‘Twas the day of the Caucuses

Don’t fret. I won’t be rhyming again. This is just a post to offer a sort of wrap-up in this space that’s different from the stories that are on our airwaves this morning.  Radio Iowa listeners are hearing from Iowans who’ve turned out at campaign rallies and were willing to talk about how they’re picking a president.  This is about my friends and acquaintances who offer their insights into the campaign and buoy me along the way when I need it most. I offer this series of random thoughts to you as explanation, or perhaps preview of what may happen tonight.

There’s the Republican source who has occasionally dropped me an email to offer a thought or two about a post on this blog and her insight into how the election is shaping up for the parties. "I’ve taken the opportunity to attend events for nearly every Republican and Democrat," she wrote a few months back.  "Democratic events, regardless of candidate, are energized, hopeful, active.  Republican events are fearful, quiet, resigned."

There’s the friend I met in college (BFF!) who moved from Iowa to Minnesota a couple of years ago and has been getting phone calls from the Clinton campaign, urging her to caucus. She explains she no longer lives in Iowa. "They won’t believe me," she wrote in an email last week.  "They act like I’m lying."

There’s my old high school teacher who reconnected via email this week, offering up this: "Being a life-long Democrat, though I’m extremely unhappy with both parties right now, I’ve been following the campaign fairly closely on both sides of the aisle. I’m a Hillary supporter. I think she’ll get the nomination and even though the campaign will be the most vicious campaign in history, I think she can win." 

There’s my friend from church who went through a WWJD process and announced to me in an email that, as a result, she’d chosen Obama.  Another friend sent out a Christmas email letter in early December and announced he was supporting Obama.   

There was my friend Mary who went into the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner undecided and then sent me an email on Sunday commenting on the "too slick" stage management on the part of the Obama and Clinton campaigns at the event:  "John Edwards sealed the deal for me last night," she wrote.  "I’m signing my support card this week."

I find it difficult to sit at my laptop and blog, record audio on my minidisc, write down time cues for the sound bites — and rove around to take pictures at an event, so my other friend Mary occasionally has been supplying pictures.  Her pictures from the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner are what adorn that story at RadioIowa.com. She’s a big Joe Biden supporter and forwarded these pictures from a recent Biden rally on New Year’s Day in Des Moines.  (She, too, explained her endorsement decision in her Christmas letter.)

Now, for the supporting cast — you have my unending thanks (and you can quit reading now if you’re not a FOOK — Friend of O. Kay). To my three puzzled friends who didn’t understand why I was typing furiously on my Blackberry when John Mellencamp took the stage at his concert in Des Moines in November, thanks for not ripping the device out of my hands.  (Just before the concert, I’d been advised John Edwards would be making an appearance on stage at some point, but didn’t want to spoil their concert experience by spilling the beans about it in advance.)

To my new friend and colleague, Christopher, who makes me laugh every time I get an email with the subject line "Hey, pretty lady" – thank you from a woman closer to middle age than you think.

To my Radio Iowa colleagues who put up with my potty mouth, regularly make me laugh and keep me on my toes with comments like, "Great memo, Jerry Maguire," — I know you have my back and I have yours.

Finally, to my family, one of you gave me a good mantra for the past two weeks with your closing advice in an email as I think I have managed to (sort of) "stay sane."  I apologize for missing our first attempt at a family get-together over the holiday back on December 22, 2007. Thanks for moving our 2007 Christmas celebration to January 5, 2008.   

Now go out and caucus.