Yesterday our three-van caravan sped through north-central Iowa past miles of corn and soybeans. The land is basically flat, which made the steel windmills loom like giant towers on the horizon, their blades turning lazily in the breeze. The wind farms out here are expansive and seem to stretch on forever. Like the corn.
It was probably as fitting a place as any for John Edwards to lay out his latest plan, for "green-collar" jobs. Those would be part of a plan to reduce America's dependence on fossil fuel and create jobs along with a new energy economy. Edwards is doing his part. He rode in a Ford van, not the SUV he routinely drove around in four years ago.
The green economy was the subject of the speech he gave at five stops. It was a short speech. Five minutes and then Q&A. Iowans seem to like that.
The Edwards campaign knows a photo op when they see it. The last stop, just outside Webster City, was smack up against a corn field. Rows of head-high corn stretched out behind Edwards as he spoke to about 150 people just before dusk. Red, white and blue bunting hung over a barbed wire fence between him and the corn. Photographers had a literal field day. If you pose it, they will come.
At one point, there was some rustling in the corn. Edwards seemed startled. "Somebody's walking around in the corn," he said. A photographer pushed her way past the corn, cameras strapped around her neck "I'm glad those are cameras in your hands and not guns," Edwards said.
Edwards has visited Iowa a couple dozen times, and been to almost if not all its 99 counties. I guess that's why he forgot a little of North Carolina's. In Humboldt, a woman prefaced a question telling him she was from North Carolina.
Where, he asked.
New Bern, she said.
“New Bern – Carteret County,” Edwards replied.
New Bern is actually in Craven County.
1 comment:
Thanks for the report.
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