“Humans of the Iowa Caucus” (with Thomas Bollier)
The Nation (February 1, 2016)
Even with the assistance of social media, round-the-clock television coverage, and immersive, cutting-edge technology, the Iowa caucuses remain a merely virtual reality for most Americans. The ubiquity of the candidates, the intensity of political conversation, the spectacle of the spectacle itself—the atmosphere immediately before voting begins is one of those few things about which it can still be said that you just have to have been there. The same is true of the voters themselves; polls can only divine so much about what anyone in particular is thinking. In search of answers, we spent a few days over the weekend driving around Iowa—mostly in Davenport and in and around Ames—speaking with whomever we happened to come across about who they wanted to see become the next president of the United States, and why. —Richard Kreitner and Thomas Bollier