SO THERE'S A "FINAL FOUR" IN THE IOWA CAUCUSES?

My analysis of Bill Richardson's fourth-place finish in Iowa, in which he won two percent of the delegates, can be found HERE

My sidebar about the caucus I attended at Lincoln High School in Des Moines is HERE .

And there's more pictures of Caucus night on my FLICKR site.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: SONG FOR AMERICA

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
January 4, 2008

We’re a relatively young country, but the United States of America has a rich history of music. Not only that, we’ve got a rich history of songs about our rich history.

Just ask Ed Pettersen. Ed is a poet, picker, and “punk-blues” purveyor and producer living for the past several years in Nashville.

And with a team that includes Janet Reno, he put together Song of America, a big, old, various-artist collection of songs outlining the strange and complicated history of this great land — both the official version and various alternate views that go beyond the wars, political campaigns, and other stuff they teach in school. There are patriotic tunes, protest songs, musical retellings of historic events, and songs about changes in our society.


Janet Reno? Yes that Janet Reno. This is her dance party. She’s the aunt of Pettersen’s wife, Jane and it was her idea to put together such a collection after she heard Ed sing a few history-related folk songs at a family get-together. The former attorney general is listed as an executive producer for Song of America.

This three-disc set is a good companion to another three-disc set, Freedom: Songs From the Heart of America, released by Columbia Legacy a few years ago as a soundtrack to the PBS series Freedom: A History of US. Freedom covers a lot of the same ground as Song of America.

In fact, many songs like “This Land Is our Land,” “Home on the Range,” “The Times They Are Changin’,” and “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” can be found in both collections. But Freedom consists mostly of historic recordings — original songs by Louis Armstrong, Gene Autry, Paul Robeson, Kate Smith, Bob Dylan — while Song for America consists of all-new versions of songs recorded by contemporary musicians especially for this project. And Pettersen’s collection covers one important aspect of the American story that Freedom, for reasons I’m not sure of, barely touches upon — displacement and immigration.

Ed Pettersen, right, with Scott Kempner,left

The first disc of Song of America starts out with “Lakota Dream Song” sung by Earl Bullhead (and produced by Albuquerque’s Tom Bee of SOAR — Sound of America Records), establishing the fact that the story of this country isn’t only the story of Europeans.

There is another song about Native Americans called “Trail of Tears,” performed by the duo Will and Jehnean. Then there’s a tough version of “Apache Tears,” written in the early ’60s by Johnny Cash and performed here by rocker Scott Kempner (formerly of The Dictators and The Del-Lords).


There also are songs of the Irish, like “Thousands Are Sailing to Amerikay” performed by Tim O’Brien, and European Jews, like “Sleep My Child (”Schlof Mayn Kind”). There are two songs about Mexican immigrants: Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” done here by Old Crow Medicine Show, and Alejandro Escovedo’s “Wave” performed by Gary Heffern & Chris Eckman. (Singer Heffern, an acquaintance of mine, is an interesting study in immigration himself. A Finnish orphan adopted by American parents, he returned to his homeland a few years ago.)

The issues of race and slavery also are prominent. Two of the strongest tracks are James Brown’s “Say It Loud, I’m Black and Proud,” covered by Nashville soul revivalists The Dynamites with Charles Walker, and a hopped-up hiss-and-vinegar “John Brown’s Body” by Marah, who sound stronger than they have in years.

There’s also the recurring theme of rebellion. “John Brown’s Body” is a prime example. Pettersen sings “The Liberty Song,” a Revolutionary War tune that the liner notes say “was perhaps our first protest song.” Harper Simon (Paul’s kid) does a defiant “Yankee Doodle” (backed by Country Joe on pennywhistle!) that ends in a crazy guitar grunge-out. And there’s even a version of Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” by Atlanta rapper Shortee Wop.

And there are songs from the working man and woman’s perspective. Freedy Johnston sings a bluegrassy take on the Industrial Revolution lament “Peg and Awl,” while country star Suzy Bogguss does a sweet, jazzy “Rosie the Riveter,” a salute to women working the factories during World War II.

There are plenty of musical highlights here. Bettye LaVette sings a soulful take on Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia.” Chris and Rich Robinson, of The Black Crowes, team up with their father, Stan, as Folk Family Robinson and sing a spirited “Reuben James” (a song co-written by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Millard Lampell).

For pure weirdness, I’m very taken by raspy-voiced folkie Malcom Holcombe’s “The Old Woman Taught Wisdom,” a 1767 song based on an extended metaphor urging King George and the Colonies to patch things up. And speaking of Brits, John Wesley Harding sings a version of “God Save the Queen,” with a horn section that gets more discordant with each verse.

If there’s one problem with Song of America it’s that some performers tend to get maudlin and reverent about their material. There are a few slow spots when you try to plough through the whole album all at once. But even in some of those slow, maudlin, too-reverent songs, you can gain unexpected insights. I hadn’t heard or thought of Alan Jackson’s tear-jerking Sept. 11 lament “Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning” in several years. But hearing country duo The Wrights sing it, part of the refrain stuck with me:

“I’m just a singer of simple songs/I’m not a real political man/ I watch CNN but I’m not sure I can tell you/The difference in Iraq and Iran/But I know Jesus and I talk to God.”

It’s true. Songs aren’t just important to our history. Sometimes the lyrics can serve as the basis of our foreign policy.

CAUCUS DAY

My story about Bill Richardson's last-day campaign effort can be found HERE.

My snapshots of Iowa -- sorry, not very many so far -- are HERE.

And get a load of this report about a deal between Richardson and Obama. The Richardson camp is denying it, for the record.

About three hours until the caucusing starts.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: IOWA OBSERVATIONS

DES MOINES, IOWA — Before I left New Mexico, I was joking with friends that I expected to be tripping over Bill Richardson’s “Road Runners” — supporters from New Mexico who are campaigning for the governor here in the land of the eastern goldfinch.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when only moments after stepping off the plane at Des Moines International Airport on Tuesday, I heard someone call my name.

It was Geno Zamora, former chief counsel for Richardson’s office and candidate for state attorney general.

He was heading back to Santa Fe after roadrunning for Richardson for several days in Iowa. Zamora said he’d spent hours on the phone talking up Richardson to potential caucus supporters and also had done some basic grunt work, taping up banners and greeting people at Richardson appearances.

“It’s my 10th anniversary,” he said. “I had to choose between my wife and the governor.”
Zamora said he and his wife, Sheila, were going to the Fiesta Bowl, which took place Wednesday in Glendale, Ariz.

A few minutes later, as I went outside to pick up my rental car and felt the cold wind in the near-zero weather, a football game in Arizona sounded like a great idea.

Weather or not: Of course, being the political junkie I am, after feeling the cold blast, my next thought was what effect the weather — which Des Moines locals say is the coldest in months — would have on the caucuses.

Conventional wisdom is bad weather would hurt candidates such as U.S. Sen. Barack Obama who are counting on new, young and first-time caucus-goers while helping U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, reputed to have a polished get-out-the-vote machine, and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, who is strong with unions and has a base of longtime supporters going back to the 2004 election.

But some have speculated the cold and ice might hurt Clinton, who is depending on support from older voters.

What about Richardson? I’m assuming he’s less worried about the temperature remaining in single digits than he is about his poll numbers doing the same.

The good news is the weather forecast shows it might get all the way up to 30 degrees today.

I’m still wondering why Iowans and New Hampshirites are more qualified than, say, Hawaiians for taking the first crack at picking the president.

TV madness: Since arriving here, I’ve made it a point to watch some local television, mainly to check out the political ads.

It’s no surprise — they are thick and they are maddening. Just as New Mexico television will be come late October.

I’ve seen seemingly endless ads for Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Fred Thompson ... but no Bill Richardson.

Not on television at least. Two or three times on Iowa radio Wednesday, I heard a spot for the governor paid for by Star Pac, an anti-war group that has endorsed Richardson because of his promise to get all troops out of Iraq in his first year in office.

Only a couple of months ago, Richardson was leading the Democratic pack in number of television commercials. However, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus, by early December, he had fallen well behind Obama and Clinton. Obama by Dec. 2 had purchased more than 10,000 television and radio spots in Iowa. Clinton had bought more than 7,700. Richardson was in third place with 6,984. All but about 1,100 of Richardson’s spots ran before early October.

On Wednesday, Richardson told a small group at an event in Dubuque that candidates shouldn’t be chosen on the basis of who has the most money or has run the most ads.

Do the math: Richardson had appearances Wednesday in seven Iowa cities scattered all over the state. A grueling schedule to be sure.

But the more Richardson talked about it, the more grueling it became.

At his morning stop in Dubuque, the candidate said he had events in eight cities.

By Wednesday afternoon, he told a group he was appearing in 10 cities.

I’m not sure whether the number grew to 15 by the time he got to Iowa City — his seventh and final event of the day.

But give him credit: Whatever you can say about Richardson, at least the governor takes questions from the public at most of his campaign appearances.

An article in the Des Moines Register on Tuesday called Clinton on the fact that she hardly ever takes questions at her rallies, reporting: “Out of her 21 campaign rallies in Iowa since Christmas, Clinton has done three audience Q&As.”

While only a fraction of Iowa voters actually take part in the caucuses, the ones who do take them seriously. People I interviewed at Richardson events say they’ve gone to hear most, and in some cases all, the candidates. They actually read the position papers and compare. They ask intelligent questions and expect serious answers.

You can debate how well Richardson and other candidates answer the questions. But at least they put it on the line.

GREETINGS FROM IOWA

I'm about to set out for Dubuque to cover a Bill Richardson "job interview." I'm dreading going outside. It supposedly got down to 2 below zero here last night and the locals are saying yesterday was the coldest it's been here for months. Just my luck ...

I'll be at two or three Richardson events today, so watch the New Mexican.

Here's a link to my piece on Iowa from Tuesday's paper.

And here's a story I wrote about replacing the late Senate president Pro-tem Ben Altamirano, published today.