Iowa's Caucus and Coffee

I woke up this morning to watch Joe Scarborough talking about politics from Java Joe's - the coffee shop I spent most of my time at in my Iowa high school days. This is the place where we drank coffee pretty much every day and wrote shitty poetry. Where I went to one of my first "raves" and had my first "smart drink." And the place I first performed on stage. In fact, right before I moved up to Twin Town, a friend and I landed a gig there to play Monday nights for tips. Well, that fractured, but my memories of that place are still strong.

It also draws me that much more into the results of today's caucus. Here are my predictions:


Democrat: Obama

I ranted a number of months ago about how I had little hope for American politics and that I was upset about Barack Obama not showing the strength of character or conviction that I expected from him. I am glad that he has proven that to be unfounded. For the last few months I have been pretty excited to see him doing well. I still hold a similar opinion of the other candidates on the Democrat side - Edwards not being horrible, but still seeming to just say what will get him elected regardless of if he can actually make it happen. He said something about curing cancer by 2011 or something. That's just absurd, but I wouldn't mind too much to have him as vice pres. Clinton is just a crap choice and will represent all of America about as well as Bush has. With Democrats in control of basically two of the three branches of government, they will spend like I do on payday and we will just whiplash back into the conservative movement, if we don't have a leader that captures the inspiration and imagination of the greater country.

But being that I lived in Iowa for a major part of my life, I am amazed to see that how well Obama is doing there. I may have over estimated America's latent racism and mistrust of a man with an African name. A part of me still thinks that Edwards will take it because visually and audibly he remains a mirror of the people who live there. And given the nature of the caucus, he may capture the runoff vote and therefore move above the original front-runner. But I have hope that Obama will pull it off.

Here is a video that is sort of inspiring to me.

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On the Republican side:

I think Romney is pretty much a given. Iowans have are showing themselves to be very centrist on social issues. Plus he looks a little like Reagan so they may just say, "Why the hell not?"

Well, that and every other leading Republican candidate comes across as a bigger douche bag than he does.



Well, until later, my friends.

I hope you are all well in this new Year.