Southern Charm Meets Iowa Nice: A Tar Heel’s Assimilation to the Hawkeye State

First, I feel the need to out myself as a Democratic politico, but this post isn’t about politics or partisan ideology. It’s about how a hillbilly from Western North Carolina wound up in a sea of Iowa corn, why I kept coming back and why I’ve decided to stay.

Somewhere in Coggon, Iowa, June 2012.

OK, I’ll admit it. The East Coast bias against Iowa is real. Prior to 2012, I hadn’t thought much about the state of Iowa or the Midwest for that matter. In the summer of 2009, shortly before landing my first political gig in South Carolina, I remember asking my mother, “Why would anyone go to Iowa?”

I knew Des Moines was the state capital and that Iowans grew a lot of corn. And thanks to a classic Saved By The Bell episode, I knew the University of Iowa was a perennial wrestling powerhouse. That was the extent of my knowledge about the state that I now call home.

By May of 2012, I had been working in politics for almost three years, primarily in South Carolina and Louisiana and had just finished a stint in D.C. The political campaign bug had bitten me hard, and at that point, there was no turning back.

After about a month and a half of job searching, I noticed an online posting from the Iowa Democratic Party. They were seeking campaign managers for state senate races, and I emailed them my resume. Honestly, I was so desperate to get back into the game that I probably applied to at least 10 jobs that afternoon.

Then a funny thing happened. The IDP called me back. Within 48 hours of sending in my resume, I took a job halfway across the country and started packing my bags. My parents, supportive as always, went along with it, but they thought I was crazy.

The Iowa Democratic Party was also aware of the East Coast bias, and one of their selling points was that I would be living and working in Cedar Rapids, Iowa’s second largest city. I arrived on the eve of the 2012 June primary in the middle of a premature Iowa heatwave.

I met my candidate in Cedar Rapids, a former Iowa House member who was seeking a newly drawn Iowa Senate seat. He was a young, rising star in the Democratic Party about my age with prior campaign experience. It was a good fit. There were a couple of bumps along the way, but right around the July 4th holiday, I started hitting my stride and was growing attached to my friends and office in Cedar Rapids.

Then came the call.

During the hiring process, I was told that I could be moved to any race throughout the state at any time. However, I was reassured that in my case, “We don’t see that happening.”

Well, it happened.

They were moving me from Cedar Rapids, population 126,326, to Cresco, Iowa, population . . . nevermind . . . where the hell is Cresco?

I looked for my new home of Howard County on a map and thought to myself, “They’re moving me to Minnesota.” My marching orders were to arrive in Cresco by July 6th, and that was the day I moved to the real Iowa.

With a population of just over 10,000, my hometown of Marion is small by North Carolina standards. Cresco, with a population of just under 4,000, was the county seat of Howard County making it the largest “city” in the county. So my hometown of Marion, NC was more populous than all of Howard County combined. With hog farms, gravel roads, cornfields and soybeans as far as my eyes could see, I knew I had arrived in the agricultural chamber of the heart of the Midwest.

On my first day in Cresco, I learned the name Norman Borlaug: the man who saved a billion lives. In case you haven’t heard of him, he’s kind of a big deal, and he was born and raised in Howard County.

On my second night in Cresco, I sauntered into Kleve’s Pub and ordered a Jack and Diet. One of the owners, Tom Kleve, who remains to this day one of my favorite people in the world, asked for my ID. After looking my North Carolina driver’s license up and down, he looked puzzled and asked, “What happened, did your car break down?”

I honestly don’t remember every single detail of the next four months of my life leading up to November 6th, Election Day. I only recall a blur of 14 hour workdays, six or seven days a week. Much of that time was spent traveling across a seven county district, knocking on strangers’ doors, walking in parades amidst 100 degree temperatures and attending every church meal within a 90 mile radius.

My desk in the campaign office, circa September 2012.

Those four months were some of the most stressful months of my life. I slept on an air mattress in a small apartment that I used only for showering and sleeping.

Little did I know that not only was I being moved to small town, rural Iowa, but I was also being thrust into one of the top targeted state senate races in the country. It was the only incumbent vs. incumbent race in the state, and a loss would have jeopardized the Democratic majority in the Iowa Senate. There were a lot of powerful people with a lot of money that wanted my candidate to lose.

But when the polls closed on Election night and the Iowa Secretary of State tallied the final 31,0o0 ballots, my candidate won by 126 votes. For the first time in my political career, I was part of a winning campaign.

During our final conference call before Election Day, we were asked to share our favorite part of the campaign. I didn’t have to think very long. My answer was simple: the people.

I met some of the best people I know during those four months in North Iowa. I still talk to many of them on a regular basis, and I met the awesome lady who has since become my surrogate Iowa mother.

In early 2013, I ventured back to Cedar Rapids for a referendum election and subsequently returned to North Iowa in 2014 to manage another state legislative race.

This past January, I moved to the big city of Des Moines and have been living here for the past eight months. The other day I realized that the eight months I’ve been in Des Moines is the longest I have resided in one place since 2010.

The people. That’s why I’ve stayed. “Iowa Nice” is not just a concept or a political soundbite. It’s real. I could take out my phone right now and call at least a dozen people who would be willing to put a roof over my head for the night. I’ve worked with Democrats and Republicans. While they differ in their ideologies, they share trademark Iowa qualities such as respect, courtesy, hard work and positive attitudes.

I’ve lived in some of the most beautiful places in the country. I grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I attended college in Chapel Hill NC, arguably one of the best college towns in the nation. For eight years, I lived in Charleston, SC, the most popular tourist destination in the country.

But, here I am, still in Iowa where I’m slowly adapting to the Midwest winters. And what I said in 2012 still rings true today. I’m here because of the wonderful people I’ve met along the way during what has sometimes been a difficult journey.

Around Des Moines, I’ve noticed several local stores selling shirts with logos that read “Native” in the middle of the state outline. I’ve seen the same logos that read, “Captive” or “Stranded”. I’ve never thought of myself as stranded or captive in Iowa. I think of myself as “Adopted”.

It’s often difficult living a thousand miles away from my family and Captain Rhett Butler III. But, luckily I have my Iowa family. So many folks have gone out of their way to make me feel at home as one of their own. And that more than anything is what “Iowa Nice” means to me.