It was not the typical Bernie Sanders crowd.
A dozen Iowans in their 60’s, 70’s and beyond, nearly all white-haired and wearing glasses, shuffled into the basement meeting room of the Estherville public library last Friday, to hear from a Sanders staffer about seniors issues. Estherville is in Emmet County, located in deep-red northwestern Iowa, a county that Hillary Clinton tied for first with John Edwards in the 2008 caucus. You could barely find a demographic more skeptical of Sanders’ “political revolution” (aside from Republicans, of course), but that’s exactly why they were all here.
As caucus night in Iowa draws near, both campaigns are working hard to motivate their base, but also to shore up their weaknesses. With Clinton, that means blunting Sanders’ advantage with young people on college campuses. To accomplish that, Clinton has already deployed Katy Perry and Lena Dunham to Iowa events, and is sending singer Demi Lovato this week. For Sanders, the goal is to improve his standing among older Iowans. He trailed Clinton 56% to 26% of likely caucus-goers over 65 in the latest Des Moines Register poll.
To help with this task, Sanders has Bruce Koeppl.
[Read the rest of the article in The Daily Beast – did some freelance work for them]
by Pat Rynard
Posted 1/19/16
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