What Boswell’s Win Means
June 12th, 2008 at 08:34am Geraldine
More than a week after the primary, it’s time to put Leonard Boswell’s victory over Ed Fallon into perspective. While the Fallon campaign is claiming “a partial victory,” the facts don’t bear out the silver lining that Fallon is trying to discern from his defeat. (Although after such a devastating loss, one certainly can understand while Fallon is looking for a silver lining). Fallon seems to think that his primarying Boswell was the reason Leonard Boswell’s voting record suddenly improved in 2007. However, Fallon didn’t have anything to do with it. Nancy Pelosi did. Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives meant that Republicans weren’t able to bring bills up that would place Democrats in swing districts like Boswell in tough positions. Once they weren’t and once Democrats had a governing majority in the House, Boswell was able to take better votes even though he still represents a district that George Bush won in 2004. Boswell supported a lot of progressive bills before Fallon declared his candidacy, during the campaign and will continue to do so now. Fallon’s claims otherwise are just attempts to justify his defeat and find a partial victory in a 22 point loss.
In terms of Iowa politics, it’s pretty clear Ed Fallon’s political career is over. Although Fallon had pockets of strength in North and West sides of Des Moines, Fallon still wasn’t able to win his former House District, HD 66 and was throughly trounced in the rural areas by margins not seen in a federal election in Iowa since Art Small was beat by Chuck Grassley. Despite Fallon’s much vaunted army of volunteers, his field efforts proved poor as turnout was low in his base precincts and he lost absentee ballots in Polk County by a nearly 3 to 1 margin (and by even more lopsided margins outside Polk County). In addition, Fallon is now bogged down by $35,000 in campaign debt, in addition to the $21,000 of debt still listed on his gubernatorial campaign account. If Fallon had won, or even lost narrowly, he might have had a strong claim to political credibility. Instead, he is firmly a niche candidate, one popular in Sherman Hill and among the Volvo drivers South of Grand but not anywhere else.
Boswell’s left flank is once again totally secure. Having easily fended off Fallon’s challenge, it seems clear he will be the Democratic nominee for Congress until he doesn’t want to be. However, Boswell, in the past few cycles, has proven to be much more vulnerable in off year elections than in Presidential years. While he should be able fend off Kim Schmett successfully, Boswell certainly be an NRCC target once again in 2010.
Polk County politics should also change too. The failure of the Fallon’s base to turn out shows the continued impotences of his limousine liberal base in local Democratic politics. The power in the Polk County Democratic Party will continue to reside on the southern banks of the Des Moines River for the near future.
In short, almost nothing has changed as a result of Fallon’s congressional run. Leonard Boswell is just as liberal as he was before and just as secure as the Democratic nominee as he was before. The balance of power has not changed in Polk County politics or on Capitol Hill. The only difference is that Ed Fallon has thrown his political career away in a quixotic challenge against a relatively progressive Democrat in a swing district and only has a debt of $35,000 to show for it.
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Entry Filed under: State Politics, US House, Leonard Boswell
Related Searches: ed fallon, nancy pelosi, chuck grassley, partial victory, swing districts
2 Comments Add your own
1. desmoinesdem | June 12th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
You are wrong about the gubernatorial campaign. The $21,000 of “debt” was for the FEC report Fallon’s gubernatoiral campaign filed at the end of 2005. He finished the 2006 campaign in the black.
Are you telling us that it’s a great achievement for Boswell to have beaten Fallon 61-39 after going hard negative against him for months?
Most incumbents never even face a primary challenge. Do you think a challenger to a good Democrat like Tom Harkin would even get 2 percent of the vote?
Representative Jane Harman of California ignored her primary challenger in 2006 and was able to win her primary by a larger margin than Boswell.
Boswell’s overall voting record improved because Democrats took control of the chamber, but on several specific issues, his stance only changed because of the primary challenge. The key examples are the Safe Climate Act, which Boswell declined to co-sponsor in the summer of 2007 but signed onto in December, and the FISA bill, on which Boswell changed his position 180 degrees between February and March of this year.
2. noneed4thneed | June 12th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
So the Republican controlled Congress didn’t have any votes on the Iraq War from say 2002 to 2006? It is really too bad that Boswell didn’t have a chance to support the vast majority of his party and his constituients when it came to the Iraq War during those year and he had to wait until he got a primary challenge to do so.
The point of the Fallon campaign to get a Representitive that voted like a Democrat. Even though Fallon lost, he accomplished this goal.
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