Some shots from the Hall of Fame Dinner

Never have I been so close to so many personalities who would, yet that day, be somewhere on national news. Some might well have considered it a meat market, but the Iowa Democrats Hall of Fame Dinner--which wasn't really a dinner--featuared 19 or the 22 or so declared candidates for the Democratic nomination, all of them more than ready to take on the Marmalade Beast. We shall see.

All of them--Amy (the neighbor) to Beto--save one, the leader and former VP, whose granddaughter was graduating or something.

Now that I've heard him, I sort of get what all the fuss is about. He's an attractive candidate.

Which is not to say that some lesser-knowns weren't. You may have heard about this Asian guy candidate, he said, who's going to give everybody a thousand dollars," this guy said. "Well, it's true." Fascinating theory from a guy who claimed he was the opposite of Trump--a person of color who loves math. He was terrific.

Then again, some need no introduction. Bernie made his entrance from a march through town surrounded by McDonalds workers looking for a raise.

I shook hands with Cory Booker (and Amy). Booker's the stemwinder, the orator.

Delaney did well, but he's not going to win anything. Then again, he's the only bald one in the bunch.

I thought Tim Ryan was terrific--not as radical as some Dems might like, but convincing.

Gillibrand is like a foot shorter than her fellow New Yorker, DeBlasio, who, for some reasons, is no one's favorite.

But the stars of the show were a trio from the neighborhood, the Sioux County Dems, who won a spot in the Iowa Democratic Hall of Fame for buckin' the odds in the reddest county of the reddest corner of the state of Iowa, for getting licked but coming back fighting, for growing, for raising up a crop of new members in a place where people might believe hadn't seen rain since Roosevelt. 

When the three of them came off the stage, they did so to a standing ovation.