Baker's heartbeat

Construction of the new Interstate 74 Bridge is currently challenging for Illinois-side drivers          Illinois drivers on Interstate 74 have such a wild route into Iowa now, it's a wonder they get anywhere in a timely manner. The Interstate 74 Bridge between Bettendorf and Moline Ill., is being replaced in a $1.2 billion project. It is coordinated by the Iowa Department of Transportation, or DOT, and is the largest construction project in Iowa history. This writer is taking a class during CommUniversity at Black Hawk College, Moline. It necessitates a 40-minute trip over the bridge on Sunday afternoons, and a return about 4 p.m. Going to Moline is not too tough; there are plenty of warning signs posted ("Stay in Your Lane!") and traffic moves smoothly on a Sunday. But the return trip? Oh my! Black Hawk College is located between 60th and 70th streets in Moline, and is easily accessed off John Deere Road. Heading home, a driver needs to get in ...

Caucus volunteer workers make calculations, in Bettendorf on Feb. 3 The setting of the first caucus I can remember as a daily newspaper reporter was bucolic in nature. I was assigned in 2004 to a farm home in rural Cedar County, Iowa; it was owned by Keith Whitlatch, a leading Democrat and the county sheriff. While there, this Davenport-based newspaper reporter was joined by a news team from the Cedar Rapids Gazette, as well as a television station. The Whitlatch home was jammed with about 12 Democratic residents, also from the surrounding rural area, as well as all the media. After the smoke cleared, John Kerry won the most support and he went on to win the Democratic nomination. In 2008, the scene was John Glenn Elementary School in Donahue, Iowa, for Democrats, and at Walcott School in Walcott, Iowa, for Republicans. What I remember most is the groundswell of support for then-Senator Barack Obama, with energetic young people from Chicago organizing a small-town caucus that...

  Some 354 folks gather in Bettendorf 52 to caucus on Feb. 3.   Hands up for Joe Biden at the caucus. Initial results; the numbers changed where some candidates weren't "viable." Some 354 folks from Bettendorf, Iowa, filed into a big room at the Waterfront Convention Center. After some formalities, they moved to various parts of the room and sorted themselves into groups of support. The final numbers: Mayor Pete Buttigieg, 111 people Sen. Bernie Sanders, 81 Sen. Amy Klobuchar, 80 Former Vice President Joe Biden, 79
 By use of a complicated formula, that gave Buttigieg and Sanders each 3 delegates to the Scott County convention; Klobuchar and Biden each got 2.
 This, of course, is just one precinct of 1,600 in Iowa. Senator Elizabeth Warren was never viable in Bettendorf 52, a large precinct in an affluent city.
 The Iowa Caucuses are again having issues with final results, but the "boots on the ground" worked fairly smoothly in Bettendor...