Jim Gibbons Pinned As A Carpetbagger
If you go on to Jim Gibbons’s Facebook page, you find the seemingly banal information that Jim Gibbons’s hometown is Des Moines. The only problem with it is that it isn’t true. Jim Gibbons was born and raised in Ames, not Des Moines. After ending his career as a coach at Iowa State, Gibbons moved to Perry, where he lived until last month.
Both Perry and Ames are in the 4th Congressional District and it is difficult to live in either of those places if one wants to establish residency to run for Congress in Iowa’s Third District. It seems clear that despite his Facebook claim that Des Moines is his “hometown,” Gibbons has just moved to Polk County in the past few weeks to run against Leonard Boswell. He is a carpetbagger.
There’s nothing wrong with being a carpetbagger though. No one could argue that someone from Boone County would be unable to understand the problems facing Polk County or Jasper County but it does show there’s some catching up to do and there’s the potential that you are unfamiliar with key local issues. The classic example of this was the Conservative candidate in the NY-23 Special Election recently, Doug Hoffman. Hoffman came from outside the district, didn’t know anything about the district and lost as a result. However, New York has counterexamples. Hillary Clinton was clearly a “carpetbagger” but did her best to understand the issues of New York, particularly upstate New York, and her residency wasn’t an issue.
Trying to paper over this by claiming Des Moines to be your hometown just amplifies the problem. You can’t hide where you’ve lived all your life. Gibbons should just be open about the fact that he’s a carpetbagger and try to get on with his campaign. Otherwise, he’ll just end up looking like a hypocrite. Politicians can claim war leads to peace or that cutting taxes leads to more money for the government and people will accept it. But it’s a bit much to expect voters to swallow that Ames is actually in Polk County.
6 comments December 7th, 2009
