Kaine surprises baseball fans with Iowa City visit

IOWA CITY - In the middle of Game 7 of the World Series, Sen. Tim Kaine visited an Iowa City coffeehouse and a bar - both better known for music than politics.

The politicking seemed to go better than the baseball for the Democratic vice presidential candidate who is backing the American League champion Cleveland Indians. His adopted team - Kaine's a Kansas City Royals fan - scored a run in the third inning while he shook hands and made small talk at Java House in downtown Iowa City. But the Chicago Cubs scored two in the fourth while Kaine worked his way around The Mill on Burlington Street.

Baseball fans didn't seem to mind the interruption, brief as it was.

Liz Hollingworth went to The Mill for baseball and stayed for the politics.

'I had just finished teaching when I heard a terrible roar and I dove in here to see what was happening,” said Hollingworth, who teaches education at the University of Iowa.

'He was a huge surprise,” she said. 'Amazing.”

Surprise was the reaction from most of the folks Kaine talked to at The Mill and Java House.

'I looked up and said, ‘OMG, that's Tim Kaine,'” said Audrey Smith, an Iowa City teacher. 'I was trying to process that and talk to him at the same time. It was all good.”

The surprise may have been because Kaine is the first person on either the Democratic or GOP presidential ticket to visit Iowa City - a political hot spot - since the Iowa caucuses in February.

'He's the first famous person I've met,” said Chris Lui of Cedar Rapids, who was sitting nearby with Cathy Vanhxay of Iowa City.

'He's the biggest political person we've had in here,” The Mill's house manager Alexi Schlesinger said.

Kaine, who had a get-out-the-vote event at Loras College in Dubuque earlier in the day, visited the Democratic field office in Davenport and made a stop at the World's Largest Truck Stop at Walcott. Kaine said he was spending the night in Cedar Rapids.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who had a strong following in Iowa City, plans to be back Friday. The time and location have yet to be announced.