Some of the posts on this blog got to be a bit overly negative towards Ed Fallon during the primary. In particular, a post that compared Fallon to Benedict Arnold for his endorsement of Ralph Nader in 2000. In retrospect, Fallon clearly learned his lesson from his endorsement of Ralph Nader in 2000 and accepted his defeat in last week’s primary.
The same however cannot be said of William Meyers. William Meyers is an ex-Marine who has been using his government disability pay to allow himself to be a full time candidate for Congress over the past year. Meyers, as an outsider who didn’t raise any money, finished third in a four-way primary to be the Democratic nominee in the 4th District against Tom Latham. Meyers, like most candidates who receive 11% of the vote, came to the obvious conclusion about why 89% of voters rejected him. He was robbed.
Meyers claims that he was shut out of certain central committees by biased county chairs and this inability to meet central committee members in a handful of counties robbed him of the 7,986 votes that he needed to defeat the winner, Becky Greenwald. Meyers has never stated how he was “denied access.” The county central committee membership is public information and as far as Iowa Progress knows, no County Central Committee employs bouncers to keep out unwanted guests from meetings.
It seems Meyers is just a sore loser looking for someone to blame for his own failings. However, we’re still reserving final judgment. After all, it’s entirely possible that large, muscular men kept Meyers from attending the Kossuth County Central Committee. But we don’t think its likely
June 10th, 2008
Despite being a city slicker from Sherman Hill, Ed Fallon displayed his agricultural expertise last week when he reaped what he sowed with Al Gore’s endorsement of Leonard Boswell. To paraphrase what Fallon said about the former Vice President, Gore can’t support Fallon, won’t support Fallon and thinks Democratic primary voters in the 3rd District shouldn’t support Fallon either. Fallon notoriously betrayed the Democratic Party and stabbed Gore in the back and is now facing the consequences of his actions. This endorsement came the same day as a KCCI poll came out that showed Boswell thumping Fallon by nearly 25 points. Even if every undecided voter broke for Fallon, Boswell would still win 52-48. In addition, national publications such as the Hotline and Real Clear Politics are counting Fallon out.
Iowa named a county after Nathaniel Greene, a Revolutionary War General who presided over the trial and execution of John Andre, Benedict Arnold’s accomplice. It’s doubtful though whether the state will grant any such honor to Leonard Boswell when he presides over the death knell of a modern day Benedict Arnold’s political career on June 3rd but Boswell will be deserving of it.
April 28th, 2008
Now that we’ve done overviews of the most vulnerable Democratic seats in the State Senate and our best pickup opportunities in 2008, it’s time to move on to the State House. Democrats picked up five seats in the Iowa House in 2007 to gain a 54-46 majority. The Republicans will be gearing up for 2008 determined to take back the majority under their leader, Chris Rants. But the Democrats have quite a few opportunities to pick up seats too. Here are our five best chances to gain seats:
1. Tami Wiencek (Waterloo) This is the only seat the Republicans picked up in 2006 and one they never should have picked up in the first place. 2006 was a Democratic year and Black Hawk County was no exception: Chet Culver won there with 58% of the vote, which was 3 points better than John Kerry in 2004 and 4 points better than Tom Vilsack in 2002. However, the Republicans managed to pick up a Democratic seat in Waterloo that a Democratic incumbent had won comfortably with over 60% of the vote in 2002 and 2004. What happened? The Democratic incumbent, Don Shoultz, got complacent and Wiencek ran a strong campaign and beat him by 300 votes. Wiencek benefited from being a well-liked local television anchor whereas Shoultz, a 24-year incumbent, was not exactly Waterloo’s most beloved citizen. This is a seat in a strongly Democratic area with a big Democratic registration advantage. It should be a Democratic seat. As a result, Wiencek is very vulnerable in 2008 and will have a tough time holding on to all the crossover voters who elected her in in 2006 with Shoultz off the ballot and with the Presidency up for grabs. Although she’s presenting herself as a moderate, it’s tough to imagine Bill Dotzler being represented by a Republican State Representative at all, let alone for more than one term.
2. Chuck Gipp (Allamakee and part of Winneshiek County) Over half the registered voters in Oklahoma are Democrats, however the state hasn’t voted for a Democratic candidate for President since 1964. Gipp’s district in the northeast corner of the state is Iowa’s version of Oklahoma. Although its voters may disproprtionately registered Republicans, many of them have been reliably voting Democrat for years. The district is heavily Republican in party registration (3,000 more Republicans than Democrats) and Gipp won with 59% of the vote in 2006. However, those party registration numbers hide that his district is actually much more Democratic than it looks. John Kerry actually won the district by a handful of votes in 2004. Winneshiek County was one of three counties in the state (along with Jasper and Poweshiek) that Gore lost and Kerry won, and Kerry improved on Al Gore’s performance in Allamakee County by nearly 5 percentage points. Gipp is retiring at the end of this term. Although he was able to maintain a strong hold on the seat as a popular incumbent, any Republican candidate in 2008 will have a much more difficult time. Allamakee County, which makes up half the district, was once reliably Republican. Bill Clinton barely won it in 1996, Chet Culver won it by 10 points in 2006. This changing political trends will make it a tough seat for the Republicans to hold on to without an incumbent running.
3. Dan Rasmussen (Buchanan and parts of Black Hawk and Fayette) Rasmussen is a three term incumbent from a strongly Democratic district. Despite receiving only 30% of the vote when he first ran for the State House as a sacrificial lamb, Rasmussen has quickly entrenched himself as a popular incumbent in Buchanan County. While Chet Culver romped home in the district, winning Buchanan County with 58% of the vote, Rasmussen managed to pull out a lead of 800 votes in the county over his Democratic opponent, Pete McRoberts. The district has a strong Democratic registration advantage and is the most Democratic state house district in the state with a Republican incumbent. John Kerry won the district with 54% of the vote in 2004. Rasmussen’s popularity spooked the Iowa Democratic Party in 2006 and support was pulled away from Pete McRoberts to other candidates who they saw as more promising. However, despite that, McRoberts still received 48% of the vote. Despite Rasmussen having the advantage of incumbency, this is a seat where the demographics just aren’t in his favor. If a Democratic candidate receives the necessary support in even a neutral year, this seat should be a Democratic pickup.
4. David Deyoe (Story County outside of Ames and part of Hamilton County) Deyoe’s district experienced two of the most competitive state legislative races in the state in 2006, both Deyoe’s 800 vote victory over Susan Radke and the hardfought slugfest between Democrat Rich Olive and Republican Jim Kurtenbach for State Senate that Olive won by 62 votes. However, while Radke lost, Chet Culver pulled out a narrow victory in the district. The big difference between Radke and Culver was their relative performance in the Democratic town of Nevada. Although both Deyoe and Radke were from Nevada, Deyoe was much more well liked. As a result, Deyoe received 55% in Nevada, almost the same percentage that Culver received. The district does have a strong Republican edge in voter registration but that’s connected with the traditional Republicanism of Story County. The district is definitely a swing district. If the Democrats field a strong candidate who could run with the rest of the ticket in Nevada, this is definitely a winnable district in 2008.
5. Doug Struyk (Council Bluffs) Struyk’s seat was won by a Democrat in 2002. Unfortunately, that Democrat was named Doug Struyk. Struyk defected in 2004 right at the filing deadline. The seat has always been relatively close and in 2006, Struyk won with only 53% against a nontargeted candidate who raised a mere $1400 in a nearly four month period leading up to the election. It’s a district that will be getting a lot more attention in 2008 as its State Senator is Mike Gronstal, who is arguably the most powerful man in the state right now. Gronstal will devote as many resources as possible to turning out a lot of Democratic voters in his district and that will help any candidate running against Struyk. Struyk himself is evidence that the district can elect Democrats and when someone endorsed John Kerry in 2004 and Mitt Romney in 2008, it’s fair to say that Struyk, like the candidates he supports, can be attacked as a flip flopper too. This will be an uphill race, but if enough resources are devoted to the seat, Struyk can and should be beat. The Democratic Party should have a zero tolerance policy for Benedict Arnolds and there’s no better place in Iowa to implement this policy than by beating Doug Struyk.
Other vulnerable seats held by Iowa House Republicans include (in alphabetical order): Betty DeBoef (Keokuk County, most of Iowa County and parts of Poweshiek and Tama), Polly Granzow (Hardin County and part of Marshall) Sandy Greiner (Washington County and parts of Jefferson and Johnson), Kraig Paulsen (Cedar Rapids), Thomas Sands (Louisa County and parts of Des Moines and Muscatine) and Bill Schickel (Mason City).
February 26th, 2007
