New Years Eve in North Eastern Iowa…

Dear Friends and Other Gentle People;

First, Happy New Year. Today more then all the other days spent in Iowa I miss my family. My daughter Breanna (picture to the left) loves this Holiday and enjoys staying up to see the “ball drop”. Sadly, I will not be there to share this moment with her. However, the work Bill and I are doing out here in Iowa is critically important to the future of our nation, making our sacrifices well worth it.

We now have been assigned three caucus sites Bill and I will be working with. Our effort today was attempting to locate AFSCME Caucus Captains for each site. Each Caucus in the region will have an AFSCME presence symbolized by the famous AFSCME green shirts. Bill and I met for over one hour this morning with Lynn McFadden, a retired union member who has aligned herself with the AFSCME effort and will be one of our Caucus Captains. We went through a full Caucus Captain training session in Lynn’s living room. Like Lynn, we are starting to create one-on-one relationships with Pro-Hillary AFSCME members. The bottom line is that we need to get the Pro-Hillary voters to the caucuses. If that effort is successful, Hillary will win in Iowa.

Tomorrow, Bill and I will be delivering caucus packages to AFSCME members who live in rural areas along the Wisconsin border. These packages will help us to ensure the AFSCME effort will reach into every corner of the state of Iowa.

As Bill so eloquently pointed out in a previous post, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls region has become ground zero in this election. Hillary will be in our area again tonight to help welcome in the New Year with the residents of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls region. As you can surmise at this point, Bill and I will be at the Hillary visit helping out in any manner we can.

Good day friends and God Bless,

- Robert


Articles of note:

'You don?t have to yell and scream,' Clinton says

02 days until the Jan. 3, 2008 Iowa caucuses

72 Hours Out: Where Things Stand

Caucus Countdown: Women Keep One Eye on Iowa, the Other on New Hampshire


________________________________________

Bill and Robert swing into action!!!!

Well friends, today we really swung into action. Waterloo and Cedar Falls have been determined to be the epicenter of the Iowa campaign and Robert and I wouldn’t want it any other way. We started the day by assisting the Clinton folks doing some door-to-door visits. I am continuously astounded by the gracious acceptance the Iowans give us as we rap on their doors incessantly. Our task was to convince people who would not commit to caucusing for Hillary previously to do so. We used every bit of charm and persuasiveness that we could muster in 6-degree weather to convince them to do so, and were successful beyond my expectations. We finished our evening at the University of Northern Iowa where we attended a speech by Hillary to a crowd of approximately 1200 people. I had the opportunity to speak to a professor of Business Administration at Northern Iowa and a high school physics teacher who were sitting with me. They take the responsibility of caucusing very seriously and the discussion was a lively one. Hillary gave an extremely inspirational speech, outlining the many problems that she would tackle when she takes office as our next President. Tomorrow we will again hit the streets in a final push to get as many Hillary supporters to the caucus as we possibly can. Bill Clinton will be visiting Waterloo tomorrow night and we will be there to hear him speak, and Hillary is slated to return to the area on the second of January for one final visit. We will do whatever it takes and go wherever we need to insure that our efforts are successful.

Stay well, I miss you all and look forward to seeing you upon our return!

- William

_________________________________________

Clinton leads in Iowa!!!!!!!!

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton holds a narrow lead in Iowa four days before the state opens the presidential nominating race, while Republicans Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are virtually tied, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Sunday.

Click here for the whole story....

_______________________________________



Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll:




_____________________________________

Sunday Morning in Iowa

It is 7:30am on Sunday morning (at +6 degrees) and I am getting ready to head out to the Labor Temple. The polls in Iowa remain fluid and tight. The political buzz in Iowa is that anything could happen Thursday night. Bill and I have developed a “fire-in-the belly” commitment to helping the AFSCME Hillary Team win the Iowa caucuses. So friends and readers your prayers and positive thoughts are needed as we head out into the Waterloo – Cedar Falls neighborhoods scratching for every vote we can find.

In an effort to help folks understand what is going on out here in The Hawkeye State, here are some great sources of information:

Iowa Independent - is a collaboration of bloggers and journalists across Iowa with the goal of breaking news and influencing the conversations about issues that face our state. Serving over 70,000 page views per month (based on an average of July, August, and September 2007), they are Iowa's largest online-only news outlet.

The Des Moines Register - This is Iowa's largest newspaper.

Blog for Iowa - The Online Information Resource for Iowa's Progressive Community.

Click Here For HuffPost's 'Round The Clock Iowa Coverage

Good Day and God Bless;

- Robert

_____________________________________

On the campaign trail….

Photobucket Album

Iowa: Land of friendly, thoughtful people....

Our first full day on the caucus trail was a busy one indeed. We started this morning with a staff meeting attended by our Region 1 (Waterloo, Cedar Falls, Dubuque, and eastern Iowa) staff. We then were given our list of contacts for door to door canvassing and hit the road. Robert and I were assigned the Cedar Falls area. I was impressed once again by the friendly spirit of the people of Iowa, just as I have been in my previous campaign experiences in Florida in 2000 and in Wisconsin in 2004. Again and again we were met with thoughtful people who freely gave us their time to explain there caucus intentions. In the afternoon we were scheduled to attend a 3 pm class for precinct captains at the labor temple we are working from in Waterloo. This training was given by AFSCME staff and entailed the entire caucus process. I found the training to be very informative, in light of my complete ignorance of what really transpires here. I had no concept of the wide-open process and of the nuances that make the caucus system so different from what we are used to in New York. In the caucus system used here, a candidate must have a 15% showing of those who choose to attend in each precinct or they are considered “not viable”. Their supporters can then either throw their support behind another “viable” candidate or can simply walk out of the caucus. Supporters of viable candidates can attempt to persuade supporters of those found not viable to join them. There is a thirty-minute time limit to attempt to accomplish this. It sounds to me like a possible madhouse, but they assure me that it works! I am looking forward to seeing what I learned put into practice this Thursday. Following the training we were told that Hillary will be visiting Cedar Falls tomorrow, and we will, of course, be in attendance. We then returned to the streets to continue to canvass, ending our day by returning to the temple just after 8 pm. I am now watching the Giants attempt to beat New England. Following the game I am turning in for the night to rest my aching knees. I send all my best to each of you and look forward to seeing you upon our return.

With warm regards;

- Bill

____________________________________________

Iowa - Day One

Dear Friends;

Our boots are on the ground in Iowa. I must say our boots hit the ground running. When we arrived in Waterloo it was amidst a fairly significant snowstorm with temperatures hovering in the high teens to the low twenties. Our first day was mostly travel as we left Rochester about 6am and hit Iowa about noon (getting up at 2am). We procured our vehicles and rooms and we are off. Most of the rest of our first day was talking with folks one on one about Hillary. While we were well received so far, it appears the state of Iowa is still full of undecided voters. I was very surprised by the lack of visible political activity. Very few campaign signs were around the Waterloo - Cedar Falls region of Iowa. The good news is that of all the campaigns, Hillary was the most visible. The other thing that struck me was the ambivalence of many voters towards the caucuses. Organization is obviously the key to an Iowa victory. The candidate that gets their supporters to the caucuses will be victorious. The other good news is that AFSCME has a splendid ground operation in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls region. Both Bill and I are very proud we can play a part in this important effort. Keep an eye on this page as it will be updated daily.

God Bless;

- Robert


Stumped on caucus jargon?
For more information on the Iowa Caucuses click here!

New York Times
Iowa Caucuses - NYT

Get unbiased coverage at CQ
And what actually happens at the caucuses?

The Caucus Step by Step
http://yougogirl.com/

________________________________________