Today’s Des Moines Register has this Jane Norman story “Harkin raises money, perhaps to run again” about how Tom Harkin has raised $362,000 in the last quarter of 2006. Aside from wondering why else Tom Harkin would raise money for his Senate account besides a re-election bid, the article points out that “Harkin is doing everything to indicate he will seek re-election in 2008.” Although there were some rumors that he might retire, those have been pretty throughly debunked. The Register’s headline writers should start actually reading the news stories before they write the headline.
I suppose the “hearts Huckabee” line is going to catch on soon and then become very, very uncool, so I’m sorry about that.
Today, though, Republican Presidential Candidate and Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee announced endorsements from Blue Bunny Bob Vanderplaats, best known for losing a statewide election a few months back, and Danny Carroll, former President Pro Tem of the Iowa House representing Grinnell. He lost last November, too.
But more importantly, recall the story we broke last October, detailing how Danny Carroll is implicated in a scandal that made its way to the Iowa Supreme Court and resulted in the suspension of a lawyer’s license to practice. Basically, he helped the lawyer steal over $40,000 (and a free trip to Vegas) from a struggling old lady in Grinnell.
Well, I guess we can always trust Danny Carroll to “stick to his principles,” eh? We can if you believe Mike Huckabee himself:
Danny Carroll earned great respect during 12 years in the General Assembly as a conservative leader who always held true and firm true to his principles yet worked so successfully with people from across the political spectrum to accomplish meaningful results in health care, tax policy, education and economic development. Iowa ’s social conservatives know that Danny Carroll has always been a clear, strong voice on the issues that matter most to them.
It sounds like, not only is Mike Huckabee talking out of the side of his mouth, but Crooked Danny Carroll might be positioning himself to run for something again. We will be watching him.
The Iowa State Senate has a bill before it to classify salvia divinorum, a drug that’s legal in most states and many European countries, as a Schedule I drug. It is a hallucinogen derivived from the sage plant that was traditionally used by Mazaztec shamans in the mountains of Mexico. While it is considered non-addictive and to have limited potential for abuse, it’s being banned partially because a 17 year old who used it later committed suicide.
While there are very justifiable reasons to prevent people from using any hallucinogenic drug, the bill before the State Senate would make salvia a Schedule I drug. This means that saliva has “a high potential for abuse and no medical purpose in treatment.” However, not only is salvia not addictive, but, more importantly, it also has a medical purpose. Early research into salvia is showing a lot of potential for medical use, it could even lead to drugs that would treat Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia. Not only that, much of this research is being done by a doctor at the University of Iowa.
There’s a lot of legitimate reasons to regulate salvia or even ban it from being used recreationally. But to classify it in the same catagory as heroin seems short-sighted. The state legislature should take steps to guarantee that medical research into the properties and potential of salvia can continue, regardless of whatever restrictions are placed on its recreational use.
David Yepsen’s column today makes the argument that Democrats in the state legislature should avoid changing anything to do with Iowa’s right to work law or risk losing control in 2008. He asserts that “Polls show overwhelming support for such worker freedom.”
A few weeks ago, I started getting strange calls on my Blackberry from a number I didn’t recognize. I didn’t answer the first few times the number popped up. Finally, after it was clear that this person wanted to talk to me and would not leave a message, I answered the next call I got, and it turned out to be someone in a call center in Missouri (I think it was Missouri) taking a poll. It was clear from the first question (something to do with protections for “the right to life,” without saying what the “right to life” was) that the poll of Iowa voters was being conducted by some conservative operation.
Question three, word for word, was “Do you support Iowa’s Right To Work Law?”
All of the survey questions were slanted to create a pattern of “Yes” answers (that is, when they wanted someone to say they did not support a particular law, they would ask “Do you disagree with X?” instead of “Do you agree with X?”), and the callers seemed to have been instructed to sound happier when someone answered “Yes” rather than “No.” In a survey like that, of course the vast majority of Iowa voters are going to say “Yes.”
But if you asked them, instead, “Do you think it is important that Iowa workers are able to engage in collective bargaining with their employers?” it seems plausible that an equal number would have said “Yes.” I’m not sure what polls Yepsen has seen on the issue, but I thought at least mentioning how slanted and disingenuous the survey I got was might help get us beyond the discussion of poll numbers.
In Des Moines yesterday, 100 students rallied in support of a keg registration law. The law would make it more difficult for people to buy kegs of beer. You have to reach a certain pinnacle of lameness to take part in a rally against people buying beer. It’s worth the obligatory mention that there are 18 year olds who are fighting murderous cults in Iraq, along with the usual mix of terrorists and militias, who cannot legally drink beer. It’s also worth pointing out that most people under 21 don’t have too much trouble getting alcohol and the result is binge drinking as the former President of Middlebury College pointed out several years ago. So those kids in Des Moines are rallying against drinking beer, they are also supporting bad public policy. They’re not just lame, they’re wrong too.
Although we will soon be deluged with articles analyzing Barack Obama’s candidacy in racial terms, it seems worth mentioning one article out of the cresting wave, Peter Beinart’s analysis of how Obama is perceived. Beinart posits that Obama, like Colin Powell, is perceived as a “good Black” by whites because he doesn’t follow the classic stereotype of an African American politician (unlike, Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton). However, Obama is able to continue to be perceived as authentic to fellow African-Americans because his “African American wife, his connection to the black church, and his work as a community organizer give him racial credibility.”
As unique as this article might sound, it’s been written before in the same publication. Two years ago, Noam Scheiber wrote a much better version of the same article in the same magazine. In it, he gives the same analysis of how Obama is perceived as being a “good black” and somehow different from typical African Americans. This accounted for much of his political success, in the article a consultant for one of Obama’s opponents in the primary “notes that the only time suburban and exurban white voters ever responded negatively to Obama was when he was associated with more conventional black politicians. ‘We [showed voters a sound] bite from Jesse Jackson Junior,’ says Dunn, referring to a video clip of the Chicago congressman praising Obama. ‘[blue collar] voters didn’t like that.’”
However, this analysis isn’t all that original either. It all stems from a New Yorker article written by Malcolm Gladwell over ten years ago about the differences in how African-Americans and West Indian immigrants to the U.S. are perceived. Gladwell states that minorities who are perceived as somehow foreign or different, like West Indians in Brooklyn, are not only able to avoid negative stereotypes but are associated with positive stereotypes It’s far to say that the concepts expressed in this article, written before Barack Obama was even a State Senator, will drive much of the debate over Obama’s racial identity over the next year or two. Gladwell’s article, amplified by the stories in the New Republic, will be read by the journalists covering the Presidential campaign. It already seems well on its way from meme to conventional wisdom. The ideas of Gladwell, knowingly or unknowingly, will most probably inform the language and vocabulary used by David Yepsen, the New York Times, other bloggers and just about everyone else writing about Barack Obama. Whether or not Gladwell’s concepts are actually applicable to Obama is irrelevent. What matters is that it is increasingly clear that they will provide much of the framework around which Obama will be perceived by the media.
When the Republicans had the majority in the state legislature, they passed laws like this that made voting more difficult by instituting restrictive ID laws for new voters. When they were trying to hold their majority in the state legislature, they did dirty tricks like this to suppress voting. But now that they’re in the minority, they’re not stopping their crusade to impede voting. In the State Senate, Assistant Minority Leader David Johnson has recently introduced a bill that would require voting places to close two hours earlier. If his bill becomes law, it would significantly impede the ability for working Iowans to make it to the polls. As we have commented before, there are already too many impediments to voting. In the 2006 election, voter turnout in Iowa was less than 40%. While most people would be concerned about the fact that voter turnout for such an important election was so low, by introducing this bill, David Johnson and the rest of the Republican leadership seem to be concerned that voter turnout was so high. Johnson and his Republican cronies should be ashamed of themselves for trying to put yet another stumbling block before Iowa voters.
While Hillary Clinton has been drawing a lot of positive press coverage from her speech in Des Moines today, Barack Obama’s early life has been receiving quite a bit of scrutiny from the foreign press. The London Evening Standard describes Obama’s father as a drunk and a bigot (and a bigamist to boot). However, the Sunday Times has uncovered something far more unsettling. Apparently, Barack Obama wasn’t always called Barack. He was once called Barry. It’s a good thing he went back to his given name. Barry Obama just doesn’t have the same ring to it. However, his reversion to his given name stands in firm contrast to another Presidential candidate with polygamist roots. The former Governor of Massachusetts learned long ago that just about any first name is an improvement over Willard Romney.
Hillary Clinton had a wonderful first day in Iowa today but is she ready for the next stage? Estimates of her crowd at East High School in Des Moines range from 1500 to nearly 3000. She got an introduction from Leonard Boswell and has had an interview with David Yepsen that’s as close to a puff piece as Yepsen writes. So what’s next for Hillary?
Although this is a good first step, she still faces major challenges in Iowa winning the support of many caucusgoers, such as Poweshiek County Democrats Co-Chair Don Smith. Smith gives voice to two of the major concerns about Hillary among caucusgoers. Those are the belief that she can’t win a general election and that she has been what Smith describes as “weak on the war issue” or too hawkish on Iraq. Although she addressed both of those issues today, it’s too soon to tell if she’s made any headway.
Finally, Hillary, along with the rest of the Democratic contenders, faces one more new challenge. Bill Richardson has a new anti-Iraq war, celebrity supporter. It’s not Bruce Springsteen, Ben Affleck, or Alec Baldwin, it’s Toby Keith. Keith is an interesting supporter for a Democratic candidate to have, although he’ll probably be viewed as a little weak on the war issue too.
In Iowa, presidential candidates are no doubt already scrambling for high-profile endorsements. Since Tom Harkin took the relatively safe route and endorsed the home team very early, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at our Democratic Congressmen in Iowa to see who they might pick.
Of course, the decision of whether to make an endorsement at all is relevant to the discussion. During the 2004 campaign, Leonard Boswell (IA-03) did not make any endorsement, instead remaining neutral and showing up at any major candidate’s campaign stops that he could get to for a bit of extra face time. This year, he might be planning to do the same. He already showed up at Hillary’s event in Des Moines:
Mrs. Clinton was introduced by Representative Leonard Boswell, who drew a huge ovation when he called her “a great first lady,” and then noted that the day had meaning for women in his family and, surely, many women in the audience.
I don’t blame Boswell for remaining neutral, because it may well be in his political interest. But with questions about whether he even plans to run for reelection, it remains to be seen whether he will pick a horse.
In 2004, Bruce Braley (IA-01) was an Edwards activist, as his biography on the DCCC’s site points out. Perhaps he will endorse the fellow trial lawyer again, but so far he seems not to have announced one way or the other. Getting elected to Congress can sometimes change your allegiances, after all.
Dave Loebsack (IA-02), somewhat predictably, was a Deaniac in 04. The bottom of his online CV at Cornell College notes that he was “one of the Linn County coordinators for Howard Dean for President,” and other sources tell us he was a precinct captain. (It’s also worth noting that Loebsack was a Bill Bradley activist in 2000, for whatever that’s worth.) Since Dean isn’t running again, of course, it isn’t clear how this will impact his decision this time around. Either way, if he endorses a candidate, it is likely that it will be someone on the left.
And while I could opine about how Steve King might endorse Tom Tancredo’s TEAM AMERICA, I’m certainly not an expert on such things, so I’ll leave it at the Democrats.
