This is Nate Willems.  I was a regional director for Howard Dean's Iowa campaign, am an attorney in Cedar Rapids, and reside in Lisbon, Iowa.

On Thursday, I submitted my filing papers and signatures to the Iowa Secretary of State and am now a Democratic candidate for the Iowa House of Representatives, District 29.  I spent yesterday attending both the Linn and Johnson County Democratic Conventions distributing literature, meeting with activists, and giving a couple of very short speeches.  It looks like there will be a competitive Democratic Primary on June 3rd.  I am copying in the extended entry a press release that I sent to area newspapers announcing my candidacy.

I am running for a legislative seat being vacated by Ro Foege.  I have known Ro since I was in elementary school; he has been, and will continue to be, a mentor of mine in politics.  Numerous people I met last week in Des Moines told me, "You have big shoes to fill."  I know that and fully appreciate it.

District 29 encompasses much of the rural corridor between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.  It includes Lisbon, Mount Vernon, Solon, Swisher, Shueyville, Springville, Ely, Oxford and a number of other small towns.  I am looking forward to knocking on doors and getting to know more and more people across the District.

What I am not looking forward to, though, is having to raise the money it takes to run a successful campaign.  Raising money is, I guess, a necessary evil.  If you are willing to contribute to my campaign, I will be very grateful.  I have set up an Act Blue account and am accepting donations here.  Alternatively, I do have a traditional mailbox at: Citizens for Willems, P.O. Box 213, Lisbon, IA 52253.

I would like to thank you in advance for any type of support that you can lend to my campaign, and once I can put together a decent website I will look forward to seeing you on the internet.

It has been customary for many caucus locations to allow supporters from the various campaigns to bring a little bit of food - cookies, brownies, etc. - into the room to share with supporters and, perhaps, as some type of minor enticement to undecided attendees or attendees whose first choice is not viable.  This apparently is being taken to new extremes this year.  One particular campaign, and I cannot confirm which specific campaign, has apparently hired Hy-Vee (a major Iowa grocery chain) to provide catered food at caucus locations.  

This has prompted the Linn County Democratic Party - the 2nd largest County - to prohibit all food at caucus locations.  The County Party does not want to damage its relationship with the schools and other locations who are allowing the caucus to take place in their facilities.  There is a concern that the mess associated with a large amount of food may cause schools, churches, or other providers of meeting spaces to turn down the County Party in four years when we try to find precinct locations for the next caucuses.  So, in Linn County at least, there will be no Hy-Vee catering or food of any kind allowed.

I also spoke with the Chair of the Jones County Democrats - rural County next door to Linn County.  He stated that food will be allowed at caucus locations in Jones County and he had not heard of campaigns planning to bring in food from caterers.  So, presumably, if any campaign decides to show up at a Jones County caucus location with food from Hy-Vee or any other grocery store, they will essentially be able to offer dinner to just about anyone unless the particular precinct chairperson orders them to stop.

Handing out stickers, buttons, or homemade baked goods at the precinct location is both innocent and routine behavior.  Providing transportation for folks who do not care to drive at night is simply a public service.  On the other hand, I find the idea that a campaign may essentially buy dinner for caucus attendees at the caucus location itself to be a bit more troubling.  It is really only one step removed from handing out ten-dollar bills at a caucus site.  

The mixed reaction by local Party officials is to be expected.  While a larger county Party may have the infrastructure in place to be aware of the idea of catered food and respond to it, smaller counties are simply less likely to be in a position to do anything.  

For all the money we may have spent unwisely in Iowa on the Dean Campaign, we never attempted to give caucus attendees an item of value at or near the actual caucus location.  While I do not think that the mere offer of a ham sandwich will sway too many Iowa Democrats, a systematic effort of mere offers may create an appearance of impropriety that we should try to avoid in order to maintain the integrity of the Iowa Caucuses.  

I have been helping my local Edwards organizers make ID calls and knock on doors in some rural Eastern Iowa precincts.  I do get the sense that, particularly outside of the urban counties, the race is increasingly becoming a contest between Clinton and Edwards.  

In making calls through a list of rural Democrats who are consistent primary voters, but who lack a history of attending a caucus, my anecdotal notes show that Clinton is significantly stronger than any other candidate.  Accordingly, it does seem that she would benefit from a larger turnout.  

Amongst rural Democrats with a record of attending their caucus, my notes show a very competitive race between Edwards and Clinton with Obama distinctly behind.  I cannot overemphasize, however, the extreme fluidity of the situation.  Quite simply, Iowa Democrats are not in a hurry to make up their minds.  Most have narrowed down their choices, like a high school football star narrowing down his list of scholarship offers, but at least are only willing to express two or three candidates that are still in the running for their support.

I am sometimes amazed that Edwards has been mentioned in the same breath with Clinton and Obama by the folks with whom I have spoken.  Until this week, people have not received any mail or seen any commercials from the Edwards campaign.  I would like to think that this means Edwards has quite a bit of room to grow his support.  I am more certain that, at the very least, his numbers will not drop any further in Iowa.

If anyone wants to try to better understand the mentality of Iowans, you really ought to read Garrison Keillor's column from Wednesday.  It ran in today's Cedar Rapids Gazette, but you can read it on Salon.com by clicking here.

We are, of course, being bombarded with phone calls from the campaigns.  I actually received an ID phone call from the Obama campaign on my cell while knocking on doors for Edwards the other night.  I politely informed him of what I was doing and he thanked me for being engaged in the process.  

I received a call from the Chris Dodd campaign a week or so ago and also informed the organizer that I was planning to caucus for Edwards.  Yesterday, I received a letter from the Dodd campaign.  I was surprised and pretty impressed to see a hand-written letter to me on campaign letterhead from the organizer I had spoken to last week.  When I looked a little closer, I noticed that while the hand writing was real, it had been photocopied.  Trying to pass off a photocopy as though somebody had taken the time to personally write me a letter was a new technique, shall we say, that I had not before seen.  The letter is designed so that the organizer can simply write in "Dear __" and sign their name, but everything else is pre-packaged.  I found it to be even more ironic considering that the second sentence says, "Even though you had mentioned that you are leaning toward another candidate..."  Apparently, the Dodd organizers have to send out so many of these letters that they just all write one, and make a bunch of copies.

Lastly, my wife is pregnant and so we are exploring the world of baby naming books and websites.  Many sites, like www.thinkbabynames.com, show graphically how the popularity of a given name has increased or decreased over the years.  So, I looked up Hillary; you have to see this.  Apparently, Hillary used to be a pretty popular name.  It was one of the 200 most popular names for a baby girl until 1992.  Since 1992, the popularity of Hillary has sunk like a rock.  In the past 15 years, literally millions soon-to-be parents have apparently considered naming their daughter Hillary, and overwhelmingly rejected it... for whatever reason.

This is Nate Willems.  I was a regional director for Howard Dean's Iowa campaign and am an attorney in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  I am also originally from Anamosa.

The Democratic Party Establishment rolled through the Lawrence Community Center in Anamosa this afternoon as a crowd of 400 gathered to hear Senator Hillary Clinton speak.  Senator Clinton was joined by former First Lady of Iowa Christie Vilsack and Ruth Harkin, wife of Senator Tom Harkin.  Christie made a direct pitch to the crowd to sign supporter cards saying she is competing with her husband Tom [Vilsack] to see who can get the most signed.  Now, Senator Harkin may not endorse a candidate, but the message was clear: the two most successful Democratic politicians in Iowa since Harold Hughes are supporting the Clinton campaign; you should too.

There were a number of interesting points in Senator Clinton's remarks and answers to audience questions.  First, on Iraq, Senator Clinton said we need to "bring our troops home..." she then paused while the crowd applauded, loudly.  While the crowd was applauding, she finished her sentence, "...as quickly and responsibly as we can."  It is safe to say not nearly as many people heard this part of the sentence as heard the "bring our troops home" part of the sentence.

Later, in asking a question, my Father noted that Senator Edwards criticized Clinton for not committing to bring all combat troops home from Iraq on Meet the Press this morning, and asked her to clarify her position.  Senator Clinton responded that her plan is to bring the combat troops home and she didn't really understand the criticism because she has been consistent on that.  She further elaborated that the military experts estimate that we can only withdraw one or two brigades from Iraq a month, and that a brigade has about 3500 men.  So, I guess what the audience should conclude is that she is committed to withdrawing our troops as quickly as possible, but that she will defer to our military leaders who say that it will take two to four years (doing the math in my head) to accomplish this.  

This is Nate Willems.  I was a regional director for Howard Dean's Iowa campaign and am an attorney in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Senator Barack Obama spoke to crowded ballroom of 400 at the Iowa Memorial Union on the University of Iowa campus this morning.  The event was billed as a foreign policy town hall meeting and was an extension of the campaign's commemoration of the five-year anniversary Obama announcing his opposition to Bush's war in Iraq.

I thought I had arrived a little late for an Obama event.  Thirty minutes before the event was to begin there were still plenty of empty chairs.  Though the chairs all filled up and a number of people were standing, several months ago I think I would have been too late to even get in the door.  

Most people in the audience were students.  I was reminded that students can be just like everybody else in Iowa, undecided.  I assumed that almost all of the UI students in attendance would already be supporting Obama.  However, when I asked the two students who sat next to me their thoughts, one indicated he was leaning toward Clinton, and one said she was leaning toward Edwards.  After a couple of more questions, though, I discovered that the Clinton leaner would not caucus because he was not yet a citizen, and the Edwards leaner was unsure of whether she could caucus because she was planning to be out of the state over her winter break.  Assuming the caucuses take place before classes resume, I have no idea how these folks participate in large numbers.  For Iowa residents, it is possible that they could all caucus in their home county, but from the campaigns' perspective that is another huge organizational hurdle to overcome.

As a former organizer, I appreciated the way he began his remarks.  He spoke about his background as a community organizer, he held up a supporter card and made a direct pitch to the crowd to sign a card.  Obama then thanked his Johnson County organizers by name for their work and indicated to the crowd that these were the people with which they ought to be in contact.  I don't think John Kerry would have done that.

I must admit that I was a little skeptical about this forum.  Quite obviously, there is no candidate who thinks cancer is a good thing.  Everybody agrees that cancer is an awful disease and that our government should do more for prevention, treatment, research, etc.  So, when everybody agrees on the basics, I tend to keep my ears perked for excessive pandering to the audience.  It is not too hard for a Democratic candidate for President to look good when speaking about cancer issues to a group of people with a great degree of interest in defeating this disease.  

The Livestrong Forum exceeded my expectations.  There were over 1000 people in attendance at the U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids.  Both the Clinton and Edwards campaigns were clearly represented by a large number of the 1000 crowd members.  Candidates received three minutes for opening remarks followed by questions and answers around a table with Lance Armstrong and Chris Matthews.  

In speaking first, Senator Clinton pledged to double the budgets for the National Institute of Health (NIH) and National Cancer Institute (NCI), end insurance discrimination against individuals with pre-existing conditions, mandate that insurers pay for cancer screening, pay for programs to help smokers kick their habit, and commit the United States to a "war on cancer."  With regard to the NIH and NCI, Senator Clinton essentially said that President Bill Clinton increased their budgets a great deal, and President George W. Bush has frozen or cut their budgets.  This refrain of "we need to spend more money on research" was used by all the candidates.  However, it was not really a crowd favorite.  It is not particularly creative, nor bold.  By the time Richardson, as the third speaker, said "we need to increase the NIH budget by 206%," he received only polite applause.  

This is Nate Willems.  I was a regional director for Howard Dean's Iowa campaign and recently finished law school at the University of Iowa.

800 people filled Sheslow Auditorium at Drake University for the first Democratic debate to be held in Iowa.  The 90-minute debate broadcast live on This Week with George Stephanopoulos was the feature attraction of an early morning of Democratic presidential politics along University Avenue in Des Moines.

When I parked my car around 5:45 a.m. near the University, a two block long stretch of University Avenue adjacent to Sheslow Auditorium was already full of campaign organizers and volunteers dressed in their candidates' shirts, carrying a ton of signs, and doing their "visibility" work.  I have to give the edge to the Obama folks.  They had a large group of staff and volunteers, an awesome step team from Chicago (think of the cheerleaders from the movie "Wildcats"), and they managed to strategically park their vehicles so that they had a large presence on both sides of the Clinton people.  These are the minor tactical victories over which campaigns obsess.

The Dodd contingent was just strange.  They had a bunch of male staffers who had sprayed their own hair white.  They had somebody dressed in a white rabbit suit wearing a sign that said "Dodd's Hare," standing on top of pieces of sod they had obviously brought in and named "Dodd's Sod."  Most interestingly, they had a couple of guys in muscle body suits.  Their visibility display really just left me questioning their sobriety.  

Richardson, Kucinich, and Gravel had no visibility presence before the debate, nor did they have a post-debate rally near the Auditorium.  As much as Richardson has risen, and seems to be doing well in Iowa, this is the type of thing that makes me wonder how serious his campaign is.  If you are a top tier candidate, you really ought to be showing people that you are playing to win in this type of setting.  Add this to Richardson's late cancellation from the Workers for a Better Iowa event last night in Cedar Rapids, where the other five main candidates all spoke, and it simply does not lend a lot of confidence in the direction of his campaign here.

This is Nate Willems.  I was a regional director for Howard Dean's Iowa campaign and recently finished law school at the University of Iowa.

I saw John Edwards speak to about 150 people in my hometown of Anamosa this afternoon at the park outside the Lawrence Community Center.  Senator Edwards spoke briefly about his new policy initiative on creating "Green Collar" jobs in America before moving to about 45 minutes of questions and answers.  

It is always risky to have an outdoor event during the summer in Iowa.  Though the weather has been reasonable recently, when you ask seniors to sit out in the sun for an hour and a half, you definitely need to make sure you have plenty of bottled water ready to give away (which the campaign did).  On the other hand, part of our job is to make the candidates sweat, which the folks in Jones County did today with both their questions and the sun.

Edwards was confronted with a questioner pressing him to pledge to include Hamas in Middle East peace talks.  Senator Edwards replied that he is willing to do so, but only after the Hamas leadership renounces violence and recognizes the right of Israel to exist.  Another questioner asked Edwards to commit to reducing the amount of money the United States spends on foreign aid.  Edwards replied that military spending aside, the United States actually spends very little on fighting AIDS in Africa or promoting Education and the Environment abroad.  He tried to use the question as a teaching moment to explain that we ought to differentiate between all of the money the United States has spent in Iraq and the relatively small amount we spend on foreign aid.