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ON THE IOWA TRAIL WITH DEAN’S TEXAS RANGERS
byM. Martin
 
(copyright 2004, all rights reserved)
 Introduction Part OnePart Two
Part Three
Part Four Afterword
Country Kitchen was aglow with orange caps.True to his word, Glen had let us sleep in. It was about 8:00 when Iwoke up without prompting. Using my cell phone as a flashlight (a lotof us did that, and it was about all they were good for in the camp), Igot my toiletries and left for the bathhouse as quietly as possible,wanting to let Ms. T and our cabin mates doze as long as possible.Around 9:30, Ms. T and I and our cabin mate Patrick formed up withthree other people for the drive into Des Moines. Ms. T didn’t caremuch who we rode with, as long as she got into a van as soon aspossible. On the way from the bathhouse, she’d had the remarkableexperience of freezing her freshly-washed hair, and wanted to thaw itbefore it broke off.Our new teammates included two girls from Austin, Valerie andRachel, and an oddly conservative-looking man from San Antonionamed David. Rachel and Valerie were petite women in their 20’s—brunette and blonde, respectively. David was forty-something,with slicked-back brown hair and a tailored topcoat reminiscent of Michael Douglas’s archetypal Gordon Gecko character from WallStreet.When David, who had volunteered to drive, suggested we stop atCountry Kitchen Buffet, I had no idea that virtually every one of Dean’s Texas Rangers were going to make the same decision. Thechain restaurant lampooned in South Park as a feeding trough for theelderly was overflowing with people—some old, but mostly20-somethings—equipped with bright orange hats, cash, andappetites. The manager had an expression on his face that seemedpart elation and part dread—it was, after all, a buffet…and most of these college-aged Dean supporters had metabolisms ramped far beyond the demands of his normal clientele. Eventually, havingdepleted Country Kitchen’s coffee reserves, we moved on to DesMoines.At HQ, Ms. T and I separated from the others, after making sure thatwe had transportation back to camp. After two days in a row dealingwith the Iowa winter chill, we thought it might be interesting to seewhat it was like working the phone banks. We wound up in the samewarehouse space we’d been processed in upon our arrival, nowconverted to a call center. We signed in and were given cell phones,call sheets, and scripts. The script was pretty simple: the ostensiblereason for the call was to confirm that the voter knew their caucuslocation, and in the process casually asked them if they still intendedto caucus on behalf of Gov. Dean. Ms. T and I went thru our callsheets, then went thru them again a couple of times to try again onnumbers that had been answered by a machine. When we asked for new sheets, we were told it would be awhile, the database was beingupdated. It was lunchtime by then. Since we hadn’t really had achance to see much of downtown Des Moines, we checked our phones back in and went for a walk.
 
On The Iowa Trail with Dean's Texas Rangers-- Part Threehttp://www.earthwire.net/dean/iowa/Part_3.asp1 of 309/05/2009 07:37 AM
 
Des Moines’s central business district is small, pretty, and clean. Allthe major candidate campaign headquarters were within blocks of each other, on the south side of downtown. At one point, as we drewcloser to city hall, I noticed a preponderance of elevated, enclosedwalkways. It was strikingly reminiscent of Houston, the maindistinction being that these walkways were intended to protect peoplefrom blistering cold, not withering heat.At the far end of the business district from Dean HQ, near the DesMoines River, we discovered a cozy little strip of bars—including yetanother brewpub,Court Avenue Brewing Company, which Ms. Tconceived an immediate desire to check out.“We really should get back,” I said.“Think of it as anti-freeze,” she said.I shrugged. “Good point, and it works for me. OK, let’s grab a round.”The seating hostess, who turned out to be a Dean Precinct Captain,was delighted to see us. “Cool!” she said. “More stormers!” (by thistime, I had managed to snag another beanie to replace the one I’dlost). The beer offerings definitely deserved a more in-depthexploration than one round, or even two. We decided to do our bestto persuade whoever we drove back to camp with to stop there for dinner.That wound up happening fairly soon afterward. When we returned toHQ, there were still issues with the database. Ms. T managed to placea few more calls, but soon wound up once again repeatedly callinganswering machines in hopes of getting a human being. WhenPatrick called me to announce that he and the others were back fromcanvassing, Ms. T and I were all too happy to turn in our call center phones and rejoin them. The motion to adjourn to Court AvenueBrewing Co. for dinner passed with virtually no discussion whatever.Over dinner, we found out more about our new companions, and theyabout us. The revelation of Ms. T’s impending professionalcredentials as a dietician led to a lively debate over the virtues of theAtkins Diet. The discovery of my background as a former Enronemployee led to even livelier discussions of that infamous den of corporate iniquity. I went thru my usual round of Enron stories, thenproceeded to find out more about the others.Among the more interesting revelations: that Rachel was a working journalist who had lived in Iran, and that David was an evangelicalChristian who until recently had been every bit as Republican as helooked. The story of his conversion was fairly interesting, as was histake on a variety of significant social issues. Having lived most of myadult life in a predominantly gay neighborhood, I was fairly amusedby his assertion that “all homosexuals are sexual predators.” I was alsofairly astonished at his indifference to the abortion issue (“Godlypeople don’t kill children. If the godless wish to kill their own, it’snothing to me”). On other issues, I found that he and I had anuncanny degree of consensus. For one thing, we spoke with virtuallyone voice when it came to the Bush Administration’s near-completedisregard for civil liberties and privacy, one of the principle reasonsfor his conversion to a Dean Democrat. Again, I found myself impressed with the diversity of Howard Dean’s constituency, as well aswith the depth and sincerity of their convictions.Patrick entertained us on the drive back to camp with a shaggy dog
On The Iowa Trail with Dean's Texas Rangers-- Part Threehttp://www.earthwire.net/dean/iowa/Part_3.asp2 of 309/05/2009 07:37 AM
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