Is Iowa life really that great? (Des Moines, Iowa City: best city, unemployment, good schools)

[capitalcityguy]

^ No...are you serious about Sanders actually having a chance to win?

Given your response, it seems now the answer is "yes".

You are very level-headed and thoughtful on this forum, thus I'd be very interested in your opinion on how it could occur. i.e...what voting blocks could he capture that would allow him to win a national election?

Even Obama knew he had to play the moderate card to get elected. That is what works for D candidates...in fact history suggests it is required. (not so much on the R side -- see Presidents Dole, McCain, and Romney, as examples).

[funksoulbro]

Originally Posted by duster1979

Before I decided he has to be working with Hillary - and it honestly hadn't occurred to me until her appearance in Fairfield a couple of weeks ago, although I now know that this theory had made the rounds a few months ago - I felt like he just jumped in to try to get some specific discussion points on the table early, thinking he could drop out once the conversation was moving in a direction he wanted it to go. I don't think he anticipated getting as much support as he has; if he's not in cahoots with Clinton, he may now feel stuck in the race for a nomination that he doesn't really want and is making all these off-the-wall remarks in an effort to sabotage his own campaign.

Bill Clinton gave Donald Trump all the tacit encouragement he needed to launch a presidential campaign.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...5e2_story.html

The Clintons are master manipulators, especially when it comes to playing political chess. Getting Donald Trump into the 2016 GOP field was a stroke of genius like I've never seen before in a political race. If he (Trump) wins the nomination, the party is fielding a candidate that wouldn't be able to withstand the withering assault of general election scrutiny. If he loses, the GOP enters a general election fray with a very fractured voting bloc -- profoundly more fractured than it was during the losses it suffered to Obama in 2008 and 2012.

Trump may not be conspiring with the Clintons, but he is certainly being clandestinely utilized by them to play some dirty pool in the GOP nomination process. And the best part is, these Tea Party nutjobs who love Donald are too stupid to realize they're being played.

[duster1979]

Originally Posted by capitalcityguy

^ No...are you serious about Sanders actually having a chance to win?

Given your response, it seems now the answer is "yes".

You are very level-headed and thoughtful on this forum, thus I'd be very interested in your opinion on how it could occur. i.e...what voting blocks could he capture that would allow him to win a national election?

Even Obama knew he had to play the moderate card to get elected. That is what works for D candidates...in fact history suggests it is required. (not so much on the R side -- see Presidents Dole, McCain, and Romney, as examples).

I wasn't necessarily stating my opinion as to what will happen, just speculating on some of the discussions that might take place in Clinton strategy meetings.

But since you asked......

I think he has a "chance" to win, yes. Not a good chance, as a lot of things would have to go his way. Based on his reactions that I've seen when pressed on an issue that he wasn't prepared to discuss at the time, I frankly think he'll fall apart when things really start to heat up.

[Midwestforme]

Our first impression on our visit to Iowa city to interview was that we hated it. Then when I got the job and we visited again to find housing, we still didn't like it. We went in January and February and it was colder than we had ever felt before. Well not colder temperature wise but the wind chill factor was a new concept to us and wow, 10 degrees is fine- you just dress for it. But 10 degrees with windchill- that was quite a surprise to us! It also felt a little dangerous to us as there are some sketchy looking people/homeless looking and or mentally ill people you see here and there. Not many- just outside the Coralville Mall and downtown IC. So we were not excited to move at all!

Then quickly our feelings changed. The day we moved in, we had so any offers from our neighbors to help us out. We had many invitations for dinner and lunch at their houses. We were pretty much fed for the first week or so by neighbors who brought us over food as they understood how stressful moving can be. In all our moves, we had never meet a group of such thoughtful people. We thought we moved into a really special neighborhood but then we noticed that it was more of a cultural attitude to just be thoughtful and kind to one another. Dealing with people in daily life (grocery store, bank,CVS, the hospital, etc) were just delightful. I don't know about other parts of Iowa but assume it may be similar.

Iowa City was the kind of place for us that reconnected us to fellow humans. I know that might sound funny, but we were used to living in places where we felt like a number everywhere we went and not real people. We were used to the get what you can get from people attitude that had been pervasive in the areas that we have lived (mostly California). In fact, when we first moved there, one of my children, a toddler at the time, asked why people were smiling at him and talking to him! He was used to being overlooked by adults. That really struck me how different and special of a place Iowa is!

[FBF]

My only pet peeve with Iowa is that because not many people here travel outside the country (especially near Des Moines) SOME are rather ignorant and some even ARROGANT about life outside the States that they use Fox News as their source why Europe and Mexico are so much dangerous compared to here.



And they bring this up to my family and I because my family hails from Mexico, but because we are well off and do not look like the stereotypical Hispanic family they envision (we are average height and lighter skin, not very dark skinned or poor) they question our heritage and some even suspect we are Middle Easterners or Pakistani (aka: Muslim) just because I travel to Europe, often.


WTF? I know that Iowa is 90% non-Hispanic white and does not have much diversity compared to other states, but to keep insisting we are "this" or "that" when we tell them we are Mexicans just because we do not fit into their stereotypical, borderline racist view on what a Mexican is suppose to look like (short, stout, and poor) then they really need help on comprehension.


Because we do not look like the stereotypical portrayal of Mexicans from their view, they spread rumors about us all while putting a fake smile on their faces on front of us and pretending to be nice. At least in the South, if they do not like you, they let you know it directly and ignore you once the business is done.

[Cryinbaby]

No. I moved to California for a reason.

[jasperhobbs]

Iowa is not a bad state to live in. Yeah the winters are a bummer but in general people are nice and quality of life is decent. I did move back to my home state of Illinois after living in Dubuque for 8 years. I didn't mind the state of Iowa but had it with Dubuque's rising crime and pathetic city government.

[Kode]

I remember driving through Iowa in August years ago on my way to Oregon. All I saw for two days was corn, corn, corn.

Borrrrrrrinnnnnnnng

I really should visit the rest of the state.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by Kode

I remember driving through Iowa in August years ago on my way to Oregon. All I saw for two days was corn, corn, corn.

Borrrrrrrinnnnnnnng

I really should visit the rest of the state.

I would recommend the Driftless region in the NE corner of the state, it also extends into the SW portion of Wisconsin and the SE portion of Minnesota. Some towns to explore in the area include: Dubuque, Decorah, La Crosse, Winona, and others.

[Luke9686]

Originally Posted by Kode

I remember driving through Iowa in August years ago on my way to Oregon. All I saw for two days was corn, corn, corn.

Borrrrrrrinnnnnnnng

I really should visit the rest of the state.

You didn't spend two days driving through Iowa. At most it took you four and a half hours east to west...