Fifty-one delegates from Iowa head into the Democratic National Convention today in Philadelphia, where a party squabble may erupt.
Leaked emails showing national party staff favoring Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders led to the resignation of the Democratic National Committee’s chairwoman Sunday.
Caleb Humphrey of Madrid is a Bernie Sanders delegate to the Democratic National Convention.
“What the Bernie camp has thought since the conception of this whole race is that the scales have been tipped in favor of Hillary Clinton,” Caleb Humphrey, a Sanders delegate from Madrid, told Radio Iowa. “Now we know unequivocally, in black and white, that this is true.”
The solution, he suggested, is to dump Clinton and nominate Sanders.
“I propose that the delegates from Iowa go all in for Bernie Sanders,” Humphrey said, “because he ran a solid campaign, he’s got the fever of the people and he can win this fall.”
Sanders delegate Ingrid Olson of Council Bluffs said Clinton remains the presumptive nominee.
“And I don’t think that is going to change,” Olson said.
But Olson warned there’s “division” within the Iowa delegation and it’s in danger of fracturing at this convention.
“They think we’re ‘one hit wonders’ and we’re here temporarily, but the people that I know are very dedicated and they’re here for the long haul. They are energized. They’re youthful and the party needs them if the party’s going to survive, otherwise we’re going to end up having a Republican candidate such as Donald Trump,” Olson said. “…They need to figure out a way to welcome us and not make us make us feel like outcasts.”
Andy McGuire, the chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party, last night said party unity is a “work in progress.”
“We need to continue to talk about the issues that we have in common and get to unity,” McGuire said. “When we talk about education and we talk about equal work for equal pay and when we talk about college affordability — these are issues we all agree on.”
Former Iowa Senator Tom Harkin backed Clinton in the Iowa Caucuses and he predicted Sunday that Democrats will unite in the “City of Brotherly Love.”
“You’ll see some Sanders folks, this and that, back and forth,” Harkin told Iowa reporters, “but I’ll tell you, when Hillary Clinton takes that stage Thursday night, everybody will be behind her.”
And Harkin pushed back at the notion the nominating process had been rigged against Sanders.
“I’ll do whatever I can to help bring our party together, to work with both Sanders and Clinton people to get us united,” Harkin said. “…If all else fails, all I’ve got to say is: ‘Trump.’ That brings us together right away.”
Iowa delegate Cindy Pollard of Newton was wearing an “I’m With Her” t-shirt Sunday night in Philadelphia. She expects “smooth sailing” for Clinton this week.
“I think it really will be,” Pollard said. “It’s going to be powerful in that room and I think when we go in there, everybody will come together and it’s going to happen.”
The Iowa delegates went to a bowling alley in Philadelphia for a pre-convention party Sunday night. It appeared the Sanders delegates gathered in their own bowling lanes, while the Clinton delegates teamed up in others. Eighteen-year-old Sruthi Palapniappan of Cedar Rapids, a Clinton delegate, noticed.
“I think we kind of just went into our own pods and then just realized: ‘Oh no,'” she said. “‘We accidentally divided.'”
Harkin gave the crowd a short pep talk at the bowling alley, then music started to play. “Disco Inferno” — with the lyric “burn baby burn” — has become a rallying anthem for Sanders supporters and the song was first in the rotation.