On The Iowa Trail With Dean's Texas Rangers--part One

On The Iowa Trail with Dean's Texas Rangers-- Part One

http://www.earthwire.net/dean/iowa/Part_1.asp

ON THE IOWA TRAIL WITH DEAN’S TEXAS RANGERS by M. Martin

Introduction Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Afterword

(copyright 2004, all rights reserved)

“So you’re really sure you want to do this?” I said, handing her the printout. Ms. T glanc ed over the page. When she got to the part about weather “as c old as T om DeLay’s heart” she might’ve paused, but only for a minute. “If I’m too wuss to do this,” she said, “I got no business talking about joining the Peac e Corps. Let’s do it.” “Okay, Hon—I’ll go ahead and book us.” We had just gotten bac k from spending New Year’s Eve in Paris. Ms. T had another ten days before c lass started, and was game for another adventure. We had rec ently attended a “Dean Meet-up” and were both beginning to take the physic ian and former governor a lot more seriously. We were also both having serious misgivings about what Americ a might be like after four more years of George W. Bush. Our return to the U.S., via “George Bush Interc ontinental Airport”, c oinc ided with the first day of the US-VISIT program to photo & fingerprint inc oming foreign nationals. Even though we were returning U.S. c itizens, it still took well over an hour to get from the plane to the c ab stand. In c ontrast, the Frenc h c ustoms offic ial that had proc essed us in when we landed at Charles DeGaulle airport barely looked at our passports. T he c ost of our vac ation had inc reased daily as the US dollar fell against the Euro. In many ways, the European Union was beginning to make the United States look the way the U.S. used to make the old Soviet Union look—like a third-rate polic e state with a failed ec onomy hampered by an even more failed ideology…but just enough military might to qualify as a superpower. Neither one of us wanted to live in George Bush’s version of Americ a. Howard Dean had good ideas and good people. Rather than merely wait for an opportunity to vote for someone who wasn’t George Bush, Ms. T and I dec ided to really get involved and get involved early. I turned bac k to the c omputer, pulled up the “Dean for T exas” website, and made the nec essary c ontributions. We were now “Dean T exas Rangers”, bound for the frozen c ornfields of Iowa. ***** A week later, a c ab dropped us off in front of a Best Buy Store in Clear Lake City. T he only other plac e we might’ve boarded in the Houston area was in front of my old high sc hool in Spring. When I sent Glen Maxey, the c oordinator for the trip, an email asking why there wasn’t a pic k-up up point in Houston proper (Ms. T and I live in Montrose), his reply was somewhat testy, laying the blame on the inability of volunteers in c entral Houston to “c onsense” on a pic kup point. Having had my own past dealings with progressive ac tivists and the so-c alled “c onsensus model of dec ision-making,” I had some understanding of what Glen was having to deal with. I wrote bac k my apologies and made arrangements to take a c ab to the pic kup point. I was a little uneasy as the c ab drove away. T he instruc tions for the pic kup loc ation had mentioned a rec ently-c losed Best Buy store on I-45 between Bay Area Blvd. and Nasa Road One. T he Best Buy we were standing in front of was in the right plac e, but had obviously just opened, not c losed. My unease lessened when another volunteer was

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On The Iowa Trail with Dean's Texas Rangers-- Part One

http://www.earthwire.net/dean/iowa/Part_1.asp dropped off, then inc reased when it turned out that the store address didn’t matc h the one in the email instruc tions (the new arrival had printed out the email before he left—I hadn't had the time). I left Ms. T in c harge of our baggage and made a quic k rec onnoiter down I-45. Sure enough, there was a c harter bus in a parking lot about four bloc ks away—in front of an abandoned storefront that most likely had a Best Buy sign in front of it until rec ently. I phoned Ms. T while I sprinted bac k. By this time, yet another Dean T exas Ranger and his luggage had been dropped off at the wrong spot. We appropriated several Best Buy shopping c arts for our luggage, and led an impromptu c aravan ac ross a c ouple of suburban strip c enter parking lots to the bus. We pic ked up more than a few stares when we passed by the loc al Starbuc ks. It was a taste of things to c ome, in more ways than one. ***** T wenty hours later, we were in Iowa. T he trip had been about what I expec ted from my last c ross-c ountry bus ride—c ramped, unc omfortable, and tedious. T he folks sitting by the toilet had brought a generous supply of vodka and other spirits and had gotten so rowdy I wondered if I was bac k in high sc hool, with the “bad kids” c utting up in the bac k of the bus. By about 3 am, the last of them ran out of steam, though, and Ms. T and I were finally able to get some sleep. T he next day, I was able to relieve the tedium somewhat with a fat sc i-fi novel. T he bus was equipped with an airline-style video playbac k system. In a move that wound up being even more ironic than we knew at the time, someone pic ked up a c opy of “Wag T he Dog” at a truc k stop in northern Kansas. When we pulled into Des Moines, Robert de Niro and Dustin Hoffman were busily abusing the power of media to influenc e the politic al proc ess. Shortly after the movie ended, the golden dome of the Iowa State House emerged from the gloomy skies. Shortly after that, we pulled up in front of Dean’s storefront headquarters in downtown Des Moines. We were c ramped, unbathed, and short on sleep. Although we didn’t know it quite yet, we were also expec ted to immediately go to work. Headquarters appeared to be a pair of abandoned applianc e stores or c ar dealerships separated by a narrow parking lot. T he parking lot was spanned by a banner reading “I SEE DEAN PEOPLE” and a segment of Ethernet c abling hastily pitc hed from one rooftop to the other. T here were three buses from T exas—one originating from Houston, one from Austin, and one from San Antonio. All three pulled up in front of headquarters, and about 200 Dean’s T exas Rangers (no, I don’t know who c ame up with the name) were routed ac ross the ic ed-over parking lot and into a warehouse spac e in the bac k of one of the buildings. T he sky was the c olor of lead, and a light drizzle was freezing on c ontac t with the ground. In the warehouse, our names were c hec ked against a manifest and we were given a brown bag lunc h and a bright orange knit c ap embroidered with the legend “T he Perfec t Iowa Storm—Grassroots for Dean.” Having lost my baseball c ap somewhere around Kansas and having not eaten sinc e Oklahoma, I was glad to get both. T hose orange knit c aps are the single most under-reported aspec t of the Iowa Cauc us experienc e. T hey were everywhere. Debatably, Dean might’ve mobilized more out of state volunteers in Iowa than any other c andidate. T here is no doubt that we were the most visible c ontingent, regardless our ac tual numbers. An extraordinary sense of c amaraderie and purpose c ame from those orange c aps, the so-c alled “Deanie Beanies.”

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On The Iowa Trail with Dean's Texas Rangers-- Part One

http://www.earthwire.net/dean/iowa/Part_1.asp Even more extraordinary was the sheer diversity of the people wearing those orange c aps. Not c ounting c hildren traveling with their parents, there were volunteers in their teens, some early teens. On the other end of the age spec trum, Ms. T and I were doing phone bank work one day when we were joined by a man in his seventies. He managed to c onfirm some of the more embarrassing T exas stereotypes when he told people he c alled that he was from Gainesville, T exas, and that he was “freezing his ass off for Dean”, but his sinc erity was undeniable—as was mine and Ms. T ’s astonishment when we were asked to make room at the table for his mother, who had also c ome to volunteer. T here was just as muc h range in the ideology of Dean supporters, with the gamut running from the extreme left of media stereotypes, to Libertarians like myself, all the way to a gentlemen we wound up working with who was until rec ently a republic an and c ontinued to hold fairly republic an ideas regarding issues like abortion or gay rights. Regrettably, this diversity and inc lusiveness has also gone unreported. After lunc h, we were formed up in teams of six, assigned to vans, and given maps and lists of registered democ rats in various inner Des Moines neighborhoods. T hose who felt c onfident in their ability to drive on ic e were given the task of driving the vans. Ms. T and I wound up joining a team that inc luded two older men from Dallas, two older women from Austin, and our driver—a tall, slightly-built 20-something guy with slightly long sandy-red hair, who’s name turned out to be Robin. Sinc e one of the ladies from Austin had c anvassed before, we put her in c harge. T his turned out to be a mistake. Whatever she might’ve known about c anvassing, she didn’t know how to read a map or make dec isions. T he amount of time it took her to divvy up our address lists meant that it was c lose to five PM before we got started. As far north as Des Moines, it is nearly dark by 5:00 PM in January. While we had been getting organized, the rain had gradually gotten worse. By the time Ms. T and I were halfway thru our address list, the list was soaking wet and beginning to freeze. We dumped the remainder of our Dean newsletters at a c ouple of apartment c omplexes, then proc eeded to the Chinese restaurant where we had agreed to meet the rest of the team when we finished. When we arrived, one of the ladies from Austin was already standing in front of the restaurant. Within half an hour, the rest of the team had given up as well, and we were drinking pot after pot of hot green tea and c onsuming plate after plate of Chinese buffet. Over dinner, I notic ed our driver, Robin, looking at me in a slightly puzzled way. “I think I know you,” he said. “Oh, yeah?” “Yeah. We c elebrated New Year’s Eve together a few years ago with some friends of mine in a band c alled Rosebud. You used to run a pirate radio station c alled Montrose Radio.” Ms. T and I looked at eac h other, then c huc kled. We were used to this sort of thing happening in Houston, but we hadn’t expec ted it in Des Moines. “Guilty,” I said, “even though I haven’t seen anyone from Rosebud in a helluva a long time. Good seeing you again.” It turned out that another of our teammates also had a radio bac kground, albeit somewhat more legitimate, and another was an attorney and environmental ac tivist. Despite his youth, Robin was

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On The Iowa Trail with Dean's Texas Rangers-- Part One

http://www.earthwire.net/dean/iowa/Part_1.asp married, working on his sec ond kid, and working even harder to make ends meet. None of us were the media stereotype of a c ollege freshman looking for an exc use to c ut c lass. Very few of the people I met in Iowa c ould be so easily desc ribed—or so easily written off. ***** After dinner, Dean’s T exas Rangers regrouped at Headquarters. T he van drivers were given maps to our ac c ommodations—a YMCA c amp about an hour’s drive north of Des Moines. Despite our intentions to form a c onvoy, the group wound up being fairly sc attered, a line of minivans and buses stretc hing over ten miles. I bec ame fairly c ertain at one point that we were lost. Matters were not helped muc h by the fac t that Robin was not nearly so skilled at c old c limate driving as he had thought, and it was by now sleeting. We had heard several rumors regarding our ac c ommodations while we were at HQ. Among those rumors were that the c amp had neither hot water or flush toilets. Another was that we would be entertained that evening by c elebrities Joan Jett and Janeane Garofalo. As Dean’s T exas Rangers began to form up a c onvoy on a winding gravel road that looked an awful lot like a logging trail, the first rumor began to look inc reasingly c redible and the sec ond inc reasingly unlikely. Any kind of live music performanc e in this remote loc ation would involve airlifting in a PA and a generator via helic opter. For a moment, I imagined what the sc ene must look like from that hypothetic al helic opter. T hree c hartered buses and about 30 minivans, bumper to bumper on a series of switc hbac ks going down a hill in the remote woods of Northern Iowa. T he light from our headlights was c ertainly visible from miles, and c ertainly a puzzlement to the loc al wildlife and farmers. Finally, we arrived. We were herded off the buses and into a c learing at the c enter of the c amp. In the dim light and drizzle, all I c ould make out were wooden c abins arranged at different levels on a hillside, c onnec ted by gravel paths and stair steps c ut into the side of the hill. An improbably c heerful YMCA employee, a young blonde woman I immediately dubbed in my mind “Ranger Debbie”, explained the c amp rules to us: no smoking, no drinking, no c oed c abins. While I wasted a fair number of minutes arguing this last point with both Ranger Debbie and a senior Dean volunteer, other and more pragmatic souls simply c hose to ignore the rules. When I stalked bac k to my c abin, I disc overed that half the remaining bunks in the c abin had been taken by women, and nearly everyone in the c abin had a beer in their hand. I threw my luggage onto a pair of adjac ent bunks, and c onveyed this news to Ms T —who had resigned herself to staying with an assortment of mostly older women in a c abin near the c amp entranc e. She was skeptic al—not to mention fairly annoyed by the yelling matc h I’d just gotten myself into. But the beer in my hand was c redible….even if I wasn’t. It took a few minutes to move Ms T ’s luggage and get her tuc ked in for the evening, after whic h I found myself with a profound longing for a hot shower. Fortunately, the rumors regarding the plumbing proved false, even if most of the c abins lac ked fac ilities of their own. I was on my way to the bathhouse when the other rumor, the one about Janeane Garofalo and Joan Jett, was substantiated by someone pointing to one of the larger c abins and informing me that both rumored c elebrities were hanging out there. I returned to the c abin and shared this intelligenc e w/ Ms T , who didn’t want to leave her sleeping bag until I c ould c onfirm the rumor in person. I threw on some more c lothes and got my c amera, by whic h time Ms T . looked

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On The Iowa Trail with Dean's Texas Rangers-- Part One

http://www.earthwire.net/dean/iowa/Part_1.asp pretty muc h asleep and not muc h inc lined to leave her sleeping bag for muc h of anything. I dec ided to let her rest. T he rumor turned out to be true. Janeane was perc hed on one of the top bunks in the c abin, having several lively c onversations at onc e, while Joan and guitarist T hommy Pric e were busily selling autographed CDs and c hatting with fans in the c orner. I took a few photos and then retired, dec iding to postpone my shower until morning. Ms T . and I had gotten ourselves signed up for something c alled a “blogger breakfast”, and I was going to have to get up early anyway. Continued >>

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