{"id":396,"date":"2008-01-03T11:37:06","date_gmt":"2008-01-03T17:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2008\/01\/03\/an-endorsement-iowa\/"},"modified":"2008-01-03T11:44:34","modified_gmt":"2008-01-03T17:44:34","slug":"an-endorsement-iowa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/01\/an-endorsement-iowa\/","title":{"rendered":"An Endorsement, Iowa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Iowa: I know you a little. I’ve been visiting almost every year since 1991. You house my in-laws. A lot in common with Arkansas: Mainly rural. Your shape. A prominent capital city instead of a tucked-away one like Jeff City or Austin (that’s a little joke).<\/p>\n

You held on to your 19th-century populist style presidential party caucus system<\/a>. People who say it’s undemocratic probably think the Electoral College is unfair, and that’s in the U.S. Constitution, hah-hah<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I want to make endorsements, and with my prominence I’m sure this will be heeded.<\/p>\n

Pick a smart Democrat and a smart Republican. Oh, they’re all smart. George II is brilliant. There’s no other explanation for the past seven years. But pick party nominees who aren’t embarrassed by their intelligence, by their education, by their selection of friends and allies of equal or greater intelligence. Endorse brains.<\/p>\n

Pick sincere nominees. That’s asking a lot of politicians. Am I wanting honesty? That’s not what we expect of our political leaders, truly. Eight years later people still get all hot about Bill Clinton because he lied. We didn’t hire him for candor. We elected him, twice, to keep the economy stable and to choose our foreign battles with care. An “ah shucks” demeanor goes with someone who grew up like that and it rankles when it’s put on. Clinton and Huckabee come from modest beginnings. Bush and Hillary Clinton do not. Endorse comfort-in-their-own-skins.<\/p>\n

Endorse a wide scope. Iowa, tell your caucusers not to be so single-themed. No candidate, not even the pinkest (or bluest<\/a>), is going oppose the Second Amendment and if they did, the repeal never would pass. The country has major issues, and using little strips of litmus paper on abortion or immigration won’t get the best candidate. Like guns, these issues take Congress and the courts to do over, not just the White House tenant.<\/p>\n

Iowa, did I lead you to think I’d endorse a person? Brick<\/strong> is not comfortable with that. Nothing personal, Iowa, but as glad as I am for two strong and diverse fields, after weeks of watching them on TV move through your coffee shops and your halls, does anyone really see any of these jokers, at this point, taking over next January with confidence?<\/p>\n

-30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Iowa: I know you a little. I’ve been visiting almost every year since 1991. You house my in-laws. A lot in common with Arkansas: Mainly rural. Your shape. A prominent capital city instead of a tucked-away one like Jeff City or Austin (that’s a little joke). You held on to your 19th-century populist style […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-spin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":40,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/01\/we-all-scream\/","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":0},"title":"We all scream","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 24, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Friday, Jan. 23, 2004. I like Howard Dean. I didn't care one way or the other before the night of the Iowa caucuses and that speech of his, Jan. 20. Now I don't know if he should be elected president or even the Democratic nominee;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5417,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2016\/06\/what-do-you-want-to-be\/","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":1},"title":"What Do You Want to Be","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"June 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"House outside Fairfield, Iowa, June 2016 Copyright 2016 Ben S. Pollock Jr.","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Vastu house, set in field in Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa, with Ben's thought: \"Now that we're here, it's not, \"What do you want to be when you grow up,\" but, \"What do you want to be when you grow old.\"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Vedic-City-house.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Vedic-City-house.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Vedic-City-house.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Vedic-City-house.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Vedic-City-house.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":115,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/04\/news-recycle\/","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":2},"title":"News (Re)cycle","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"April 1, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, April 1, 2005. The paradox of broadcast journalism. It's known for immediacy and visuals, especially compared to print. CNN and similar channels have brought 24\/7 continuousness to the medium as well. This emphasizes its demand for the NOW, as opposed to print's process: Gather\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":158,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/02\/when-its-you-its-still-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":3},"title":"When it’s you, it’s still me","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, Feb. 3, 2005. Friendship needs addressing, maybe tomorrow. It's not a reaction to a news item, either, like most Bricks. But it is a reaction, to how this subject broadly came up in me, even though I don't know. With this as the latest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4637,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2013\/11\/transcendentally-minded-40-years\/","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":4},"title":"Transcendentally Minded for 40 Years","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"November 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"We have a 50-plus-year-old house, and the closets are consequently small. I am 50-plus years old, also with cramped storage. At the start of the month I contracted with a publication for a couple of articles on major business figures in Northwest Arkansas. One story fell through; that happens. I've\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"\"Illustration of the mental process called \"transcendence\" during the practice of Transcendental Meditation.\"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/TM-illustration.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":57,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/08\/kerrys-gonna-win\/","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":5},"title":"Kerry’s gonna win","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 6, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Friday, Aug. 6, 2004: After conducting all the research that's necessary -- licked my right index finger and held it up -- I finally can make a prediction on the presidential race: Kerry will win in a landslide. I know the polls still show neck-and-neck,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}