IOWA CAUCUSES

O'Malley talks Taylor Swift in Beaverdale

Grant Rodgers
grodgers@dmreg.com

Martin O'Malley set aside the politics for a minute on Wednesday afternoon to talk pop music instead.

Martin O'Malley and his son, William, door-knock in Beaverdale on Wednesday afternoon.

"Do you like Taylor Swift?" he asked Camille Lust, 12.

"Very much," said her mom, Traci, as all three stood on the stoop of a Beaverdale home. "She's a guitar player ... She just got a brand new one for Christmas."

"Oh, I play guitar," the Democratic presidential candidate said. "Make sure you keep it tuned … Three chords and the world is yours."

The former Maryland governor alongside his son, William, knocked more than 10 doors in the northwest Des Moines neighborhood, with no answers at most of them. O'Malley left a handwritten note on a campaign flier at each unopened door before moving onto the next house identified on a list of potential caucusgoers kept by his campaign staff.

The door-knocking event was the last on O'Malley's public schedule capping a four-day swing through nine Iowa cities. In a short huddle with reporters before the walk began, the lowest-pulling Democratic contender said he's confident that there's still a block of Iowa voters who can be wooed in the final stretch of the caucus season.

"We've put together a great organization," he said. "But let's be honest: The people of Iowa, the people who go to their caucus, make up their mind in the last couple of weeks."

Traci Lust, 46, who said she supported President Barack Obama's 2008 caucus bid, told O'Malley she's still evaluating the party's three candidates.

"The only real thought I've put into it is no Donald Trump," she said.

"Yeah, you and me both," O'Malley responded. "It seems like every time he says something more overtly fascist, he does better."

Walking through the snowy neighborhood, O'Malley said that he knocked on 7,000 doors for his unsuccessful 1990 Maryland state senate campaign.

A woman came to the door at the second house O'Malley visited and said the person they were hoping to see had moved. The woman held her 9-month-old son, Henry.

"So I'm the first presidential candidate that Henry's ever met," O'Malley said.