I want to take a few minutes to break down @rodsullivan111's latest on @LauraRBelin's Bleeding Heartland. Go read it and come back while I'm hammering this out. https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2020/11/11/ten-things-iowa-democrats-should-do/

Rod's a friend and one of my supervisors. In the interest of fostering county amity, I'll set aside the terrible slights and oversights those of us in the boot heel must suffer daily.

Anyhoo, let us begin.
1: Engaging with all voters.
Duh, and that we're still even having this discussion...
Biden says he's a Democratic politician but he'll be a president for all Americans. That sort of message only has credibility if we fight for everyone's vote.

Rod doesn't make the point explicitly, but in most races (JC supe being a rare exception) candidates must cut the margin in rural areas if not win some of them outright.

2: Ideology, Authenticity. Run as you are, absolutely.

As to passion and anger: this is something Rod and I, and people who look like we do, can get away with. "Show some emotion" is fine for us white dudes.

That said, in my time as mayor, I found @dick_nixon to have a point about being cold. Sometimes you have to set the fire aside and be as chill as the January gale.

Anyway, exercise your emotional intelligence. There isn't a single correct answer to any given situation and your temperament and gifts will guide.

3. Weed. This is the dumbest thing. Felonious political malpractice.

Legal grass:

Good for taxes.
Good for racial justice.
Good for police.
Good for users.

As Kirk said in ST:IV, "It's better for you. It's better for them. It's better for me."

I'd go further. In fact, I have gone further. Here's me defending "legalize all drugs" from the 2016 Iowa Dem platform in June of '16: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/21/iowa-democrats-legalize-all-drugs-plank-raises-eyebrows/86206996/

4. Farmers as a distinct subset of rural voters.

Are Dems likely to win many farmers?

Who's a farmer? We can win people who farm, maybe not guys on a thousand acres, but from an imaging perspective at the least we need to enlarge the universe of "farmers."

Don't let the guys who have a million dollars worth of John Deere kit define farmer. John, the dude in Iowa City who provides Eleanore's CSA?

He farmer as fuck.

Eleanore is a farmer. She's been providing us delicious veggies all year, both from what she's got in her yard as well as a community share in an Iowa City garden.

5. Doors. I hope and pray this is moot as we've got CoVid under some semblance of control come the next campaign season.

But in 2020, it was no-win.

Knocking would've put our people at risk and also undermined the vital public health messaging we've been trying to broadcast. (Maybe Reynolds can incorporate that into her new PR campaign.)

It also would've marked us as inauthentic cynics.

Sometimes, you're screwed. It sucks. It has consequences. I hate it when I get fucked but not laid.

I don't know there was a better answer on the doors this year.

6. PX vs SMS (showing my own age in how I'm defining voice versus text).

This is easy, or it damned well should be. Some people prefer a call, some a text. Figure it out, put it in VAN, move along.

7. Local.

We hear this every 2-4 years and clearly the folks driving the ship aren't listening. I won't belabor the point other than to say: duh. Fucking duh.

I learned more in any month as mayor as I did in the four months I worked for a gov.

8. More local stuff.

Yep. This is all bench building stuff. It takes time. Years, cycles, decades perhaps.

We plant trees for our children. Dems have internalized that for climate, how about for politics?

Furthermore: there's no shame in being a small town mayor (for example). It's damned important work and it feels good. And yes, they call you "honorable," even when it's a stretch.

The local school board has more to do with how CoVid is going to play out here than Trump or Biden.

9. The Iowa Democratic Party.

I've got a lot of friends in the IDP, there are a lot of people I respect, but KEEERIST is the state party a black hole for good intentions.

Rod's comments are good and I'll let them stand because I'm going to add two points he may not agree with, so if you've come this far down the thread, congrats. Here comes the bomb chucking.

(Grabs a beer, pours a whiskey ... stand by.)

The IDP has got to let go of First and the fucking caucus. If you're fighting for either of those things you're antidemocratic and unserious.

Closely related to that, there are some folks who would rather have power in a rump party than give up power to see the party win.

People have done good work in the past and think they deserve legacy status like a wealthy donor's kid getting a spot into an Ivy.

That isn't the way it should work, but I'd be an idiot to claim that isn't the way it *does* work.

This must end.

10. Decency.

This is, probably, where Rod and I diverge the most.

Decency is baked into this Iowa Nice fiction we tell ourselves. I'm all for being polite and whatnot, until you punch me in the fucking chops. Allow me to be explicit:

It is time for the gloves to come off and for the brass knuckles to come on. Republicans lie their asses off from hell to breakfast and we're over here with flip charts.

Rhetorically, politically, emotionally we need to own how terrible all of this is. The possibility of political progress is the only thing between my liver and the wall.

I can absolutely be polite when I tell you the Republicans are utterly without decency, and they've forfeited their claim to the same in return.

Look, I just said that without swearing, all caps or asterisks.

Anyway, thanks to Rod for provoking me. We've got work to do.

Tuesday last was the beginning, not the end. Every victory is temporary. Let's remind the GOP of that.
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