Iowa State Fair Parade...

... but first, a little detour. On the left is one of my bosses Joan. She is the Asian and Latino Outreach coordinator for the campaign - at least in Iowa. She is from Los Angeles and worked in Rep. Luis Gutierrez's (D-IL) office for three years in DC as his scheduler before coming on the campaign. She has traveled a ton in the world, and is fluent in Spanish (having lived in Costa Rica, Venezuela, and northern Spain). On Tuesday we did an Asian canvass in a nice, posh suburb of Des Moines. Lots of Indian-Americans with little interest in politics, and some really conservative Vietnamese. I guess that adds a new meaning to the words "nam-flashback."

On Wednesday, we were going to do a similar one for a Latino neighborhood in Des Moines, and a local volunteer Paco was going to help us. Paco is on the right (duh!). His car broke down that day, however, so we went to pick him up. He has a lot of animals, including a litter of kittens (one of which is held by Joan), and a parakeet who bites.











Unforunately (or fortunately), the weather did not cooperate, so instead, we decided to meet the rest of the campaign and march in the Iowa State Fair parade.













Pictured is the crew who marched. Looks like a motley crew don't it? About half staffers or interns and half volunteers. We were about twice the size of any other campaign. Let's play "Where's Waldo" to find me. =)

















Pictured above are some of the groups for other campaigns. The top right is Richardson, including my roommate, and the bottom right is Hillary. Nothing to really report there. The one on the top left is a bunch of pigs that the Edwards campaign brought. It was trying to work into the farm theme for the State Fair, but it was kind of weird, and they really, really smelled. On the bottom left is a part of Ron Paul's entourage. The Granny Warriors RV was kind of cool, even it did basically say that all immigrants should be deported, and the Ron Paul people also had a semi, but I strongly suggest to zoom into the picture to see the monkey. Brownback also had an RV and was personally there, and Duncan Hunter was also around. McCain's group was pretty pathetic. That's all I really saw.















Pictured is Sam. He's a field organizer, and a really nice guy. He worked on Sen. Sherrod Brown's (D-OH) successful Senate race before joining Vilsack's campaign. When that imploded, he joined the good side. There was a decent amount of drizzle, but that couldn't keep us down. How could it, when the rainbow was on our side?

















Above are various pictures of me marching in the parade, including that idiotic one of me in the upper left. We were a little giddy after waiting two hours to march, and several drizzle storms, and then walking four miles along the parade route screaming and chanting most of the time ("oh-oh-oh-Obama" and "I-O-W-A, Barack Obama all the way were the favorites"). Also pictured is Greg on Joan's scooter. Joan apparently scootered around all the campaigns during the parade doing Obama chants (and I am sure mildly annoying them). We definitely got the most cheers along the route (two dozen or so) and also a bunch of thumbs down (half-dozen or so). To be expected. There were actually still a lot of people out for us being more or less at the back of the parade.

I leave you with our very own Uncle Sam, and the creative portion of our "float." Unforunately, the combination of the wind and rain didn't let it "float" properly, so instead I give you what it should have looked like. Kudos.