I don’t usually eat lunch, so I lacked a ready excuse not to wander over to the well-known local bookstore for the lunch-time appearance of former Maryland Congressman now turned full-time Iowa Presidential Candidate John Delaney.
When I arrived, some fifteen minutes before the announced start, there was no sign of the candidate and few signs that anyone else had noticed—signatures, it seems, of the Delaney campaign. Decoding the signals sent by folding chairs leaning against walls, I went and asked the guy at the register when the candidate would arrive. I (and others) had been misinformed; the store was a desert, not an oasis, candidatewise. The event, he said, was at a coffee shop I had never heard of. Close enough to tea leaves for me to read, I took this revelation as a sign that since I don’t drink coffee, I could give up the hunt.
As it was a workday, but not yet a school day, the Boys had made their own separate ways to the bookstore. They had then each pursued the Delaney dream to the coffee shop. Each had then discovered no event there either.
Delaney has spent more time in Iowa, visited more Iowa counties (all ninety-nine), and scheduled more Iowa events than any other candidate—all without perceptible effect. His singular efforts have, however, revealed his superpower. Despite his omnipresence, he can still remain invisible. So the Boys and I had, in fact, experienced the full Delaney Effect.