Charles Bruner is a longtime advocate for policies that support children and strengthen families. -promoted by Laura Belin

Relational campaigning is back. Out of necessity, campaigns have had to adapt to the strictures of social distancing. 2020 has not been a year for mass gatherings, nor for packed party headquarters of volunteers to disperse leaflets door-to-door or operate phone banks. Instead, much of the volunteer work has relied upon people in their own homes and with their computers and cell phones doing what they can.

The plus side of this has been an increased emphasis upon “relational campaigning,” asking volunteers to reach out to the people they know best about issues that matter to them.

Charles Bruner: Joe Biden’s plan to improve the caregiving and education workforce is “every bit as ambitious as the New Deal at the time of the depression or the New Frontier/War on Poverty/Great Society efforts of the 1960s.” -promoted by Laura Belin

It may or may not receive the media attention or the public dialogue it deserves during the campaign, but presidential candidate Joe Biden’s “Plan for Mobilizing American Talent and Heart to Create a 21st Century Caregiving and Education Workforce” represents the type of bold vision that has the potential to reshape and fundamentally improve our society.

It opens with a recognition of the critical role caregivers and helpers play in our society:

Charles Bruner is a longtime advocate for policies that support children and strengthen families. He has endorsed Elizabeth Warren for president. -promoted by Laura Belin

Iowans like to see presidential candidates in the flesh, but sometimes their surrogates offer perspectives that deserve as much attention.

In early January, Heather McGhee spoke on behalf of Elizabeth Warren to a small group of Iowans at Smokey Row in Des Moines. Her message, however, was one that deserves to be considered and heeded by Democrats and progressives more generally.

Charles Bruner is a longtime advocate for “policies that support children and strengthen families.” He posted this reflection on Facebook following the passing of his friend, a former legislator and founder of the State Public Policy Group. -promoted by desmoinesdem

Thanks to Facebook friends Angie Slater, Mark Lambert, Jodi Tomlonovic, Tom Jochum, Christopher Slater, and I am sure others for their reflections on Tom Slater, who died on St. Patrick’s Day after a life much longer and enriching than 72 calendar years.

To add to these reflections, I first met and talked with Tom over thirty-five years ago, in 1981. He was a state senator and I was a lowly state representative, trying to figure out whether I should run for re-election to the House or go to, in Don Avenson’s view, the moribund and dreaded Senate. I contacted Senator Slater, the closest thing to a Young Turk the Senate had, to seek advice. Tom took me out to lunch – at one of the greasiest of greasy spoons I thought could exist, which made Iowa State Fair food seem health-giving.