“Iowa is growing, Iowa is moving,” and that’s No Malarkey! according to former vice president Joe Biden.
While President Trump is busy rallying his supporters at packed stadiums across the country, Biden is on a 650-mile “No Malarkey!” bus tour of Iowa that’s seemingly living up to its name.
At a recent tour stop, Biden reflected on how Iowa has thrived since Trump took office, seemingly verifying the president fulfilled his 2016 campaign promise to improve the lives of folks there.
“Look at the promises that were made,” Biden said. “Look at what’s happening now.
“Iowa is growing. Iowa is moving,” he said.
Biden’s No Malarkey tour is an apparent attempt to reassert himself as a frontrunner in the Hawkeye State, which hosts the nation’s first 2020 caucus in February. Biden remains ahead in the Democratic primary nationally, but faces a tight contest in Iowa with openly gay South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders currently polling ahead of Obama’s VP.
Glenn Hurst, leader with Iowa Democrats’ Rural Caucus, told The Associated Press there’s little buzz for Biden in Iowa.
“In terms of people out there knocking on doors, who attended other campaign events, district events, I can’t name a member of the southeast Iowa Democrats who’s supporting Joe Biden,” Hurst said.
Bobby Moore, a Biden supporter who came to a No Malarkey tour stop on Saturday, told the AP attendance “isn’t one-tenth of what was here for Pete” Buttigieg days prior.
According to Real Clear Politics, Buttigieg currently leads Democrats in Iowa with 24 percent support in an average of polls since early November. Sanders is polling second at 18.3 percent, followed by warren at 17.7 percent and Biden at 16.3 percent.
To boost his numbers, Biden has painted a massive tour bus with “No Malarkey!” and his campaign slogan and set out on a 18 county tour of Iowa backroads he’s convinced will win over voters and propel him to victory in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.
“I promise you, I promise you,” Biden told reporters outside his Council Bluff campaign office, “we’re going to win this race, and we’re going to beat Donald Trump, and we’re going to change America.”
Jill Biden told Democrats at one stop that her 77-year-old husband is the “only candidate who can take on Trump in places like Florida and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Michigan.”
That was essentially the same argument former Obama Secretary of Agriculture and current Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack made in his spiel.
In Denison, Iowa, Vilsack pointed out that big promises from some candidates are worthless if Trump is re-elected to another four years.
“You can’t do any of that unless you win,” he said of other policy pitches. “You’ve gotta win.”
In the meantime, Biden is explaining what his tour is all about, because many folks greeted with the massive “No Malarkey” bus aren’t sure what to make of it, Politico reports.
“Malarkey?” Cece West questioned in Council Bluffs. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s aptly named,” Biden assured his supporters. “The reason we named it ‘No Malarkey’ is because the other guys all lie.
“So we want to make sure there is a contrast, what we’re talking about here,” he said.
“He does seem genuine,” Isaac Lawrence, a 19-year-old Biden backer, told Politico. “It’s an older word. Not necessarily in touch with younger people.”
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