We Iowa Writers welcome Christie Vilsack!

The former First Lady of Iowa and my longtime friend said yes when I suggested she start writing regularly-appearing columns again.

DES MOINES, Iowa — There is big news today from our Iowa Writers’ Collaborative – veteran journalist Christie Vilsack, the former First Lady of Iowa and former candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, is joining our line-up and this afternoon will launch her new column, named “Common Ground.”

You can go directly to her first column, and subsequent ones, by using this link. You can “subscribe” for free, or for a reasonable fee. If you do, her work will come directly to you by email.

As a friend of Christie for nearly 50 years, I’m proud to have given her the encouragement that has finally persuaded her to start writing again.

The two of us while campaigning in 2012 at “T-Bone Days” in Audubon in southwest Iowa.

You probably know that after her husband Tom Vilsack recently completed his 16 years as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and they have moved back full-time to their home located near Boonville just west of the Des Moines metro area. Tom is the new CEO of the World Food Prize, which is headquartered here.

Christie talks about their latest move back to Iowa – she’s done that several times in her lifetime – in her first “Common Ground” column. She also talks about the kind of topics she plans to feature in her column, and a couple that she plans to avoid.

The first time I recall meeting Christie Bell Vilsack is hilarious.

It was, I think, in the early to mid-1980s. She and Tom, who met in their freshman year of college in New York state, had married; he’d completed law school, and they moved to her hometown of Mount Pleasant in southeast Iowa where Tom began practicing law with Christie’s father and brother.

The neighboring town of Crawfordsville was once again renewing its claim to being the birthplace of the nation’s Republican Party (a fascinating history you can Google, and which has always been contested by history-minded people of Ripon, Wis.). So, there was some kind of GOP rally held in Crawfordsville, and I figured I could do a column about it for the Des Moines Register. I was mingling in the crowd, listening and chatting to folks when I saw a young woman in blue jeans wearing a “Ripon” letter jacket.

I made my way over to her, introduced myself as a Register columnist, asked her name and if she was possibly there in a protest for Ripon’s claim to GOP fame instead of Crawfordsville’s.

“Oh, no, not really,” said Christie Vilsack. “I’m from Mount Pleasant, just down the road, and the fact is, I’m a Democrat. But my brother went to Ripon College. He had this old letter jacket, so I thought it’d be fun to come to Crawfordsville today wearing it, just to see what people would say.”

As she writes in her first column, she went on to teach journalism in the Mount Pleasant schools and at Iowa Wesleyan College, as well as write a “Front Page” column in the Mount Pleasant News.

Next time I saw her, as I recall, was when I was invited to speak to a small class of journalism graduate students at the University of Iowa. One of the young people around the table, this time well-dressed and wearing an “Annie Hall” type hat. Yes, Christie Vilsack. And our friendship really began.

In subsequent years, as Tom became mayor of Mount Pleasant then a State Senator, I became close friends with both of them. One or the other brought me to their community two or three times to speak to various groups. I learned that one Vilsack family tradition was that on Saturday mornings, Christie’s father Tom Bell would stop over at the Vilsack home for coffee and conversation. I invited myself to join them a few times.

You know that in 1998, Tom Vilsack launched his campaign for governor.

That July, when I resigned from the Register, Tom called me and asked if I would serve as his campaign’s press secretary. I declined, telling him, “You don’t want me to be your press secretary. I’d be a pain in the ass pushing all my ideas. But in the next 15 seconds, I can give you my very best political idea, which you can use or not use, and you won’t have to put up with me the rest of your campaign.”

Said Tom Vilsack: “And what’s that?”

“Tom,” I said, “go to every parade in Iowa between now and election day. You put Christie and your two boys out in front of you, and all you say is, ‘I’m with them!’ ”

They won!

By having somewhat of an inside track to the first family because of my long friendship with Christie, I did manage to come up with several fun columns in their eight years at Terrace Hill.

Like, during the first Vilsack Inauguration, after Tom was sworn in, he turned around, gave Christie a huge hug and a big kiss. It knocked her stylish broad-brimmed hat off her head. That produced this quote from her, when I asked about it: “His kisses are so powerful he knocks my hat off!”

When Tom was re-elected in 2002, Christie and I were invited to speak at some kind of meeting in Waterloo. We were seated right next to each other on a stage. As the group was handling its business meeting, before we were each to speak, I turned to Christie and said quietly, “Why the heck are you not writing a column about your life as First Lady?” Her answer was: “Well, I keep telling myself I should be writing. But one thing – no one has asked me.”

I was writing then for The Iowan magazine. As you can imagine, I went right to my bosses and told them we had a remarkable chance to have the First Lady of Iowa writing a column for every edition of the magazine. Even more remarkably, the editor of the magazine said no. She thought a Vilsack column would be too political, even though I assured her that would not be the case. But even if, I said, “So what?

Nevertheless, The Iowan said no.

Stunned, I said, “Then you lose me, too.”

And then I offered Christie $100 per column to write every-other-week for our new website www.Offenburger.com. She said yes. She didn’t want to be paid, but I insisted.

For the next three years – until Tom announced he would run for president – Christie wrote the most popular columns on our website. Her stories were good – very good and very readable.

One more old tale about our friendship.

In 2012, Christie decided to establish residence in Ames and run for the U.S. House seat held by Republican arch-conservative Steve King. By then, I’d become a Republican myself.

But my best friendships have always meant more to me than my politics. The first time Christie told me she was going to make that run, I told her that I would not only endorse her, but I would also become a nearly full-time volunteer for her campaign – and I did both. That also meant that the Greene County Republican Party, which had elected me to its Central Committee, insisted I had to retract my endorsement and cease my involvement with the Vilsack campaign, or be removed from my GOP position. They also asked me not to write anything about the fuss.

I assured my Republican friends there’d be a column, then noisily resigned and started traveling the big Congressional district with the Vilsacks. We didn’t win. But we had a helluva good time!

My prediction: We’re all going to have a helluva good time now reading Christie Vilsack’s “Common Ground” columns. She’s a good writer. And a great person.

And I welcome her to our Iowa Writers’ Collaborative.

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