The History of PUMA ~ by Will Bower

- This is Will Bower's personal account of what got PUMA on the map. What was not mentioned that I would like to add is that folks on this page and at Grassroots are co-founders of the JUST SAY NO DEAL coalition that gave PUMA its platform.

Enjoy... and buzz it up



The minute the media outlets announced the Iowa Caucus for John Kerry in 2004, I knew what was in store for us that November -- another lofty Democrat would go on to lose the general election to the more approachable Republican.

Since its rise to prominence in 1972, Iowa has done *nothing* to promote success for Democrats in November. The closest the Iowa Caucus has ever come to getting it right was in 1976, when Jimmy Carter came in a distant second to "Uncommitted" -- and, even then, it's not as if Jimmy Carter went on to demonstrate the best that the Democratic Party had to offer in the way of executives.

Let's examine: 1972, Edward Muskie? 1976, Jimmy Carter? 1984, Walter Mondale? 1988, Dick Gephardt? 1992, Tom Harkin? 2004, John Kerry? And, yes... 2008, Barack Obama? And how did our most successful Democratic president since FDR fair? Bill Clinton, 4th place, at 3% (behind even "Uncommitted") in 1992. And yet every four years, both parties bend over backwards to ensure Iowa's primacy in choosing our presidential candidates. Iowan Democrats seem to prefer failure, and the Democratic Party seems to prefer Iowa.

So when I witnessed Barack Obama get an upper hand on the more competent and electable Hillary Clinton in Iowa this past January, I asked myself "How can we free ourselves from this failed process?" So I drafted my "Proposal for the 2012 Primaries"... which is how I came to write for The Huffington Post.

In fact, many of my articles here provide a glimpse into my own evolutionary process this political season -- a process shared by many others -- a collective process that would ultimately break forth virally as the PUMA Movement.



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