John Murphy is the Dubuque County recorder. -promoted by Laura Belin

We all have memories of that awful day ingrained into our minds. What if you could have helped stop it? If we had prior knowledge that the 9/11 attacks were going to happen, what would you have done to prevent them? What would the American public been willing to do to stop the attacks? What would you do to help save the 2,977 lives that were lost or the roughly 6,000 injured? Would anything have been “too much?”

Now, what if you knew that instead of four planes, there were thousands more in the sky? You didn’t know who they were targeting, but knew they were planning to strike every state in the nation multiple times. Would you be willing to change your life for a few weeks or months to try to prevent these attacks?

John McCormally joins the conversation on how Iowa Democrats can recover. Currently an attorney and member of the party’s State Central Committee, McCormally is a former staffer for the party and for various Democratic campaigns. -promoted by desmoinesdem

When it comes to rebuilding the Iowa Democratic Party, better messaging and party building are at the top of everyone’s list. Everyone agrees on the problems. Solutions are more elusive. Claire Celsi’s extraordinary article offers a great insight as to what the priorities of the next chair should be. While the next chair’s vision is important, rebuilding the party will take more than the vision of one person. As someone who has been on the IDP State Central Committee for six years, and will be for 18 more months, I am familiar with the potential and the limitations of the organization. In that spirit, I offer ten specific programs the IDP can implement to rebuild: