Iowa08: Archives

MICHAEL PASTERNAK writes:
Someone told me the other day that this presidential election is the most important in American history. Now I think this person was being a little overdramatic. However, I know where this person was coming from. I personally thought the last presidential election was the "most important election in American history."

In 2004, I remember sitting on my couch watching with disappointment/triumph/complete neutrality (pick one) as the election results were announced throughout the night. I was a couch-potato spectator watching from afar. Now I have a chance to get in on the next presidential election at ground zero, the Iowa caucus.

I'm taking this caucus class to learn how American politics really works, or at least how it works in a small Midwest state that is 97-percent white. I have never been to Iowa, and my only Iowa point of entry is Field of Dreams. Traveling to the state and meeting real Iowans will help me get a better perspective on the Midwest, elections, and small communities. Living in Chicago gives me a unique view of politics, but I believe and sincerely hope that Chicago politics is not how politics works in the rest of the country.

I will be covering two candidates in Iowa. One, John McCain, is one of the Republican front runners who just got the endorsement of The Des Moines Register. My other candidate, Ron Paul, is running low in the polls but just raised more money in a 24-hour period than any candidate in history. I look forward to following these candidates and their followers in Iowa and experiencing firsthand what it is like to win and lose an election.

Michael Pasternak is a graduate student in journalism from Coral Springs, Florida.

Michael Pasternak writes:
What brings three United States senators to a Catholic High School in Iowa on a freezing Wednesday night in January? Arizona Senator John McCain and his quest to be the next President of the United States.

McCain was joined by Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and South Dakota Senator John Thune at a campaign rally for McCain at Assumption High School in Davenport, Iowa.

I was one of 250 people who attended the rally, and my proximity to three percent of our nation's senatorial leadership was exciting. I met and shook the hand of McCain and was photographed near him. He looked older in person than he does on television. However, during the speech his age was not mentioned. Instead, a buzzword like "experience" was used to tout his qualifications to the already pro-McCain crowd.

While McCain seemed older to my naked eye, Brownback, who was previously running for president but dropped out in October, was the senator who looked more presidential to me. Maybe it was how young he looked next to McCain.

Along with getting my picture taken with McCain, I was also photographed a few feet away from the other two senators in attendance. I am hoping for a new series of shots called "Close to a Leader." These will be photos of me near all 50 U.S. senators. Only 97 more to go before the project is complete. Maybe someday it will expand to include all 435 House of Representatives members. More likely it will end with the three in-focus photos of me in the foreground featuring the out-of-focus senators in the background.

Either way, on the second night of 2008, I was close enough to three senators to see what they look like in real life.

Michael Pasternak is a graduate student in journalism from Coral Springs, Florida.

MICHAEL PASTERNAK writes:

It is back to reality.

A few days ago in Davenport, Iowa, I was able to walk up to within inches of Arizona Senator John McCain. I shook his hand and felt it was my reporter's duty to ask him a question, which he pretty much ignored. However, I did shake his hand. I did ask him a question. He did acknowledge me briefly. I was covering the presidential candidate ever so briefly.

Iowa is the first, but it is the first of 50. I am not following the senator as he travels from state to state, and possibly, from fourth place to first place. When I saw him in person it was pre-caucuses and there was hope for his campaign, but he was considered a presidential afterthought for many in Iowa. Now he is on television leading in polls in New Hampshire. I watched both the Republican and Democratic debates on ABC over the weekend, and Senator McCain was now the front-runner in the Granite State. It wasn't me asking him a question, but ABC's nightly newscast anchor Charlie Gibson.

I got a taste of covering a national election, and I think I am hungry for more. I have never considered myself a political junkie, but it is possible I might become one in the future. Like Senator Barack Obama, I flipped back and forth from the Republican debates and the NFL playoffs, so I was not mesmerized by the Republicans' answers. But I was watching the debates seriously interested in what the politicians were going to say.

This blog is for a Covering the Iowa Caucuses class. I wonder what I would be saying if it was also for Covering the New Hampshire Primary or Covering the South Carolina Primary. I am back in Chicago insulated geographically from the presidential elections, but part of me wishes I were in New Hampshire and later South Carolina (not Florida) to see up close how a presidential election happens in America.

Michael Pasternak is a graduate student in journalism from Coral Springs, Florida.