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Pod Save America

Iowa Episode 2: The history and the rules

Pod Save America

Pod Save America

News, Politics

4.587.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2019

⏱️ 42 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In episode two of this five-part miniseries on the Iowa caucuses hosted by Tommy Vietor and produced by Pineapple Street Studios, we’ll learn how violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention led to Iowa becoming the first contest of the campaign season. We’ll take you to a house party with undecided voters and to an actual caucus location from 2016 to explain how the process works. And we’ll watch field organizers in action and learn how they hustle to get Iowans to commit to caucus.

Transcript

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0:00.0

It's a pretty bottle. This is how I think most Americans thick wine we got to

0:05.2

sort of like like what it looks like. Back in August I went to a Cabernet for

0:09.0

Corey House party in Urbandale, Iowa which is just a few minutes outside at

0:12.4

Des Moines. Obviously I wasn't going to show up empty handed.

0:18.0

Do you want a brown bag for that? That's okay. This is great. Thank you very much.

0:25.2

So we leave the high v grocery store moderately priced bottle of wine and

0:29.5

hand and head over to Urbandale. I see some Corey signs.

0:35.4

Hi. Oh, yeah. We brought some Cabernet.

0:39.4

Hi. Thank you. You want to get in the store.

0:42.5

There are five potential caucus goers sitting in a circle and Dave and Cheryl

0:45.7

Jensen's living room. It's a nice scene. There's some jazz on in the background

0:49.6

and their big fat cat keeps wandering in and out of the room. They all

0:53.6

introduce themselves. I'm Lauren. Born and raised on the south side of

0:56.7

Chicago and a Democratic home. Mitch Smith, the field organizer we met last

1:01.3

week, set up this event. Besides Mitch, everyone here is in their 60s or 70s

1:05.7

and all but one are longtime Democrats. Two of the people in the room are

1:09.7

already committed to caucus for Corey Booker. They like the way he speaks.

1:13.1

They like his energy. They like his optimism. In the end, we want somebody who

1:17.5

can rock us to sleep to make us feel good at night when we go to bed and

1:21.5

that we'll get up in the morning and things will still be okay. Yeah.

1:24.9

That sounds nice. I missed that. Oh boy. Oh boy. Do I miss it? The rest of the

1:31.2

people there are undecided, including the hosts Dave and Cheryl. And that is

...

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