How to beat Trump in Iowa – and survive the state fair

The Conversation with Dasha Burns

POLITICO

Government, Politics, News

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2023

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, almost every Republican running for president is headed to the Iowa State Fair, famous for its fried Twinkies and statues of farm animals made out of butter and — every four years — extremely embarrassing photos of candidates eating unwieldy treats. The Iowa State Fair also kicks off a new more intense period of the Republican primary season as nationally televised debates begin this month and the five month countdown to the Iowa Caucuses begins. Iowa’s importance in presidential nomination contests ebbs and flows and this year the state looms as more important than ever. The conventional wisdom among Republicans is that if Donald Trump’s opponents can’t slow him down in Iowa, then the race may be over. Joining Playbook co-author and Deep Dive host Ryan Lizza for this episode is the man responsible for administering this critical contest – the chairman of the Iowa Republican Party, Jeff Kaufmann. Kaufmann is also a history professor and in the course of this conversation, he teaches a master class on everything you need to know about the Iowa Republican caucuses and what it will take to win them in 2024.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Pick two or three fried foods and eat them with four or five hours intermittent so you
0:09.3	don't have a stomach ache.
0:11.0	Get your selfies taken in the shade and for goodness sake drink plenty of water.
0:16.8	This week almost every Republican running for president is headed to the Iowa State
0:21.4	Fair.
0:22.4	Famous for its fried twinkies and statues of farm animals made out of butter and every
0:27.4	four years extremely embarrassing photos of candidates eating unwieldy treats.
0:33.1	The Iowa State Fair also kicks off a new more intense period of the Republican primary
0:38.1	season as national televised debates begin this month and we hit the five month countdown
0:43.6	until the Iowa caucuses.
0:46.3	Iowa's importance in presidential nomination contests, ebbs and flows and this year the
0:51.3	state looms as more important than ever.
0:54.8	The conventional wisdom among Republicans is that if Donald Trump's opponents can't
0:58.8	slow him down in Iowa then the race may be over.
1:03.6	Over the next few days Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence, Nikki
1:08.9	Haley and some even lesser known candidates will be crawling the fairgrounds outside of
1:13.8	Des Moines and making their case for the presidency at two big events hosted by two Iowa political
1:19.6	institutions.
1:21.0	A literal soapbox sponsored by the Des Moines Register and a conversation series hosted by
1:25.9	the state's Republican governor Kim Reddles.
1:29.3	In between they will be flipping burgers, dodging reporters and wooing voters one-on-one
1:34.4	in a place where retail politics still matters.
	...

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