First, I'd like to give a shout out to all the new Iowa Meet Up members who are visiting the Blog for Iowa for the first time today. Welcome!
The results of our first Blog for Iowa poll are in: some 70.5% of the people who voted preferred to have a photo of Howard Dean on the Blog for Iowa site.
I copied this photo of Gov. Dean off of Blog for America back in November, 2003. The photo was taken by John Pettitt, the official Dean campaign photographer, while Gov. Dean was speaking before a congregation in Harlem at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church on November 23, 2003.
This photo has always been one of my favorites because of the colors and the majesty of the composition. You may think that I did something to the coloring of this photo because when you click on the link above to see the original, the coloring seems very different. But I didn't. When this picture was originally posted on BFA, it had more of a yellowish cast to it–probably why I liked it.
So, I cropped the photo and sent it to John Pettitt. He gave his permission to use the photo. So, many thanks to John. You will see his photo credit and a link to his website on the left sidebar.
Also, I'd like to thank Demetrius at People-Powered Graphics, who added the white trim to the photo for me – three different times – as I played around with sizing and placement. My inadequate software would not let me do it. That Demetrius is a real gem!
I've placed another poll up on the left sidebar for you to cast a vote regarding your opinion of the photo we are using.
I am pleased to announce that we have filled the positions of DFIA Meet Up Coordinator and DFIA DeanCorps Coordinator. I hope to introduce you to these ladies some time this week yet.
Plus, we have filled the position of County Coordinator for the following counties:
Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, Dallas, Jefferson, Polk, Scott, and Warren.
If you would like to apply for the position of DFIA County Coordinator for your county, please go here to read about the application procedure.
In looking over the Blog for Iowa webstats, I see that since we went up on April 1, we have been averaging over 100 hits a day. That is recorded as “distinct hosts served,” meaning the number of different computers that are hitting the site. As for page views, we've had 2,143 in the first week of existance. Of course, half of those are probably my refreshing over and over every time I make a change!
I also noticed that one of our highest traffic times is between 8am and 11am, and again between noon and 3pm. There's a bit of a surge between 5am and 8am, so one of my goals is to put up some fresh material every morning for those early morning folks. Looks like today, I'm going to meet that goal.
Good Morning, Blog for Iowa!
Blog For Iowa 
Linda,
I have a number of pictures I took of Governor Dean during the Iowa Campaign (ie: Dean at last summers Meetup in Des Moines, Dean and Gore, Dean at various events, etc). Let me know if you are looking for additional pics and I will send you some.
The Atlantic Monthly magazine, May 2004, will carry a story by Paul Maslin with an inside view on the Iowa Dean campaign. Mr. Maslin was Governor Dean's pollster. Here is a link to a preview of the upcoming article that you can copy and post in your browser. Great reading..
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/05/maslin.htm
Dennis
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