“Fuck Putin!”, I screamed, not that it would do much good. I was chained to sturdy chair in an ancient ex-KGB basement interrogation cell with a bored, rat-faced Commissar starting at me as he lit a shitty Russian cigarette . I shivered again. It was so cold.
My head snapped awake, the daydream over. I wasn’t in Siberia after all.
I was in Iowa, in a drive through line, 20 miles east of Omaha. (A old west coast political hack’s travel trick we used to call the “Grandy”; take the direct Frontier Airlines flight to Omaha, then drive the 2 hours and a little more to Des Moines, avoiding any connecting flights. We named it for Fred “Gopher” Grandy, in the 90’s a popular Republican Congressman from Northwest Iowa. The former Love Boat Purser was a rising GOP star until he tried to primary Governor for Life Terry Branstad. He started well ahead until our snoops dug up that soon before ol’ Fred decided to ditch Hollywood sitcom glamour and run for Congress in his hometown, he’d been active in the “Hollywood for Mondale” committee in ‘84. “This Grandy fella must be some kind of Reagan hater, Maude”. Cut to a barrage of “Fred Grandy: He Might Be a Better Actor Than We Think” radio ads all summer long. Governor Branstad was soon back for yet another term.)
So there I was yesterday, taking the Grandy once again to return to my old Iowa stomping ground. I was in Iowa a lot back in the old days; two Governor campaigns, Presidential caucuses, a bunch of capers.
I was there to join the big Hacks fest last night at the 801 Chophouse in Des Moines for the traditional night before the caucus festivities and see a bunch of old Iowa political pals and trade hopefully salacious rumors while speculating what’s going to happen tonight. Kingpin Iowa hack David Kochel had seized one two semi-private rooms in the back of the 801. (The other room featured Hollywood kingpin Jeffrey Katzenberg, in Iowa to “help” Biden, prattling on about politics to a swarm of NYT and Washington Post reporters. More on that later; rumor has it ended badly.)
The big topic at the 801 last night was snow, turnout (will older Trump voters in rural counties where the roads are worse post blizzard make it to caucus, or will the Orange Menace’s big lead convince them to stay home?) and do the “internals” of the new Des Moines Register poll mean DeSantis could beat the perceived-to-be surging Nikki Haley and come in second? My short answer: Nah. Get a fork, the Tallahassee Terror is done.
It was a fun night. California hack Rob Stutzman directed forklift deliveries of wine, Sen Joni Ernst joined for a while — I avoided our passionate, um, disagreement on EVs since it involves Iowa’s big Ethanol scam, not to be mentioned in polite Des Moines company — along with a former IA state party chair, an ink-stained Postie, another old McCain 2000 fossil like me, several local operatives and TV journos from CNN.
Some of our party were in the current Caucus kerfuffle, others wistful veterans. Stories of many a campaign, foreign and domestic, were told.
In the end the big gossip topic was not even Iowa. It seems — we heard — that the Katzenberg fest one room over had not gone well. The hard-bitten political reporters were not that interested in a long Katzenberg campaign lecture — their main interest was more along the lines of WTF is this Hollywood blowhard doing in Iowa anyway? Are the Biden people trying to lose? — and the Katz apparently didn’t enjoy the disrespectful pressies that much either. So they left and the word is the Big K threw a hissy fit to his handlers. Didn’t hear hear it myself but sources seem solid. Too bad the NY Post’s travel budget isn’t what it used to be and they didn’t have somebody in the room. I can hear the drunken phone call from the restaurant that would have been certain in the old days as Steve Dunlevy would have slurred out a headline pitch to a re-write man on the desk: “‘Biden’s Hollywood Honcho Hisses At Hicks: I Hate These Rubes!’ Wood it!” Katzenberg was lucky last night that times have changed.
Today I’m going to the Marriott — reporter central — to lunch and speculator, than tonight off a caucus. I want to see the action outside of Polk county, so I’m sledding off to eastern Iowa. A colorful old friend is the Nikki Haley leader at that caucus. Should be fun. A full report will follow.
Good, funny writing.
Looking forward to part two.