The Iowans in Boston for the Democratic National Convention are making their way home now after John Kerry formally accepted the party’s presidential nomination last night. John and Jackie Norris got engaged at the Democratic National Convention in L-A four years ago. They were both in Boston for the Democratic Convention this week — Jackie as a delegate, John as the field director for John Kerry’s national campaign. John says working on Iowa Caucus campaigns for the past 20 years has put him in contact with lots of campaign workers who’ve moved to other parts of the country, and who he is now calling on to work for Kerry. John and his wife ate breakfast together every morning this week, something they haven’t done regularly for quite a while. They’ve been having one of those “commuter marriages,” as John is working at Kerry campaign headquarters in D.C. and Jackie is home in Ames, raising the couple’s 11-month-old twin boys. Jackie sends John email pictures of the boys, and they talk by phone every morning and every night. John says he will come home after the election’s over. But Jackie’s not so sure. Jackie says if John Kerry wins, her husband may be asked to work in D-C and she’s ready to talk about moving there. The couple met, by the way, through Iowa politics, as Jackie came to Iowa to work for Tom Vilsack’s campaign in 1998; she is now a teacher. In 1998, John Norris moved back to Iowa from D-C to run the Iowa Democratic Party, then he worked as Vilsack’s chief of staff. Norris, who is a Red Oak native, has run for office himself, losing to Congressman Tom Latham in the 2002 election, and this past January Norris said he’d like to run for office again someday.
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