Frigid forecast for Thursday must be making campaigns sweat

All the barrels of ink and mungogingdillions of electrons spilled this presidential primary season, the hundreds of millions raised and spent on armies of consultants and polls and marketing research and message crafting and everything else, all of it may be eclipsed by one single decidedly un-sexy factor; the weather.

Temps took a downhill plunge here over New Year's, and the weather service forecast for the Iowa Quad Cities and much of Iowa on Caucus day is for highs in the 20's with bone-numbing wind chills into the subzero range.

With Clinton depending on the elderly and the campaigns beyond neurotic in their quest to get everyone and then some more to caucus, the cold may play a larger role than anything their millions have bought.

The forecast isn't for just cold, it's predicting damn cold, which, as all of you know, is an entirely different matter, particularly for those in the post 40 or so demographic.

For most mid-westerners, cold is a minor annoyance. Mere cold doesn't really cause anyone to alter their plans. But damn cold, well, that changes things.

Older model cars are reluctant to start. You simply can't be outside too long at all. It requires a frustrating amount of extra time to don the required layers of insulation and to get everything covered but your eyeballs, which makes it hard to move, etc. etc. etc.

If it's just cold, you can even run out with a light coat on if you're not planning on standing outside for any length of time. But when it's damn cold, you actually have to dig out the heavy coat, wear some layers, maybe throw on a sweatshirt or sweater, and in extreme cases, even try to find gloves (where did I leave them last?)

In short, it makes things more time consuming, and much more of an effort all the way around.

Campaigns are fighting like mad to pierce potential voter's shield of apathy already. Even if the weather were balmy, the fact remains that an alarmingly slim fraction of eligible voters even bother to participate in the caucus process, a process which is by it's nature rather complex to comprehend at first glance, time consuming, and already intimidating to many.

Voters are already stocked with plenty of excuses for not bothering to participate, now it appears that Mother Nature is handing them one of the best of all...

It's too damn cold!


If I were a campaign operative, I'd be making plans for vats of hot chocolate, and maybe free parkas and mukluks. I'd also be looking into whether or not it was possible to rig up something like an airport skyway to a van.

Skyways are those hallways that allow passengers to board planes. They're able to expand and contract accordion-like in order to be positioned over the aircrafts entry doors.

The elderly often seem chilled if the temp dips below 85, inside or out and are often a tad chilly in environments that would make an iguana pass out. The thinking is that a lot of them won't want to brave the frigid conditions, even if it's only to get from the door of their homes to a waiting vehicle staffed by eager campaign droids playing kidnappers for a day.

So you pull up as close to the door as possible with a van which has been pre-heated to a near suffocating sub-tropical level, pull the heated walkway to the door, and voila! Mildred's comfy and may even remember who she's supposed to vote for once she's at the caucus site.

But in all seriousness, if the forecast holds up, it will be interesting to see if or how much it depresses turnout, which after all, is the sole reason for being for the Iowa campaigns.