You’ve all seen the movie, but now Forbes Magazine is here to tell us what Kevin Costner knew way back in 1989: It’s Iowa. Well actually, according to Forbes’s new list, The Best States for Business, Iowa is a pretty great place to live, but maybe not so heavenly for businesses.
By the numbers Iowa was ranked the 1st in quality of life (looking at “index of schools, health, crime, cost of living and poverty rates”), but 25th overall. This is probably due to its low, low ranking of 47th in labor (”educational attainment, net migration and projected population growth”), beating out only West Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Iowa also fell below the half-way mark in economic climate and growth prospects, scoring 31 and 41, respectively.
This brings up some issues looming large in the gubernatorial campaign such as how to get people to come to Iowa and stay in Iowa once they’ve received their diplomas. This is apparent in all of the major campaign topics–education, health care, and the economy. Forbes may think that Iowa is a great place to live, but not a lot of young people stay here after graduation. Back in April I remember Andy McGuire asking me and a few other Grinnell College Democrats what it would take for us to stay here after graduation–something none of us were planning on doing. We liked the sound of bridge health insurance and, you know, good jobs. Although I think a friend of mine wanted a major league sports team as well.
The Blouin-McGuire ticket was not the only one that realized this problem, of course. Culver’s website provides this tidbit:
We can do even better by building on, rather than disinvesting in, our higher ed institutions, so that more students stay in Iowa after graduation and, along with their faculties, help to build the research and manufacturing spin-offs that higher ed has generated for economies elsewhere. My plan will expand investments in colleges across Iowa, including creating Centers of Excellence at each of our public colleges and universities so that each can become a generator of world-class new businesses and economic activity, and better integrate all facets of higher ed with business.
Nussle, on the other hand, says he wants to “empower parents to be more involved in their children’s education,” which sounds like a euphamism for school voucher, something he has consistently supported in the past for private and parochial schools. I guess Nussle isn’t too excited about public schools, or the constitution for that matter, considering he has also voted to allow prayer in schools and also voted in 1994 to only give federal aid to schools that allowed voluntary prayer. I guess that is why the NEA rated him 17% on public education.
August 30th, 2006
The Des Moines Register released a poll today that was conducted May 29-June 1, so I imagine this will be the last numbers we get before Tuesday. Here’s how it breaks down:
Culver 36% - Blouin 28% - Fallon 21% - Mohammed 1% - 14% undecided
It doesn’t look like the survey questions created the alleged “Fallon supporters don’t fit the likely voters criteria” effect, but with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 points and a huge chunk of undecideds, a convention decision is becoming more and more likely. I wish Drew’s blog was still around so we could review what the delegate break down would be.
The article accompanying the poll does a surprisingly good job of highlighting and analyzing the things each candidate has going for him: Blouin is counting on union organizers for his GOTV, but according to the poll Culver has more support amongst union families. Fallon claims independents and Republicans will jump ship and vote in the Democratic primary, but the poll also says Blouin and Culver have picked up more outside the party support. Culver has garnered the most youth support, but people over 64 are much more likely to turn out. The article also does a nice job of interviewing supporters who sum up the main issues of the campaign, but you can read that for yourself.
Finally, the poll also asked if people wanted to continue with the direction and priorities for the state set by Governor Vilsack. A whopping 50% said no! I definitely wouldn’t want to commence my bid for the presidency with that kind of sentiment a brewin’, but that’s just me.
All in all, I think this quote from a Fallon press release sums it up best: “‘We’ll find out on election day,’ he said while eating a sandwich.”
p.s. The coverage of Mike Blouin’s bus tour on his website actually resembles a blog! After months and months of campaigning and claiming to be tech savvy and “hip”, someone has finally grasped that “blog” is more than a buzz word! I bet Andy McGuire had something to do with this. (She told us she’s addicted to blogs.)
June 4th, 2006
This week has been busy for many members of Campus Democrats. Fallon and Blouin visited last week, we produced a podcast, we conducted interviews with campaign staffers, we set up a pretty ambitious GOTV/voter reg. strategy for tomorrow, and we tried to coordinate visits from all three campaigns. All of our events are open to the public, so please feel free to show up; and, if you’re a Poweshiek County resident, register and vote! (All county residents who are U.S. citizens are allowed to register and to vote at our Satellite Voting station.) The polls are open from 9 to 4.
Here’s the schedule of candidate visits:
The candidates are coming rain or shine, so if weather gets bad we’ll have new locations for the outdoor events nearby. And if you’d like to volunteer to help coordinate things, meet the Campus Dems representatives outside ARH; someone will be there for most of the day.
Campaign interviews with representatives of the Fallon and Culver campaigns will be up over the next 24 hours.
April 27th, 2006
Tonight at 7, Mike Blouin sat down to chat with Grinnell students for about an hour in the Loose dorm lounge. It had a smaller attendance than yesterday’s Fallon event, but that made for a more personal atmosphere. We formed a circle in Loose lounge’s mismatched, anachronistic armchairs and spoke pretty candidly about politics and college antics. (Thankfully, Hannah and I got to Loose early enough to tuck away the empty 30 racks of Natty Light before Mike arrived…) Read more after the jump.
Blouin was the candidate you’d least suspect would command the interest of an audience of college kids. Of the three candidates, he’s the oldest, and he has been cast — perhaps undeservedly — as an “establishment candidate”; so that’s not quite Grinnell material.
But Blouin engaged us. His demeanor was something between professorial and “quirky uncle,” and it worked. I know my opinion of him changed because of the event. Here are some interesting morsels:
Blouin began his speech with a very strong position in favor of a clean elections law. His language was surprisingly firm and insistent. Money, he said, was his biggest complaint about what has changed in Iowa since he got involved in politics.
He also gave us a brief biography. He went to Loras (at age 16), decided to settle in Iowa, got married, became a teacher (as did his wife), got elected to the legislature and was fired for it, had a child with his wife who had been fired for getting pregnant, had to live on a legislator’s salary alone, and worked his way up to being in charge of economic growth (and job creation) in Iowa. He resigned from his job working for Vilsack to run for governor, and he did it early so that there wouldn’t be any question of his objectivity.
Blouin also talked about his plan for government-sponsored health insurance. No one asked him to clarify, but it sounded a lot like Kerry’s plan (something short of “universal,” but still “universally accessible”). Andy McGuire has been the point-person on this, and she has served both with doctors (as a medical expert and researcher) and insurance companies, so she really knows the health insurance system, etc.
The second half is critical of Nussle:
He criticizes Nussle’s oversight of our deficit, but he drives it home by relating it to government services (education and health care).
Q&A:
On giving companies tax breaks to draw them to Iowa:
“I’d be a hypocrite if I said we should never do it. In the ideal, I wouldn’t do it ever. In the ideal world, you wouldn’t have to. In the ideal world, states wouldn’t be giving away their tax breaks in competition with each other… The trouble is we live in a very real world… And until the courts — I say the courts because Congress will never do this — find a way to stop it, we’ve gotta compete…we’ll lose the opportunity to keep our young people.”
He then talks about how our education is great, but people come here for education and then leave, and that’s something he wants to discourage.
He then talks about how the jobs he brought to Iowa had a lot of benefits. The tax breaks he gave businesses came with a lot of requirements, including pay that was above average per capita income in the state, guarantees that they’d stay, etc. In the cases when we didn’t keep businesses here, it was because other states (e.g., South Carolina) gave away unreasonably huge rewards to companies. So Blouin is in favor of tax breaks with guarantees like that.
Eric asked about Iowa’s food deficit (we import 85% of our food):
Blouin deconstructs the statistic and said that it involved seasons, etc. He also said that promoting organic farming (which is mostly for human consumption) will improve that situation.
On my question about abortion:
He states his position (here on his web site) pretty persuasively. I usually get annoyed by the “I’m pro-life personally but not politically” politicians but Blouin wasn’t annoying. He gives concrete examples of the (strategically) liberal programs he’d support to reduce abortions while still honoring his promise to maintain the right to choose. And, finally, he deflects potential criticism for his 1970s votes for a ban on abortion by explaining, “Now it’s taken me years to get to [this] point, but I’m comfortable.”
So then I asked if he’d support laws like the requirements that abortion clinics provide information to pregnant women about the pain their fetus will feel or about adoption services, and he said, unequivocally, that he will not sign any bill that would affect abortion on either side of the issue. He claims, to explain why his pro-life position is actually more effective than Nussle’s, “Republicans want an issue. I want a solution.”
On Alec’s question about the “WalMart laws”:
He likes them, but he needs a democratic legislature.
“I think there’s something seriously wrong with a corporate mindset that hires people at low wages, condemns government giveaways, and calls their employees together to explain how they, as employees of WalMart, can go get Medicaid services. Yeah, it oughta be illegal.”
And he says Eric Palmer is a great candidate who could help change the balance in the legislature.
On Alec’s question about requiring health insurance by law (like Massachusetts):
“To mandate people to buy something they can’t afford to pay for, in itself doesn’t work. You’ve gotta make sure that you’ve got a product — a basic product — that’s affordable for everyone. I want to see how it works in Massachusetts, and I think we can get a pretty good read in a couple of years.”
He goes on to talk about Andy McGuire’s medical qualifications. And then he gives a pretty detailed account of what improvements he wants to make. And he proposes “bridge health insurance” for recent college graduates if they are looking for jobs in Iowa.
He also talks about how he wants to bring down pharmaceutical costs. He wants transparency in drug pricing, but it’ll take creativity to make it constitutional. He thinks he has a solution (by asking for transparency only for drugs that the state buys directly).
On Hannah’s question on McGuire’s donations to Republicans:
Greg Ganske, who unseated Neal Smith, was also McGuire’s neighbor, which explains her donation.
Jim Nussle was her brother’s neighbor, so she donated to one of his early congressional campaigns. But,
“When he abandoned the value system he said he had, she and [her husband] dropped him. 35% of Iowans are Democrats. You’ve got to get to 51%. You’ve gotta reach out to Independents and progressive Republicans who are scared to death of the Nussle/Vanderplaats ticket, and Andy can do it.”
Then a jab at Ed Fallon (although not mentioned by name):
“You know we’ve got another candidate in this race who publicly endorsed Ralph Nader in the 2000 general election against Al Gore. Helped bring us George Bush. And who, through his organization, endorsed a couple of incumbent Republicans in the legislature. That’s what he did. That was then. This is today. And he’s a very competent guy, and he’s got a right to run. I don’t think you can bash him for it… He probably wished he hadn’t done it back then…”
On Eric’s question on whether Blouin would raise taxes to increase teacher pay:
“I don’t think we have to raise taxes to do it.”
He talks about the need to improve pay for teachers, nurses, and day care providers.
All in all, it was an interesting event. I wish more students had made it out.
Oh! And, on his way out, he made a joke about how blogs can be scary. Boo!
April 23rd, 2006
One week from today, Grinnell will host a satellite voting station for the primaries. Any Poweshiek county resident may come to the Forum South Lounge (between 9AM and 4PM) to vote, register, and change party affiliation, all in one place.
Here’s what’s going on between now and then:
- Ed Fallon will be on campus on Saturday for lunch (and, presumably, some talking) with students. The event will have free food from the Back Alley Deli. The Students for Fallon group has done a good job publicizing it, so I expect it’ll be well attended.
- Mike Blouin will be on campus Sunday evening at 7PM in Loose Lounge. We think Andy McGuire will also be there. He’ll be tailoring his speech to Grinnell students, so it should be more worthwhile than the average Iowa stump speech. He and Dr. McGuire will also take some questions.
- IowaProgress will feature interviews with staffers from the Fallon and Blouin campaigns about Iowa politics, the role of students and of the internet, and other subjects this week. Culver’s campaign never responded to our emails about the interview (or about anything at all, actually).
- Campus Democrats will meet at 7:30PM on Tuesday to discuss our “big push” for voters on Friday. We’ll be organizing publicity stuff and also poll-watching.
- Our new Podcast will debut with coverage of the events on campus this weekend and of other interesting political news. It’ll be the first progressive political podcast in the state’s history (as far as we know), so it should be exciting. We’re still lining up stories and guests for this week (and for future weeks), so if you have any ideas or if you think we should interview you or someone you work for, comment on this post or email us.
Man, Iowa politics are so hot right now.
And, if you’re wondering how we organized the satellite voting station (more than one person has emailed us to ask), it’s simple: contact your county auditor and ask them what to do. They may tell you that you need to get some signatures on a petition, or they may just tell you to find a location and they’ll be there.
Also, a guy on NPR just called corn “the plant that ate America.”
April 21st, 2006
Bacon posted about this yesterday. Former Register columnist Chuck Offenburger, a pro-life-but-kinda-liberal Republican, criticized Blouin for wavering on abortion during his primary campaign. Apparently, Blouin’s ambiguously pro-life position seemed to have been a big reason why Offenburger came out publicly in support of Blouin’s candidacy, and now he’s unhappy.
This raises a question about Blouin’s ability to get elected governor, doesn’t it? I think conventional wisdom might say that a pro-life democratic gubernatorial candidate would have a good shot at beating Nussle in November, but it looks like Blouin’s “wishy-washiness” might just be hurting him on both sides.
And this quote from Offenburger is probably something the Blouin campaign wouldn’t like circulating, but it’s food for thought:
I find myself wondering whether we’re getting the real Blouin position on abortion in this primary campaign. I mean, the guy has a 25-year record of being anti-abortion, and he is an ordained deacon in the Catholic Church. And yet he is “clumsily” handling this issue that is core to so many Catholics?
And I’m curious about his running mate McGuire’s pro-choice credentials. I do not know her, but all I read makes her seem a good, involved citizen. She’s also the mother of seven children, six of whom are in Catholic schools. She’s been a leading fundraiser for Saint Augustin School and Dowling Catholic High School in the Des Moines area. And she was elected president last year of the National Alumni Board of Creighton University, a Catholic university in Omaha. She may well think pro-choice, she certainly talks pro-choice, but it would appear she lives pro-life.
I don’t know what grounds, exactly, Offenburger has to question McGuire’s honesty on the issue besides the fact that she has a big family and kids in Catholic school, but it is interesting that Offenburger feels inclined to question it.
On a sidenote, though, Mike Blouin and Andy McGuire are going to be in Grinnell this Sunday, first stopping in town before coming to Loose Lounge at 7PM to answer students’ questions.
April 19th, 2006
According to President Bush in a speech in Des Moines, Iowa in 2003:
It makes no sense for people in the congressional disctrict ….[to] replace somebody on the Appropriations Committee with somebody who’s not. The Appropriations Committee is one of the most important committees there is in the United States Congress.
Apparently Andy McGuire, Democrat turned Republican, turned Democratic, turned Republican, turned Democrat, turned Republican…. turned Democratic Lt. Governor candidate…. didn’t feel that way when she donated money to Greg Ganske in 1994 to help him defeat 36 year incumbent democrat and very senior member said committee, Neal Smith.
$750! Wow!
That is real money in 1994, not the chump change IDP Humphrey Club membership it is now.
I guess Des Moines didn’t need the help since the Iowa Values Fund was on the way.
A monorail would have been cool though. Who knows? Maybe ethanol would be on a better track than it is now. The state universities would have sure as hell been a lot better off.
President Clinton sums it up best in 1994 campaigning for Smith:
Neal Smith led the fight in the Congress to approve the promotion of ethanol. (Applause.) The vote was close. In the United States Senate, it came down to a tie vote; and Al Gore broke the tie in favor of ethanol. (Applause.) We did it to make ourselves more independent of foreign oil. We did it to promote the cleanness of our environment. We did it to create new jobs for farm families. But if it had not been for Neal Smith — I want you to think about this Tuesday — if it had not been for Neal Smith, we would not have been able to do it. And he ought to be sent back to Congress to keep fighting for you.
March 25th, 2006
