2020 Gumbo Final - Book - Page 74
Iowa The Tiger
Story: Caleb Greene and Katherine Manuel
Photo: Reveille Photographer
Design: Mariah Graham
O
72
Manship students participate in
Iowa caucus program
Over 25 LSU students traveled across the
state of Iowa over the winter intersession to
participate in the Manship School of Mass
Communication’s Iowa of the Tiger Program
This is the fourth year that the program has
occurred, and LSU is one of only two schools
in the nation with an Iowa caucus program. The
program brings students to Iowa to witness
the state’s unique political process leading up
to the Iowa caucus. Students on the trip also
had the opportunity to report for the Manship
News Service which sends student stories
to media outlets across the state. Students
traveled across over 900 miles of snow, fields
and windmills from Dec. 29 to Jan. 7 chasing
candidates in all corners of the state.
event for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Clive, a suburb
west of Des Moines the same day. The event
was conducted in Spanish with a band and
speeches about immigration.
Day One:
Students reporting for the Manship News
Service went to a Sanders press conference
which was cancelled without an email
explanation. After some phone calls, three
students were invited to follow the Vermont
senator as he knocked on doors in a
neighborhood north of downtown Des Moines.
Students later attended Sanders’ New Year’s
Eve Bash which had food, drinks, photo booths
and live music to end the decade. The Sanders
team encouraged attendees to commit to
caucus for Sanders. Commit-to-caucus and
volunteer forms were brought around all
night. Sanders arrived after two bands and
speakers introduced him, and stayed for around
20 minutes. The Vermont senator’s speech
focused on what he hopes to achieve in 2020.
After his speech he briefly waded through the
crowd, shaking hands and taking selfies with
reporters.
Despite colder temperatures and blustery winds
rolling across the prairies and pastures outside,
Woodrow Wilson Middle School’s gymnasium
was suffocatingly stuffy. Within hours of arrival
in Iowa, some University students embarked
on a two-hour drive to Council Bluffs, Iowa for
Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s town hall meeting at
Woodrow Wilson Middle School. The 70-year
old, Oklahoma-born Massachusetts senator
ran in from the gym doors behind the crowd of
curious caucus attendees pumping her fist to
kick off the event. Warren began by detailing
her background as a special needs educator
and a Harvard Law professor before shifting to
her presidential aspirations.
“We need big ideas to match the big problems
of our time,” Warren told the crowd.
Warren ended the town hall with her famous
“selfie line.” A line wrapped around the
basketball court leading up to Warren’s stage.
For the University students attending the event,
a Warren selfie and handshake was a welcome
into a world unlike anything else in American
politics. Another group of students attended an
Day Two:
Students traveled about three hours northeast
of Des Moines to a middle school gymnasium
in Maquoketa, Iowa to hear from South Bend,
Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg. In a rural town
with only 6,000 residents, Buttigieg drew
a crowd of 600 to the event. The mayor
expressed a focus of unity in his message while
describing his plans for the presidency and his
campaign.
Day Three:
Day Four:
Java Joe’s, a coffee shop in downtown Des
Moines which plays host to MSNBC’s “Morning
Joe” during the caucus, was filled with LSU
students listening to Washington Post journalist
Robert Costa detail his career and give advice.