Carla McCullough with Joe Biden in 2007 when the presidential candidate stopped at her parents’ Iowa farm to film a commercial during the summer before the Democratic presidential caucuses.
On the summer day in 2007, when Joe Biden showed up on her family’s farm in eastern Iowa, Carla McCullough didn’t know much about him.
She knew he was running for president and that a campaign volunteer had called looking for a place to film a commercial. McCullough, visiting home for a week with her 1-year-old daughter, had picked up the landline and said, “Sure.”
She was there when the crew arrived early the next morning. And when Biden’s sister showed up, and when Biden himself arrived late in the afternoon.
“He was just a genuinely nice guy,” said McCullough, a watershed science extension educator at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “Super unpretentious.”
She posed for a picture with him on the front steps — an exciting opportunity to be part of history.
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Her Irish-Catholic Democrat parents backed Biden early on.
“The caucus was the following January, and they never missed a chance to see him.”
And Biden never missed a chance to call out to Mary Jo and Charles: Hey, there’s the McCulloughs …
Biden didn’t fare well in the caucus, but he did become Barack Obama’s vice president. And McCullough joined her parents as a loyal supporter.
“Although, I would have to say it was a little painful during his vice presidential era to watch ‘Saturday Night Live.’”
But it wasn’t painful this week.
McCullough joined friends and her partner, Doug Dittman, at the Jayne Snyder Trails Center late Wednesday morning as Biden took the oath of office.
Carla McCullough watches inside the Jayne Snyder Trails Center as Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday.
Her parents watched at home on the farm, her 82-year-old mother, a retired social worker who’d knocked on doors before the pandemic and set up a small socially distanced phone bank in the dining room and home office, pleased as could be.
The daughter felt emotions bubble up, too, mostly happiness, as she listened to the new president's message of unity.
“I had been kind of holding my breath,” she said. “There was just like this sense of relief that there was a peaceful transition. The whole ball of wax was really fun.”
— Cindy Lange-Kubick
