U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and his family (file photo)

Dodd held a press conference at his home Wednesday making his retirement from the Senate official. He will not seek a sixth term in office, and recent polling indicates even if he didn’t retire he’d likely be out of a job by November.

But back in 2007, with his home-state popularity still high, Dodd entered the Democratic presidential primary. And while Connecticut voters initially had no problem with Dodd seeking the country’s highest office, his campaign, and the subsequent move his family made to Iowa in October 2007, marked the beginning of his constituency souring on him.

From the Courant:

Dodd’s problem was that he became the guest who wouldn’t leave after the party was over. Things were turning sour in Connecticut, and the folks wanted him back home, not taking up residence half a country away.

Iowa was the first white cap in a brewing perfect storm.

As The Washington Independent’s Mike Lillis points out, the presidential campaign was quickly overshadowed in Connecticut by a number of other issues.

Then the money started pouring in from Wall Street — and it didn’t help that, as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Dodd was on the campaign trail through much of 2008 as the economy was toppling under the weight of Wall Street’s collapse.

Then came more revelations of Dodd’s connections to the banking industry. In summer of 2008, Portfolio magazine reported that Dodd had been given preferential rates when he refinanced two mortgages through Countrywide Financial. In February of last year, the Hartford Courant uncovered that another industry connection had yielded Dodd a sweetheart deal on a vacation cottage in Ireland. One month later, he was embroiled in the AIG bonus scandal — and it didn’t matter that it was the White House, not Dodd, that was culpable for allowing those bonuses to be paid. The populist champion was morphing into a baron of industry.

Gov. Chet Culver will have five days from the date he receives Taylor’s letter to set a date for the special election, which must be within 120 days of the resignation.

Norm Sterzenbach, Sr., a military veteran who has been a steady presence in county politics for years and currently serves as the county Democrats’ second vice chairman, is expected to make a bid for the seat. Kirsten Running-Marquard, 32, who works in U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack’s office and is the daughter of former state Rep. Rich Running, has also been contacting local Democrats to drum up support.

Republicans, who nominated former GOP county chairwoman Kathy Potts to run against Taylor in 2008, have not yet indicated who among their membership has interest, but they have pledged to produce a candidate. Potts is seeking a seat on the Cedar Rapids City Council, and she will not be entering the House race.

Taylor entered the legislature following a 2000 special election to replace Kay Halloran, who is now Mayor of Cedar Rapids. The district, which typically elects Democrats, includes 11 precincts primarily on the city’s southwest side.

The special election for the Iowa House seat will be the second in the state this year. In the previous special election, in House District 90, Democrat Curt Hanson bested Republican Stephen Burgmeier by a handful of votes. In that race, conservative special interest groups attempted to make same-sex marriage an issue. In House District 33, because of its demographics, the Democratic nominee will have a strong chance of winning the seat, which means conservative interest groups may take a less active role in the campaign.

In special elections, political parties select nominees at conventions, attended by county party central committee members.

One key factor in deciding the Democratic nomination will be support from labor unions. Sterzenbach is a former business manager with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and is known for his strong ties to labor. His son is executive director of the Iowa Democratic Party. Running-Marquard also has support from other key union members.

From the Washington, D.C.,-based newspaper The Hill:

“As of July, I can tell you this openly and I know the press is all here but we had worked out a pretty good agreement. Labor was at the table,” Harkin told a crowd of activists organized by American Rights at Work, a labor advocacy group. …

Harkin said prominent labor leaders were on board with the deal, including AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union.

“That’s when we needed 60 votes and that’s when I called to get Sen. Kennedy down because we needed him for three days. That’s when Dr. Horowitz told me that he couldn’t make it,” Harkin said.

Harkin has been the lead negotiator in the Senate on the bill, which would make it easier for labor unions to organize. He said in May that the bill did not have enough support to avoid a filibuster and that a compromise would have to be struck. That compromise was widely believed to involve removing the “card-check” provision, which would give workers the right to unionize as soon as a majority of employees in a workplace signed cards saying they want a union.

Workers can already unionize in this manner, but an employer can veto the vote and demand a vote by secret ballot.

The New York Times reported in July that the provision was already gone, but Harkin spokeswoman Kate Cyrul said everything was still on the table.

Harkin would not specify what was included in the July bill that managed to garner 60 votes, telling The Hill “I will not say because it was closely held, it never leaked out and it still hasn’t. I took it off the front-burner and put it on the back-burner so it is still on warm, OK?”

Now that Harkin is chair of the powerful Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, most assume EFCA will have new life.

Republicans and several conservative Senate Democrats have opening opposed the legislation, which has drawn the ire of the business community who say that without a secret ballot workers will be intimidated into joining a union.

Supporters of the bill counter that employees already face intimidation from their employer when contemplating a union vote. Under the current law employers can veto workers’ decision to organize through majority signup and force them into the election process where, according to a recent study, a pro-union worker is illegally fired in a quarter of all organizing drives.

(h/t Bleeding Heartland)

Thomas Cardella

Thomas L. Cardella & Associates, citing Iowa’s strong work ethic and core values, plans to open a fifth call center in Grinnell this fall.

The company provides inbound support and outbound teleservices to Fortune 500 companies. It has also serviced political campaigns and advocacy groups.

In May of this year Cardella & Associates began hiring for its newly formed Marshalltown Call Center. The company, according to a press release, anticipated 200 contact center specialists would be on staff by this fall.

Thomas L. Cardella & Associates, an Iowa-based company, was founded in 2007 and currently employs more than 800 individuals in its Cedar Rapids, Coralville, Keokuk and Marshalltown locations.

The new Grinnell center, which the company expects to open this September, will employ roughly 100 people. Mayor Gordon Canfield told the Associated Press that he is thrilled to have the business located in Grinnell. There are currently no existing openings for the Grinnell expansion listed on the company’s Web site.

Last month Thomas L. Cardella & Associates received two excellence awards during the 10th annual IQPC Call Center Week. It took the top award in the Best in Class Call Center and Thomas Cardella, company president and chief executive, was named first runner-up for the Call Center Leader of the Year award.

U.S. Rep. Steve King

But all that could vanish with a single sentence: “I’m Congressman Steve King and I want to be Iowa’s next governor.”

The Democratic salivating began in February when King, a Republican from Kiron, refused to rule out a gubernatorial run on Iowa Public Television. It’s escalated to full-frontal lip smacking with news that King, whose congressional district covers western Iowa, plans to headline an anti-abortion event in eastern Iowa next week.

Residents of eastern Iowa, who have never had an opportunity to cast a ballot based on their displeasure of King’s extreme social conservative viewpoints, are especially relishing the idea of being able to vote against “the state’s cancer,” as King has been referred to on more than one occasion.

“It’s never enough to just limit cancer,” explained Allan Hale, a resident of Ely. “You have to eradicate it. You have to destroy it. If you don’t, it will fester and spread. Even if I’ve never had a chance to vote against him, his policies and his stupidity impact me.”

Those that believe such statements to be too inflammatory for proper political discourse need look no further than King’s own statements.

“What kind of a nation are we if we can’t have open dialog?” King asked members of the Sioux City Rotary Club last year while defending his own controversial rhetoric.

Mike Carberry, a Johnson County Democrat, likens the Democratic want of a persona like King on the 2010 gubernatorial ballot with the same push Republican pundits gave to then-New York Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.

“They saw her candidacy as an opportunity to motivate their base because of all the negative bias against her,” Carberry said. “This is the same principle.

“Steve King never misses an opportunity to embarrass himself or Iowa. While our state used to be known as the place of corn and hogs, now we are nationally associated with ignorance and intolerance because of King. The bottom line is that Iowans will line up to vote against him.”

Even within the predominantly conservative counties that make up Iowa’s 5th Congressional District, some residents have not only voted against King, but created a Web site declaring that King does not represent Iowa values. The group points to King’s continued quest to raise his congressional pay, his inability to pass a major federal bill, and even his possible quest at a gubernatorial run as reasons King should be known as an ineffective lawmaker and an embarrassment to the entire state.

When King described military service members who married foreign spouses as drunks on binge — in addition to saying that foreign widows of fallen U.S. soldiers exploit the U.S. immigration system — the former president of the Reserve Officers Association of Iowa said that King “wraps himself in the flag at every opportunity, and yet has chosen to malign the loved ones of deceased service members.”

Such statements, which King himself has described as calculated, have drawn to his side a negative national following as well. When he declared in March 2005 that “Congress created all of the courts” and that “whatever Congress gives, they can take away,” he came under intense scrutiny.

Nearly every feminist in the world tied King to a verbal whipping post in June 2006 when he said that deceased terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi probably wouldn’t have “72 virgins in the hell he’s at,” but, “if there are, they probably all look like Helen Thomas,” referring to the legendary White House correspondent of more than five decades.

From describing the events at Abu Ghraib as “hazing,” to describing war-torn Iraq as safer than Washington, D.C., to equating immigrant people with livestock, to proclaiming that terrorists and their sympathizers would be “dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11,” 2001 if Barack Obama was elected president, King has touched nearly every public interest group with a sharp tongue.

Although the eastern Iowa event featuring King is an anti-abortion “educational” meeting hosted by Linn Area Pro Life United at the Crowne Plaza in Cedar Rapids on April 6, King even has his dissenters within that community.

“He takes every opportunity he can to put down the poor and the oppressed and expresses only what we consider contempt for the people whom Jesus said ‘are the least of these,’” Frank Cordaro, a former Catholic priest and human rights activist, said in February when King spoke at the statehouse on behalf of a Catholic-backed gathering of anti-abortion activists. “It humiliates Catholics who work among and struggle for the poor and disenfranchised in this state.”

When looking at King’s motivations for wanting to headline an event on the opposite side of the state from his congressional district, there is no denying the possible longer term impact of reapportionment and redistricting, which will almost certainly include the loss of one of Iowa’s federal representatives in 2012. While it is much more likely that Democrats Bruce Braley, who represents the 1st District, and Dave Loebsack, who represents the 2nd, will be placed in the same congressional district, there remains a possibility, depending on how the new four districts are drawn, that King and fellow Republican Tom Latham could reside in a newly drawn district.

It would be close to impossible, however, to draw a district that would include King’s home in Kiron with Cedar Rapids, the site of King’s upcoming appearance. Given that, there is no reason to place King’s visit in connection with redistricting concerns.

“The chances of seeing a district slice across the center of the state like that are extremely slim,” said David Redlawsk, a political science professor at the University of Iowa. “The code charges that districts should be compact, and although the exact meaning of ‘compact’ has been debated, I think that a district spanning from one side of the state to the other would clearly not meet that goal.”

Any political capital King might garner from his upcoming eastern Iowa visit could only be spent on a statewide race — which can only be described as music to the ears of Iowa Democrats.

Other trial baloons have already been floated by the likes of State Auditor David Vaudt, Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey, and vocal social conservative Bob Vanderplaats.  Culver has not officially announced that he will run for reelection, but given his strong fundraising numbers since 2006, it is considered almost certain.

The five-term Republican said “converstations are taking place” about what his campaign team might look like and who is likely to support him. However, he does not have a timetable for making his decision.

“I think I bring a different kind of philosophy as a candidate, one that might separate me from others and would be helpful to the Republican party now,” Roberts said. The party has “distinct points of view of the values of the Republican party and the direction it should take.”

“A campaign for governor should be more about leadership than about issues, about who is capable of leading not just the party, but the state,” he said.

Sioux City businessman Bob Vander Plaats officially entered the race last week. Other Republicans, like state Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey, state Auditor David Vaudt and businessman Bruce Rastetter have also said they are interested in challenging incumbent Gov. Chet Culver in 2010.

As expected, Councilmen Dave Ferris, Brent Hoffman and Aaron Rochester voted for the measure. Mayor Mike Hobart and Councilman Jim Rixner voted against it. Hobart and Rixner emphasized they do not support gay marriage but believed the council did not have legal standing on the issue.

The resolution was first proposed in December but was tabled in order for the council’s attorney to determine if the city had legal standing to take this type of action. However, Ferris told the Sioux City Journal he didn’t want to wait for a legal opinion and had an obligation to his Roman Catholic faith to pursue the matter.

The resolution is an entirely symbolic move since cities lack authority over marriage. But one councilman said the new law would direct city departments, boards and commissions to stay in line with the council’s position despite the fact that the council voted in March to add sexual orientation as one of the protected classes of citizens to bring the city’s Human Rights Commission in step with state civil rights code.

8:57 and it’s taken me this long to get seated after running the line of shuttle buses and security sweeping. Parking is all at the east end of the airport, and a dozen or so buses are shuttling folks to the west side of the airport, where the private and FedEx hangars that most folks don’t usually see are located.

About five security stations are sweeping people. I kept beeping, and wondered if the detectors were set to extra sensitive for liberal bias. Turns out I’d left my flash drive in my pocket.

There’s a definite made-for-TV feel here, as is inherent in an airport rally. Land, speak, off to the next (in this case, that’s Minnesota). Print and radio press are off to the side and can’t see the stage. “Obstructed view” if you were going to a ballgame or concert. I’ll make sure to reposition.

Music thus far is largely apolitical — Martina McBride, the theme from St. Elmo’s Fire, Mr. Mister (?!?) and Huey Lewis. Like being back in college for me. As Huey runs down the list of geography where the heart of rock and roll is, in fact, still beating, I expect a Deanesque “YEEEEEEEAH!” Van Halen’s “Right Now.” Van Halen is among the artists that’s grumbled, but Team McCain had paid the ASCAP fees (and Sammy’s a Republican, anyway.)

On the bus over, state Rep. Dawn Pettengill says her campaign is going well and chats about classic rock acts. Miller-Meeks campaign manager Todd Versteegh is stickering the crowd, and congressional candidate Dave Hartsuch is on the scene. I get the idea that the draw of this event is most of Eastern Iowa. No guesses on crowd count yet.

9:33. “7 to 10,000,” I overhear a staffer saying on a cell.

Cindy Michel of the Johnson County GOP likes the Palin pick. “She’s not an insider that has a whole lot of undesirable baggage.”

The music has switched to a live guitarist, now playing “Wonderwall” by my guys Oasis. It’s not the same without Liam Gallagher’s sneering accent. A flight takes off; my big question is has Team McCain fixed the flight schedule so we don’t have a loud takeoff mid-speech? How does that work?

Between songs, boos and the singer: “Now, now, no fights here.” By the time I can scurry, game over. Other than that, no between song patter of significance, no “wow isn’t it great that John McCain’s coming” or anything like that.

As for that flurry of activity: I recognize a few, er… interlopers. “They didn’t have a free speech zone,” one tells me, “so we’re here for some free speech.” These particular folks are wearing recognizable colors (purple and gold–and union members know who that is–and making no effort to hide, So Even If U didn’t read it here, I’m sure they’ve been spotted.) (UPDATE: Just to be clear, the purple-clad folks are not the people who shouted during the speeches.)

9:56 and The Surge Is Working… its way toward the rope line. Elvis is here–kind of hard to hide a jetliner with McCAIN-PALIN on the nose. Now that they’re here, I’m herded back into the press corrall by a self-important volunteer. Oh, I can interact with the crowd — as long as I’m escorted. The intern sees me writing this, starts to panic, and goes to get someone. Let’s see where he goes with this.

10:01 and the national press corps files in during the patriotic and religious rituals. The volunteer’s higher-up tries to smooth my feathers, and does OK, but the moment has passed. I just like to see how they handle these things.

I’ve successfully repositioned so I may be able to see. “God Bless The USA” is dedicated to the nation, the troops, and “our lord Jesus Christ.” Still no sightings of the ticket itself.

10:12. Joe Childers, state senate candidate, gets a speaking slot to critique opponent Swati Dandekar. House candidates Renee Schulte and Nick Wagner get slots too. (but, as we noted earlier, Kathy Potts does not.) Mostly boilerplate, with a couple opponent-specific lines each. I follow a scurry of press activity until James Lynch of the Gazette expresses friendly surprise that a blogger’s in the pool… oh, the pool. So I slink back.

National anthem time (take off the beret). On the way in, folks were told “no signs”; the standard issue COUNTRY FIRST signs have been distributed which will give that uniform sea-of-signs feel. johnmccain.com is in smaller print below. A few people have added slogans like “Go Cyclones” or such.

10:25. “We’re about 15 minutes away.” I’m just realizing that Team McCain probably has two planes, and what has landed is what Hunter Thompson used to call the Zoo Plane, full of photographers and TV techs who need to set up early, while most of the big name writers and on-camera talent are on the candidate plane.

10:32 and Miller-Meeks speaks. The teleprompters are in place now. “Drilling in ANWR and offshore” gets biggest response. “As an eye doctor I will bring Congress back into focus.” The names Loebsack and Obama are not said. “If you want something done, ask a woman. We won’t let the lipstick get in the way.”

A former Wasillan (is that the word?) who’s moved to Bettendorf is singing the Palin praises. On the talking points, and apparantly the lipstick thing is a meme here. First Bridge To Nowhere and eBay references. The first thing I haven’t heard before is “just call me Sarah,” as in she’s folksy and doesn’t like to be called “governor.”

10:46 and Hartsuch and Reed get a slot. I’m seeing a plane taxiing, a smaller one than the Zoo plane. Traffic has seemed slower than usual here this AM. The stairs are rolled up and the music cranks to rally levels with Kenny Loggins’ Top Gun hit “Danger Zone.” What a coincidence, you may not have heard that John McCain was a pilot! The 80s flashbacks return. How will McCain do against Dukakis?

The main plane pulls up right on cue with Van Halen (Van Palin?) This one just says McCAIN. It also says STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS and has the url on the tail. 10:55. Back door opens first, presumably for the rest of the Zoo. A little more last second cheer rehearsal.

The roar goes up at 11:02 as the ticket deplanes and the rest of the Zoo zooms in behind me. We get Elvis (actual Elvis-”A little less conversation.”) Then Garth Brooks and “Standing Outside The FIre.” Someone managed to get an unofficial sign, it reads “God Chicks.”

The ticket is announced as is First Dude. I turn around and find myself face to face with MSNBC’s Kelly O’Donnell.

Palin: “It is so great to be here in GRAND Rapids.” OOPS. But she does get the Five Seasons reference right. Some hockey mom references and the well-known introductory lines of First Dude Todd–

HOLD THE PHONE. A half dozen or so anti-war protesters, who look really familiar from the sit-ins I covered last year. I can’t hear the chant as it’s quickly drowned out by boos and U-S-A! chants. Cedar Rapids Police surround the protesters, who keep chanting, and escort them out. But they’re well inside the event, and right in front of the press corps — the cameras quickly swing their way. I think we have our lede.

Protesters face police as Palin speaks

The thing is, PALIN JUST KEEPS GOING. Over the hubbub, I can hear Palin reading The Speech, basically the same speech from the convention.

First deviation. “We’re going over to look at some of the flood damage.” There was some criticism that such a tour wasn’t planned in advance, but maybe it was just not announced.

Palin outlines her VP duties: energy czar? And reform. Lots of reform. After some Obama bash, “He won’t say this for himself but there’s only one man in this race who has ever really fought for you.”

At 11:24 Palin intros McCain. The first My Friends is in the first sentence.Praise for the state fair and pork chops on a stick and says “Iowa will be close, my friends.”

“I know that the events unfolding can be difficult to understand. The reason this crisis started was the abuses within our home loan agencies.” At this point another protester shouts, but he seemed to be alone. McCain bashes Obama for Fannie Mae Freddie Mac $. “Obama didn’t lift a finger to avert this crisis.” McCain stays on economy a while, clearly adapting the speech to the news.

On to ethics and Obama is “me first country second.” The Vote Present meme returns. “Raising taxes in a tough economy is not patriotic, it’s just plain dumb.”

Another group of  protesters shouts and is dragged out more quickly than the first as the crows shouts USA! McCain pauses for the protest then recovers. “The one thing Americans want us to do is stop yellin’ at each other.” Then he turns it around, invites protesters to the town hall meetings… and bashes Obama again. “Let them come and yell at him, let them stand together.” I think that’s what he said, I missed the wording. Is it possible he was likening Obama to the protesters?

Just after that he ends with a God Bless America as “Life Is A Highway” (the American version, not the Canadian original) plays. About ten minutes of McCain speech total. At least three “straight talk” references, countless reforms, shakeups, and My Friends.

Protesters. Didn’t McCain know Cedar Rapids is right next to Iowa City? “Two protesters. That’s all you’ll see on the news, two protesters,” complains one attendee. Actually I’d guess more like ten. My text messages tell me some had “McCain Votes Against Vets” signs, and that a lot of people left after Palin spoke. I was so far inside the zone that I couldn’t tell who left or stayed. But apparently O. Kay Henderson saw the same thing. Again, the most remarkable thing to me about the protests was that McCain was prepped with a response, and even a response that was reasonably on-message, though I missed the wording at the end. But Palin just went on with the speech.

“I wonder if we’re just better behaved,” Mariannette Miller-Meeks says when I ask about the protest. “I mean, I was at the Obama event (at Coe College in July) and I didn’t do anything, I just listened.” As for the GOP majority in the crowd, “The natives were restless, it was a long time waiting.”

As for Kathy Potts, the GOP candidate who got un-invited and then re-invited to the event, my colleague Lynda Waddington reports that after getting calls to come to the event, Potts drove out to the airport. She says she was physically removed from the event, and escorted out of the building, and that McCain staff and local Republicans argued about her being there.it

Chit-chatting with a CR cop while I wait (see below), he says the protesters were reasonably cooperative. “They said their piece, and when we told them to leave, they left.” From what I aw they were walked out, but certainly not dragged out. (From what I remember attending their How To Get Arrested class last year, they discourage going limp because of injury risks and possible additional “resisting arrest” charges. But no one appeared to be getting arrested.)

As of 12:10 both planes are still on the ground. National press is doing lunch (yes, I did get to meet Kelly O’Donnell) and the ticket and First Dude are touring the flood zone with a press pool (so you can get pretty much the same coverage anywhere). We’re more or less done as the first noticeable aircraft noise returns. Now — personal note — I need the locksmith cavalry, as I locked my keys in my car.

Epiliogue at 12:54. My wife is here to rescue me. The Zoo plane has already left. McCain and Palin work a line of 75 or so die hards who waited, including House candidate Emma Nemecek. I catch snippets of Palin conversation: “You guys are awesome! Thank you so much!” before the Secret Service and schedule watchers cut it short. Channel 7 from Waterloo shouts a question but gets no answer.

Postscript: Here’s the unedited, cut-n-pasted email from the protesters. Didn’t seem like “dozens” to me, but it was more than the “protester” (singular) that my brother says the Old Media is reporting. My brother’s question when I called: “That wasn’t you getting thrown out, was it?” No, not me, I’m a respected professional journalist. Besides, you would have seen the beret.

Dozens of students from the University of Iowa were kicked-out of the McCain-Palin rally for speaking out against 4 more years of the same unacceptable policies of George Bush.

During Palin’s rally a group of UI women (including Megan Felt, Hannah Rounds, Laura Kacere, and Marni Steadham) advocated for women’s rights, which are being seriously threatened by the outdated policies of McCain and Palin. They chanted “our body, our choice”, “free abortion on demand”, “equal pay for equal work”, and “Palin, Palin get off our back, women’s rights are under attack!” They also held up a large banner reading “War is menstruation envy!” Following this protest these women were escorted out by the local law enforcement.

Shortly after, a second group of protestors (including UI students Robin Berman, Dan Rathjen, and David Goodner) called Palin and McCain out when they blatantly lied to the crowd about the current economic crisis. In particular, Palin and McCain promised to reform our economy, even though their economic policies are no different than the current administration. These protestors were also escorted out.

Toward the end of the speech McCain talked about his pro-war viewpoint. At the same time, UI graduate student, Justin Feinstein, screamed out, “John McCain, you never learn! We lost in ‘Nam! We lost in Iraq! You can never win in war!” The third wave of students (including Feinstein, Brooke Bachelder, Lara Elborno, Naomi Prager, and Anthony Carter) began loudly chanting, “Bring ‘em back, from Iraq”, “No justice, no peace, U.S. out of the Middle East”, “Wars, wars, that’s his name, 100 more years with John McCain”, and “All we are saying, is give peace a chance.”

All protestors were escorted out peacefully and their demonstration is a testament to the 1st amendment rights given to every US citizen. The protestors encourage all people to exercise their right to freedom of speech.

Here is Hayworth:

The Democratic Party often touts the slew of young people flocking to the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. There’s proof of that movement in the group of Northwest Iowans going to Denver today as delegates to the Democratic Party national convention.