First - in more ways than one...

Welcome to my first blog of the First in the Nation Project. I hope that this will become a place where you (whoever you are... although there may be none...) can come to hear - well read - my thoughts about this experience, which truly is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It will bring about many "firsts" for me and I'm excited to share to share them with you.

I won't explain the program because there is this whole website dedicated to that - so I'll let you explore that for answers and you can always contact me with any other questions.

Right now, we're over halfway finished with our summer course. It's a basic course - learning information about the Iowa Caucuses and the NH Primaries. It's also been a great time for political discussions. The first week of class we (The Wartburg and Franklin Pierce FIN Scholars) were each in our own states sitting in class. We spent the week reading, discussing and learning about different aspects of a Presidential political campaign, i.e. the economy, religion, polling, media, etc. Then, last Saturday, June 16th the FP Scholars arrived in Iowa. We spent the next week touring parts of the state and continuing our learning. Sunday we visited the Field of Dreams and the Mississippi River. Monday we had a religion panel with members of the community and local politicans to discuss how the local government has an affect on national campaigns. Tuesday we studied the media and had a visit to KWWL, a local TV station in Waterloo. Wednesday we traveled to Des Moines. There we visited the campagin headquarters for each of the main candidates (in smaller groups) to see how each campaign was being run and conducted in Iowa. We also visited WHO, a radio station, and had a panel with three different people from different mediums. There was Paul Yager from Channel 13; a woman who's name escapes me right now, but is involved with radio; and finally David Yepsin, a journalist who is nationally the most influential political writer during caucus time. I wish I could write more about it, but I don't want to bore you. But it was amazing. He is a very powerful speaker and I'm eager to read some of his stuff because this guy definately knows what he's talking about. Thursday we drove to Cedar Rapids for an exciting day. We visited KCRG, channel 9, and also had a meeting with a woman at an Islamic Center and recieved her view on politics and her faith. It was very interesting. It was also an exciting day, filled with getting lost, crazy driving, and tornadoes. But nothing serious. :-)

Friday, us Wartburgers flew out to NH. Strangely, we were the first ones to arrive here from all of the FIN program. It's taken at least four different flights to finally get everyone here. But we made it. Not without some more adventures, but those are for a different blog...

Today we had our first taste of the week to come. We went to a live broadcast with David Valdez who is a photojournalist and former White House photographer. Amazing guy with some amazing pictures and stories!! Then, at dinner - which was great! - the keynote speaker was William Douglas, who is a White House Correspondent for McClatchy newspapers. He also had some great stories.

This is certainly off to a great start. And I think this is going to be an amazing program. I'm learning and coming to realize a lot of things within these past few weeks. I am a political junkie. And I'm sure all of my friends and family will get sick of me talking about politics so much. But I'm currently exposed to it 24/7 and don't really have much else to talk about! All of our time is spent talking politics. Which sometimes may get a little old... but also refreshing to have other people to talk about these issues. So many people don't care or aren't informed and don't want to talk about politics. But it's so important and I'm glad I've found some more people who agree with that.

I'm also learning a lot, because I'm the only Wartburg student that's not from Iowa. I'm from Minnesota and how we view the political campaigns is much different than it is in Iowa. Here are some of the things I've learned:

It's a much bigger deal in Iowa. They take their caucuses very seriously - as they should. The caucus system itself is a little goofy but nonetheless amazing. Iowa has a large influence on who the next President of the United States will be - whether or not people believe Iowa should have that influence is another discussion. The politicians are always in Iowa. They are always around. It's not uncommon for a person to meet (or see) each of the political candidates at least once. There is much more information on the media about politics as well - especially when it comes to campaign ads and whatnot.

We've talked about a lot of things these past few weeks and I wish I could share them all with you now. But I've noticed this blog is getting a little long so I better stop for now. I'll try to continue to share my thoughts with you through the rest of this course, the summer and especially this fall once school starts and the elections draw even closer. It's going to be an exciting election cycle and I hope you are excited about this as I am.