes campaign has to get their 50% (or in the case of a bond 60%) out of the remaining 80% of voters.

Set aside the Automatic No, and the Yes campaign got everyone else: 77% in North Liberty, 84 in Iowa City and 85 in Coralville.

Looking at that Automatic No a little more closely: Given a choice between a slate of Warren liberals and a slate of Sanders leftists, local Republicans didn't make a "lesser of two evils" choice, they just opted out. The city's voter registration is roughly four Democrats for each Republican (countywide it's more like 2.4 to 1). But the final election turnout was nine to one Democratic. Looking at turnout percentage, Democrats were voting at more than twice the rate of Republicans.

Also pointing to the Republicans Skipped This One analysis: Over 1100 voters, ballpark of 10% of the total turnout, voted in the sales tax contest but skipped the District B race. So the Automatic No vote got out to vote against the sales tax, and if they don't like what the city council (which keeps its status quo ante split of four liberals and three leftists) does, they'll just get the state legislature to overrule them.

Briefly touching on other races:

The Iowa City school board race saw incumbents Ruthina Malone and Jayne Finch comfortably ahead and a close race between two strong challengers who presented as liberal. Jennifer Horn-Frasier narrowly prevailed (as of this writing 248 votes) over Dan Stevenson with last second surprise candidate David Noerper way behind. It's a big change from 2023 when a conservative slate lost in a landslide as liberals packed the polls to vote against them.

The left made its first serious run in Coralville, which saw all time record turnout of 3841, surpassing even the "Koch Brothers Election" of 2013 that drew national attention. In the open mayor's race (incumbent Meghann Foster is running for Zach Wahls' open state senate seat), mainstreamer and longtime council member Laurie Goodrich defeated lefty Ryan Swenka. There was a very sharp geographic split with Swenka carrying the precincts south of I-80 while Goodrich prevailed in the higher turnout north.

The council race was a free-for-all with eight candidates for three spots. Incumbents Hai Huynh and Mike Knudson were consensus choices. Lefty Katie Freeman took the third slot by just over 200 with support from just 38% of city wide voters, as a bunch of hard to tell apart candidates split the vote.

The other notable local result was in Solon. One of the three council seats was open, and it was widely understood that former Iowa football equipment manager Greg Morris (long rumored as a potential candidate for something) would win,and indeed he placed first. But late starters Matthew Macke and Tim Gordon, who both presented as conservative, knocked off incumbents Lauren Whitehead and Cole Gabriel, both active Democrats, in what feels like a backlash election.

So status quo for Iowa City and North Liberty, some shuffling in Coralville, and a big step backwards in Solon. Now, on to the next one, a June primary with unusually high stakes.

More to say about that later.

Free speech rally October 1

In 1921 Hitler personally led his storm troopers in an attack on a meeting which was to be addressed by a Bavarian federalist by the name of Ballerstedt, who received a beating. For this Hitler was sentenced to three months in jail, one of which he served. This was his first experience in jail and he emerged from it somewhat of a martyr and more popular than ever. "It’s all right,” Hitler boasted to the police. "We got what we wanted. Ballerstedt did not speak.” As Hitler had told an audience some months before, 'The National Socialist Movement will in the future ruthlessly prevent – if necessary by force – all meetings or lectures that are likely to distract the minds of our fellow countrymen.” - William Shirer, The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich

There is a Free Speech Rally scheduled for Wednesday. October 1 at 5:30 on the Ped Mall. I encourage you to attend and to think deeply about the meaning of free speech. It belongs to everybody and it even applies to things you might call "hate speech."

If you are leaning on your right to "free speech" to rationalize efforts to prevent someone you oppose from speaking, and to block people from attending that speech, you're a hypocrite.

And if your purity test is unconditional support for such efforts, you are no progressive.

Caucus Conversation: Myths and Facts

Sometimes you need to explain things again. And again. And again.

That's what I've been doing for the last nine years when it comes to the failure of the Iowa caucuses. That whole discussion is bubbling up again thanks to the Iowa Democratic Party's "Family Conversation" survey (please particpate).

There's nothing new here for people who have been following me for a long time. This is just a re-organization in the hope that it will finally click for a few more people.

I've taken the most common pro-caucus myths, the ones the die-hards always repeat, and made the case against them. Unfortunately, some of those items require long, deep in the weeds answers, so I've tried to sum them up in one-liner shorthand. If you're on my side in this discussion, bookmark this for later.

Preamble: A word from Basil Exposition.

Historically, only a few states had public presidential primaries, and New Hampshire was generally first. Most states had the old smoke-filled room system of obscure conventions and sparsely attended caucuses. 

Starting in 1972, the Democrats reformed their nomination process to make it more open, and Iowa accidentally scheduled its caucuses before the New Hampshire primary. Jimmy Carter noticed, and from there the Iowa caucuses grew into what we know now.

After a decade or so of games, Iowa, New Hampshire, and the national parties agreed that Iowa would have the first caucus and New Hampshire the first primary. Both states passed laws to that effect.

New Hampshire spent the next 40 years policing Iowa’s caucus process to make sure it did not become an election, without giving Iowa much guidance as to what that meant, and threatening to move their primary date ahead of our caucus if they didn't like something.

The national parties went along until the Democratic National Committee revised the calendar in December 2022 - moving New Hampshire to third and removing Iowa entirely from the early states. (Republicans left the existing calendar in place.) Now the process-obsessed Democrats are reviewing the calendar again for 2028.

Myth: "The caucuses" and "First in the nation" are the same thing.

Short answer: The two terms often get used interchangeably. But when people say "we need the caucuses back," they usually mean "we want First in the nation back." 

Quasimodo predicted all this.

Facts: “First in the nation” (or “First”) is about the year before – the in person visits, the command performances at party fundraisers, the organizers on the ground, the money flowing into the state, the hoopla. In a nomination system where states vote in sequence, most states don’t get that kind of attention. Historically only the two earliest states, Iowa and New Hampshire, have gotten that. In recent years, and to a lesser extent, Nevada and South Carolina have had some of that. The other 46 states get some TV ads and maybe an airport rally.

When I'm talking about “the caucuses” I mean the actual meeting at which votes are cast and party business is done. These meetings are run by the parties and not by county auditors like a normal election. Historically the caucuses have required in person attendance with no absentee voting. In recent cycles, most states have phased out caucuses in favor of primaries.

The reason “First” and “caucuses” are often incorrectly used as synonyms is because of New Hampshire. “New Hampshire won’t like it” has long been used as an excuse to shoot down reforms and to keep our process frozen in the past. 

Part of that excuse making has been to say “the caucuses” when what’s really being discussed is First. That's deliberate, to reinforce the message of “we have to have caucuses instead of a primary or else we won’t be First.” 

I’m actually agnostic on the whole question of First, and I recognize the historic benefits.  But there are serious issues with caucuses as a process, and for a lot of reasons I believe the flaws in a caucus process outweigh the advantages of First.

Myth: State law says we have to vote First.

Short answer: Not really.

Facts: The state law, and the corresponding New Hampshire law, often get used to justify our complicated process. But despite the way it's usually spun, Iowa law does NOT say we have to vote for president first. It only says that we have to hold a caucus to elect precinct level party officers before other states vote for president. The law does not even require a presidential vote at all at the caucus. For decades, Iowa Republicans skipped the presidential vote in re-election years.

In 2024 Iowa Democrats followed the letter of the law. They had a January caucus for party business only, eight days before New Hampshire's rogue primary. They then held a mail-in presidential vote, with a March deadline that was in compliance with the DNC calendar. 

There were a few bumps in the road, as there are any time you try something new. The caucus attendance and mail-in turnout were low - which is normal in a re-election year. (Yes, I know a lot of unprecedented stuff happened later.) But it pretty much worked, and it's probably the only way we can comply with both current state law and the likely 2028 DNC rules.

Myth: There is no way to organize rural Iowa without in person visits by presidential candidates and without outside money and organizers. The caucuses are still first for the Republicans and we can't cede the field of debate to them.

Short answer: It's over and it's not coming back.

Facts: Yes, this hurts. Yes, it’s going to be hard to change. But for reasons I explain below, the DNC is not going to willingly give us back this privilege. And if we go rogue and vote first anyway, the DNC can effectively prevent candidates from visiting Iowa and keep us from gaining the historic benefits of First.

We build this mess ourselves through 50 years of making unrealistic demands and setting unrealistic expectations that candidates absolutely HAD to be seen in person in the very smallest Iowa towns. We insisted, indeed some of us continue to insist, that Iowa First is the "natural order" (a phrase I saw used this week!), and we have no idea how entitled we sound to the 48 other states that managed to organize without it. 

We have already wasted three years in denial since the December 2022 day that we lost the early state slot for 2024. We have continued to feed false hopes that will only make our rural counties resent it even more when it's 2027 and the candidates aren't here.

Our party leaders need to lead. We need to respect our small county activists enough to be honest with them, and we need to work with them on how to best replace that old system - because we don't have the political clout to make it come back.

Myth: The caucuses are a great organizing tool. (When they really mean "First.")

Short answer: Maybe. But your mileage may vary. (And as you'll read below, we make some unacceptable moral compromises to have this privilege.)

Facts: First certainly helped with fundraising, which is probably why the state’s political establishment loves them. There's a lot of money in multi-candidate events and in selling database access. And the overall level of interest and excitement isn't a bad thing.

But what does that do in terms of actually rounding up volunteers and votes for November? 

I attended a lot of candidate events for candidates of both parties from 2007 through 2019, when I was wearing a beret and doing more writing. Those events have long since been corrupted by the media spotlight. The glorified ideal of Ordinary Iowans Who Are Trying To Make A Deliberative Choice is in fact pretty rare. Iowans are getting their information off the internet like the rest of the world. 

The Notch Babies were a big group in 1988. 
This issue, um, resolved itself with time.

Instead, events are packed with four types of people: 

1) "Bird dog" representatives of single issue groups who are trying to get their candidate on record on their pet cause and their specific wording. They certainly have the right, but they tend to hog the mic. And those demands, aimed at a national audience, can paint candidates into the corner of taking positions that don't help in an Iowa general election.

2) Trackers from the other party, other campaigns, and reporters looking for a gaffe.  

3) Selfie collectors – who are often already committed to other candidates! 

And 4) People who are already strongly committed to that specific candidate. And of this group, almost no one sticks around and joins the local party if their favorite candidate is not the nominee.

Myth: The caucuses are a great organizing tool. (When they mean "the caucus meeting itself.") 

Short answer: Tell that to the 500 people in my caucus room.

Facts: The biggest myth of all is the carefully curated image of the caucus as an idyllic town hall setting of people calmly and patiently discussing The Issues Of The Day. When people say "we want the caucuses back," and actually mean the caucuses instead of First, this is the misty-eyed memory they are talking about. That may still exist in some small rural counties. But that is not the modern experience for most people who attend a caucus. 

Half of all 2020 caucus goers attended just 260 of the 1678 precinct caucuses, precincts with attendance of 191 people or higher. That's close to the point where a grade school gym is fire-code overcrowded, and close to the point where a meaningful meeting doesn't work. All you can do is crowd control and anger management.  It's not possible to organize in a room of 500, 700, or 900 people, especially when a 90%+ majority of attendees do not want to be at a "party organizing meeting," they just want to vote for president. 

Myth: A lot of people at the caucus is a good problem to have.

Short answer: Meetings of that size do active damage to local organizing. 

Facts: Someone wants to attend your meeting and first you tell them "stand in line 45 minutes to sign in, then stand in a corner for three hours to vote." And it is always the locals who get blamed. Never "the Iowa Democratic Party." Never "the DNC." Never "the New Hampshire Secretary of State who won't let me have an absentee ballot." It's always the precinct and county volunteers who did the most work and had the least to do with making the rules who get blamed.

We don't lose Democratic votes over it in the fall, and eventually they caucus again, only because they have no choice. But we lose people who might be donors or volunteers, who instead sit on the sidelines because their first experience with the party was so awful.

In fact, if we decouple the presidential vote from the caucus meeting, like we did in 2024, the much, much smaller number of people in attendance will be the people who actually care about party committees and platform resolutions and will have a better experience. 

But if you think the only way to organize your county is forcing everybody who just wants to vote for president into a mandatory meeting, that's not a good plan.

Myth: Overcrowding is "only a Johnson County problem."

Short Answer: No it's not, and that doesn't solve the problem.

Facts: 17 counties had at least one caucus with more than 200 people in attendance. These are the biggest and best Democratic precincts where we need to run up the score in November to win.

And blaming Johnson County (and other big precincts in blue counties) for our own success and enthusiasm does not solve the problem. Are we simply supposed to suffer?

I understand that it may be hard for a rural county activist to imagine a 900 person caucus. But that's our reality. In 2020 Johnson County had 40 caucuses (out of a then 57 precincts) with 200 or more in attendance. That's not a caucus - that's three dozen simultaneous congressional district conventions that we're being forced to manage.

IDP has told us, verbatim, "you blue counties are on their own, what resources we have need to go other places, and you need to help your smaller neighbors." We haven't complained. We've done the work and gotten the results. We don't ask for a lot of help. 

Well, this is the thing we need help on. We are forced into a one size fits all caucus process that simply does not work for us. We need the rest of the state to understand, to care, and to let us have the solutions we need. 

Myth: Just get bigger rooms, then.

Short Answer: There aren't bigger rooms. 

Facts: Once attendance gets over about the capacity of a grade school gym, public spaces (free or otherwise) are hard to come by. The urban counties are already paying thousands of dollars to rent theaters and hotel ballrooms. (IDP and the DNC have never offered to chip in for that.) The number of people who want to attend - correction: want to vote for president but have to attend - is larger than the capacity of the largest public spaces that exist. 

The only way to solve the problem is to get the people who only want to vote for president out of the rooms with absentee ballots or with a real primary.

And we can do that. We just have to let go of First.

Myth: Caucus night can be fixed by holding a Republican style straw vote or by other rule changes.

Short Answer: That helps a little but not a lot.

Facts: Getting rid of realignment, the least popular part of caucus night itself, could make the event shorter and less miserable. IDP made some minor reforms in that direction in 2020. I fully expect that if we are forced back into a mandatory in-person caucus system, it will use the Republican vote-and-leave procedure.

But that won’t solve the overcrowding. 

You’ll still have to park everyone, often many blocks away. You still have to sign everyone in, re-register a lot of people, and get them into the room long enough to hand out ballots. You'll still need the 500 person room - you'll just need it for two hours instead of three. 

So why not let people check in early, vote, and leave? That’ll spread out the sign-in crunch, rotate more people through the parking spaces, and allow for somewhat smaller rooms. Not a bad idea.

Do you start that at 6 PM? 5 PM? What if some sites let you have an early check in all day long but others, especially schools, don’t? 

And how many hours of early sign in and voting can you have before the New Hampshire Secretary of State decides that’s not a caucus, it’s an election? 

Which doesn't matter... unless we are trying to be First.

If we're going to defy the DNC by going rogue on the date, and defy New Hampshire by allowing absentees, that begs the question: why not just go all the way and have a primary? 

Myth: So we'll do it like we always did it before, only with absentees. 

Short Answer: Run that by the New Hampshire Secretary of State.

Facts: I'm all for absentees at the caucus. Nevada had a good early voting program at their 2020 caucuses. But New Hampshire didn't care what Nevada did, because Nevada voted after New Hampshire.

One of the few things New Hampshire has made clear to Iowa over the years is that they consider an in-person meeting to be an important part of the difference between a caucus and an election. They also believe that absentee ballots transform a caucus into an election - and New Hampshire will do whatever is necessary to have the first primary election.

Describe for me an absentee system that will not cause New Hampshire to object.

Iowa Democrats invested a huge amount of time and effort in a phone-in "virtual caucus" system in 2020. But IDP undercut it by under-counting the votes, so the presidential campaigns didn't buy in. Then the IT crowd at the DNC shot it down entirely as a security risk.

So at the last minute IDP dusted off a "satellite caucus" system. It helped a handful of people who would not otherwise have been able to attend, but it did little to address overcrowding, and people still had to attend an in-person meeting at one place and time. 

(The other flaws and inconsistencies in the satellite caucus process would take up another dissertation-length post, that I may need to write if it looks like that dead plan is going to be dug up again.)

It would be easy to have a caucus with the kind of absentee votes people actually want - mailed ballots and early voting locations. Again: all we have to do is give up on First.

But a lot of Iowa Democrats believe the next myth:

Myth: First is the only thing that matters.

Short answer: "There's always next cycle." 

Facts: In a way, I almost admire Scott Brennan, the former IDP chair and current DNC member. When a New York Times reporter told him the story of an emergency room worker who was going to miss the 2008 caucuses because she could not get the shift off, Brennan was honest enough to say the quiet part out loud (paywalled):

Brennan, (then) chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, said the party had no responsibility to ensure that voters can participate. "The campaigns are in charge of generating the turnout," he said. The voters who truly care, he said, will find their way to their precincts. As for the emergency room worker, "There's always next cycle."

Brennan should be permanently excluded from any position of influence in the Democratic Party for that answer, yet he gets re-elected to the DNC at every state convention. 

The sad truth is: A lot of Iowa Democrats agree with him.

In the 40 year battle with New Hampshire, Iowa has always been willing to throw voters who can’t attend an in-person caucus under the bus, and there’s no reason to think 2028 will be any different. Both parties do it - but Democrats are at least supposed to act like we care. 

Democrats are the party of voting rights. We cry foul every time the Republicans make early voting harder. We push our voters to bank their votes early...

...except at caucus time, when we demand that people attend a one time one place only hours long meeting. And we tell the people who can't attend "There's always next cycle," because First is more important.

If you're only going to take one thing away from this whole deep read, that's the thing. People who are arguing that First isn’t everything, it’s the only thing (apologies to Vince Lombardi) are, in the end, arguing it's just too bad if some people don't get to vote. 

That's morally unacceptable. What good is First to people who are disenfranchised by the process?

Here's another way people try to explain away that problem:

Myth: The caucuses aren’t an election.

Short answer: The people have decided otherwise.

Facts: If you want to be a “well, ACTually” bro about it, you’re technically correct. The caucuses were never meant to be a mass participation event. They were designed as a living room sized meeting of the long time regular party activists. They were intended to elect local delegates, not produce the kind of precise results we see in elections. 

Then Jimmy Carter showed up, then the national media showed up. And then the public made them a mass participation event by showing up.

In every way that matters, the caucuses have long since become an election. The voters of Iowa have decided they are an election. They’re just an election with complicated and outdated rules. And we learned the hard way in 2012, in 2016 and especially in 2020 that the parties will be held to the timeliness and precision standards of elections.

Myth: The DNC hates Iowa.

Short Answer: This one's actually true - but maybe we kind of deserve it?

Facts: National Democrats hate that we have so dramatically trended red since 2012. Maybe we can change this. 

They hate our unrepresentative demographics. We can't change this. 

They hate caucuses as a process - and rightly so. We need to show that we want to change this. 

They hate our arrogant sense that First is somehow our "natural right." It's too late to change this. 

And they don't think that Iowa missing out on one uncontested nomination cycle is sufficient punishment for the results meltdown of 2020, no matter whose fault it actually was. 

The truth is, the entire calendar review process of 2022 was about one thing: getting rid of Iowa.

With all this against us, any time spent trying to persuade DNC to put us back in the early states is time wasted. Whatever pull IDP has with DNC (next to zero right now) should be used on other items that will help us rebuild. 

Myth: If we defy the DNC and go first anyway, the candidates will still come to Iowa and we will reap all the historic benefits of First. They're coming already, aren't they? So what if DNC takes away some delegates. Iowa is about the momentum, not the delegates. 

Short Answer: DNC has effective tools to keep candidates from visiting rogue states.

Facts: This gets a little deep in the weeds. 

There is no 2028 calendar yet, so there's no rules to break yet and people can do whatever they want. 

In late 2026, the DNC will schedule four or five states for dates in February 2028. Other states can begin voting in March. Once the calendar is set, each state party must submit a “delegate selection plan" to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee, which approves or rejects those plans. 

One reason for rejection is if the plan violates the early state calendar, or does not include a date at all (which is why Iowa’s plan was initially rejected in early 2023). At that point sanctions take effect against both the state and against candidates who campaign there.  

Campaigning (see page 20) is defined extremely broadly.

“Campaigning” for purposes of this section includes, but is not limited to, placing a candidate’s name on the ballot or failing to take action to remove it from the ballot; purchasing print, internet, or electronic advertising that reaches a significant percentage of the voters in the aforementioned state; hiring campaign workers; opening an office; making public appearances; holding news conferences; coordinating volunteer activities; sending mail, other than fundraising requests that are also sent to potential donors in other states; using paid or volunteer phoners or automated calls to contact voters; sending emails or establishing a website specific to that state; holding events to which Democratic voters are invited; attending events sponsored by state or local Democratic organizations; or paying for campaign materials to be used in such a state.

The DNC has two especially strong tools that would keep candidates out of a rogue Iowa. 

One, they can exclude candidates from debates. The stronger tool is locking candidates out of the party’s online database (known as “VAN” to all operatives). Maybe a candidate could survive skipping debates. But no campaign could last a week without VAN – especially in a state with a party run caucus. You can’t get data on past caucus attendees from local or state election officials and build your own database – it is ONLY available from the party. Is anyone really going to risk that for a minor media bump from a rogue Iowa?

Myth: They’ll never actually punish us. New Hampshire got away with it, didn’t they?

Short answer: F🤬k around and find out.

Facts: Actually, New Hampshire WAS punished. True, they voted in an official state-run primary ahead of their assigned slot. But they didn’t really get First. They “voted” first but they saw no surrogate speakers or organizers. They didn’t even have Biden on the ballot. 

And here’s the part you probably don’t know: in order to get their delegates seated, New Hampshire Democrats had to have a do-over vote in April. The event was scarcely publicized, because New Hampshire wanted to bluster and bluff everyone into thinking they had "won," and only a handful of party activists participated. 

Historically the DNC has been reluctant to invoke delegate penalties on states that vote too soon. But the real punishment for Florida and Michigan, who broke the calendar rules in 2008, was that the candidates didn't visit. They got to vote early, but they didn't get First. Same with New Hampshire in 2024 (though Biden wasn’t going to be up in Nashua campaigning for renomination anyway). 

But there’s a first time for everything. Those past rule breakers have been legitimate swing states. Iowa, in contrast, is the perfect state to make an example of. They already hate us for all the reasons listed above, and we have no strong federal official to fight for us the way Tom Harkin used to. 

Maybe I’m wrong. But if we pursue the "F🤬k the DNC" path, we could very easily end up with no candidate visits and no national delegates. 

Eyes on the prize, people. 

This "family conversation," while welcome as outreach, is a distraction from more important matters. I'm only devoting so many words to it because it's my particular area of expertise. 

Before we start talking about F🤬k the DNC, maybe we should focus on winning some 2026 elections instead? Then maybe Governor Sand, Senator Wahls, and three Democratic House members can go make the case for Iowa as an early state.