On my way!

Happy New Year! I’m on my way to Iowa a day ahead of schedule. Jim and Marc, my two traveling companions, arranged to get to Chicago tonight, so I decided to join them. This will allow us to head to Iowa at the crack of dawn, and not have to worry about flight delays. Later we’ll work on our itinerary for tomorrow, to see how many campaign events we can pack into our voyage to Des Moines.

Perhaps it would be appropriate to discuss my own political leanings here. I am registered as an Independent, and I am undecided in who I will support in the Massachusetts primary on February 5 (Independents an vote in either primary in MA). I usually end up voting Democratic, though I voted for McCain in the 2000 primary, and Weld for governor in 1990. Also, in 1980 I supported John Anderson’s independent bid. OK, I was only 10, but my dad (a Republican state legislator and town politician) supported him and he spoke at our house!

I am attending the caucus as an observer, as a student of American politics, and as a government teacher. I have taught about caucuses for years based on my experience at town meetings in Massachusetts – as an event where the ordinary voter stands up and participates. However in 2004, I found myself in both Michigan and D.C. during their caucuses, and found them both to be pretty much primary elections run by the Party instead of the government. Iowa may be the last bastion of the traditional caucus, and I want to see it.

This year has the potential to be a watershed in American politics – to be the critical, realigning election that we haven’t really seen since 1932. Many candidates might break from the past in revolutionary ways. On the Republican side, none of the major candidates fits the traditional mold, despite their acrobatic efforts to seem closest to it in the debates. And on the Democratic side, both Edwards and Obama are campaigning on anti-establishment platforms, and even Clinton would be historic as the first woman. And then there is the potential for independent candidacies from Bloomberg (who could legitimately compete to win as a centrist – he can self-fund, he might only need 35% and half the voters are independent) and Paul (he is leading a libertarian revolution, and he’d have plenty of money also).

Besides the potential for seismic shifts in our partisan process, this election is spectacular for its uncertainty. This is the only election in the primary era when neither party really has a likely nominee as the voting begins. Clinton is the perhaps closest to this, but Obama is pretty much even with her and at least one poll had Edwards leading in Iowa. Giuliani can’t be the leading candidate when he isn’t really competing in the first three contests, and is slipping in national polls. More than ever before, whoever wins Iowa will become front-runner for each party, and then will likely pass that mantle to someone else in New Hampshire next week, and so on until February 5. And unless a candidate wins a majority of the delegates up for grabs that day, we have a good chance of a nomination that won’t be decided until the convention. This is a government teacher’s dream!

So this is why I am heading to Iowa (and then to New Hampshire) - to witness history. I am traveling with two friends of similar fascination. Jim and I have been debating politics for 20 years together, and he current is an executive in New York (he also happens to be my wife’s brother). Marc is another college friend who among us is most involved in politics, running a company that develops internet strategies for progressive causes. We are all undecided voters that have come here to Iowa to see what we can see.

Lastly (for now), I want to share a dream I had the other night (I am enough of a gov nerd that I dream about politics). Part of the dream had to do with Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, where I imagined the eventual president would form a cabinet from the candidates of both parties – Biden for Secretary of State? Giuliani for Homeland Security? The other part imagined that the two candidates with the most conciliatory rhetoric would win the nominations – Huckabee and Obama, and would then nominate each other as Vice President – so in November we would choose between Huckbee/Obama and Obama/Huckabee. Bipartisanship would reign! I know this is fantasy, but I guess it reflects my hope for a new pragmatism in our politics and my belief that this is the deepest, most qualified group of presidential candidates in my lifetime. I don’t see anyone writing the usual article about why great men don’t run for President anymore.

More later, once we form an itinerary for tomorrow.