I\u2019m an Iowa transplant. I was born and raised on the Illinois-side of the Quad Cities. My parents\u2019 home is still mere minutes from Davenport, Iowa, but I will tell you: politics makes these neighboring states feel worlds apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I attended Drake University eight years ago, fresh out\nof high school, I didn\u2019t know what the caucus was. No one had ever knocked my\ndoor and asked for my vote (or, for that matter, my parents\u2019 votes). Drake\nhadn\u2019t yet become such a big part of the national political conversation, but\neven if it had, that wouldn\u2019t have been a prominent reason for me to move here.\nI was going to study journalism, become a writer, and maybe go to law school;\nthe political scene wasn\u2019t even on my radar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fast forward to my first winter break. My parents and I had\nnever discussed our political views, and I had no idea who they had ever voted\nfor. I made the trek home after finals and finally had the talk: \u201cMom, I think\nI\u2019m a [INSERT POLITICAL PARTY HERE].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, state, local, and national politics are part of my job, at the peak of my interests, and amongst the forefront of conversation with my friends. Iowans pride themselves in being politically in-tune\u2014we listen, we volunteer, and we vote. We live in a purple state where the stakes are high, even outside of our major cities, and you can find a presidential candidate at your neighbor’s house on the weekends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We spark political debate, no\nmatter your party registration<\/a>. We serve as model for the country with our nonpartisan\nredistricting process<\/a>. We\u2019re first\nin the nation<\/a>, and no matter how many other states wish they were as sought\nafter as we are, we set the stage for New Hampshire and Super Tuesday like it\u2019s\nour job. (Even if we aren\u2019t that great at predicting the Republican nominee; sorry\nSenators\nCruz<\/a> and Santorum<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I may have grown up in Illinois, but Iowa has afforded me a\npassion, and I\u2019m of the opinion that there\u2019s definitely no better place to be. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m an Iowa transplant. I was born and raised on the Illinois-side of the Quad Cities. My parents\u2019 home is still mere minutes from Davenport, Iowa, but I will tell you: politics makes these neighboring states feel worlds apart. When I attended Drake University eight years ago, fresh out of high school, I didn\u2019t know… <\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ls2group.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ls2group.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ls2group.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ls2group.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ls2group.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ls2group.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3482,"href":"https:\/\/www.ls2group.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions\/3482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ls2group.com\/ru\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ls2group.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ls2group.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ls2group.com\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}