Search Results for ‘candidate events’
Although we have addressed our regret about the focus on Ed Fallon’s failings as a candidate and human being that Iowa Progress has been taking (including the post above and below), it is worth doing so again. It was never the intent for this to happen but unfortunately, events have overtaken that intent. Several months ago, the conventional narrative about this election was Democratic activists choosing between pragmatism in the form of Leonard Boswell, a six term moderate incumbent who has consistently won in a marginal Congressional district, and Ed Fallon, a progressive activist with whom many activists were more ideologically in tune but who many worried was too far to the left for the district. This narrative has not held. While Boswell has run an unspectacular, mistake-free, “Rose Garden,” campaign, Fallon has seemingly made every mistake possible save being caught in bed with the proverbial “dead girl or live boy.”
What candidates do effects what is written about them. Leonard Boswell’s campaign has, quite intentionally, done little of note. That leaves little new to write about him. As Iowa’s only Democratic Congressman for 10 years, plenty has already been written about him and getting into the debate about whether Boswell is a “Bush Dog,” or “Blue Dog” or any other kind of canine is quite tiresome and repetitive. At this point, most readers of Iowa Progress and most voters know who Leonard Boswell is for better or worse. Had major ethical issues been raised about Boswell, they would have been covered. Had questions about Boswell’s loyalty to the Democratic Party, they would have been covered. Had Leonard Boswell’s campaign showed major signs of mismanagement, they would have been covered. But all three problems have arisen with Ed Fallon.
The conflict between Fallon’s professed position on campaign finance reform and the actions of his campaign, including I’m For Iowa can only be described for chutzpah. Fallon further dug himself a deeper hole by not just defending himself for paying himself out of campaign funds via the so-called “Fallon Loophole” but attacking attempts to close it as somehow being corrupt as well. His nondisclosure of his I’M for Iowa’s funds is quite unsettling and raises broad questions about what the purpose of the organization is. The refusal to disclose the information created the appearance of guilt, even if none existed, and created an ongoing story that appears to have severely hurt Fallon’s fundraising. The Fallon campaign has also resurrected broader questions about Fallon’s loyalty to the Democratic Party because of his campaign manager’s claim that he was considering a third party run for Governor in 2006. These questions were initially raised because Fallon endorsed Ralph Nader in 2000.
Ed Fallon began the race as a severely flawed candidate and his behavior since announcing his candidacy has done little to inspire any additional confidence in his fitness to serve in the United States Congress. If another Democrat had been running with the same policy positions of Ed Fallon without the personal baggage, Iowa Progress’s coverage would unquestionably have been entirely different. If someone like Frank Cownie or Kevin McCarthy was running against Leonard Boswell (though it’s impossible to imagine a situation where either would challenge Boswell in a primary), we would ended up taking a tone and stance far removed than what we done in the past few months. (Presuming, of course, neither of them would make the host of miscues that Fallon has made.)
While Iowa Progress’s coverage of the 3rd District has been entirely factual and every statement made has been true, it is still clear that some posts have become increasingly snarky and vitriolic. This is highly regrettable. We wish that these posts had been written in a more civilized tone but, we also wish that Ed Fallon had not engaged in the behavior that prompted these posts to be written in the first place.
May 28th, 2008
Bill Richardson started his campaign as a moderate Democrat who was running based on a rather impressive resume as Governor, Cabinet Member, Diplomat and Congressman. He talked about his experience balancing budgets and opposing gun control. However, Richardson’s campaign has recently changed its tack dramatically. While Richardson still emphasizes his background as a pro-gun moderate in rural areas, he’s now become the peacenik candidate in the rest of Iowa.
Richardson has come out as the only major Presidential candidate to support withdrawing all American troops from Iraq in six months and filmed an ad with bloggers endorsing his policy. He has phased out wearing an American flag lapel pin in favor of the Sensible Priorities pin.
The most extreme sign of Richardson’s tack to the left was his recent hiring of Dave Rogers as his political director. Rogers worked on Dennis Kucinich’s Presidential campaign and was reported by reliable sources to be staffing Kucinich at events as recently as this spring. Rogers has also worked for Western Iowa’s answer to Dennis Kucinich, Joyce Schulte, as well as for the Sensible Priorities campaign.
In contrast, the political directors for 1st tier Presidential campaigns are longtime Iowa political operatives (Chris Hayler for Clinton, Emily Parcell for Obama) or national operatives (Tim Maloney for Edwards). However, they focus on getting the support of legislators, major activists and organized labor. It seems that Rogers will be focusing on the anti-war left (as it is doubtful that someone who operated a salon and day spa is the right person to reach out to the UAW).
Rogers’ hiring further reinforces that Bill Richardson is making a very determined effort to reach out not just anti-war Democrats but, specifically, to the core of peace activists who supported Kucinich in 2004. Although peaceniks are a relatively small bloc, they are very likely caucusgoers. If Richardson is still around 10% then, peace activists could play a decisive role in propping Richardson in up in many precincts and making him viable.
But this is a dangerous balancing game for a candidate who started running as a moderate. Richardson has already lost one key supporter due to his swing to the left and Hotline, among others, finds his policy shift not plausible. Richardson is playing a very delicate balancing game trying to woo both the most conservative caucusgoers and the most liberal over the next ten weeks. If it works, Richardson might become a first tier candidate. But if it doesn’t, Richardson will not only lose but could so in a way that undermines his credibility as a politician in the future.
October 16th, 2007
I know, I live in Iowa, so a defense of the caucuses that comes from me is just going to seem like I’m greedy. I should say that before I moved to Iowa for college four years ago, I shared the opinion that the importance of the caucuses is unjustifiable, and that a national primary would be more democratic. Then I experienced the caucuses (in 2004), and I changed my mind.
Over on MyDD, desmoinesdem published the second part of her diary series, “How the Iowa caucuses work.” She echoes concerns that we brought up here about inequalities in the caucus system based on delegate assignment, demonstrating that it takes more caucus-goers to elect a delegate in precincts with higher concentrations of activist Democrats who have free evenings than in precincts with lower concentrations of said activists. (E.g., it took about 70 caucus-goers to elect one delegate in the Poweshiek County, where I caucused in 2004, while in less-Democratic and less-populous Fremont County, it only took 22 caucus-goers to elect one delegate.)
The conclusion of all of this? The caucus system (according to our own Geraldine) “favors the old over the young, the rural over the urban, Western Iowa over Eastern Iowa.”
Why is this wrong? Well, while the caucus system seems to create inequalities on the surface, it can compensate for deeper inequalities. Many have complained, here and elsewhere, that the Iowa Caucuses are unfair to families with young children, workers who have evening shifts, handicapped persons, and, generally, people with busy schedules, because it requires them to take several hours out of a weekday night to argue with their neighbors about politics. Not everyone can do that, and it’s understandable.
That is why precincts are assigned delegates before caucus night: if a disproportionate number of Democrats in X precinct have to work the night shift or have young children (or even if there’s a blizzard), the system currently in place ensures that their precinct will still be important. And precincts are the smallest geographic unit our election officials recognize for general elections, so it is assumed that others in your precinct likely represent similar interests to yours. Think of it as a much more geographically specific version of the electoral college. (Maybe you have your problems with that system, too, but at least this caucus math has a constitutional precedent.)
Aside from that, though, here’s a question nobody has asked: what is the harm in giving Iowa’s downtrodden rural hamlets and agricultural areas a little attention from the rest of the country every four years? It isn’t like John Edwards is going to spend the last week before the caucuses camped out in Keokuk and Grundy Counties just because each caucus-goer is worth more there. At the end of the day, Keokuk and Grundy still represent a tiny fraction of the total delegates needed to win, and putting on events and doing GOTV work is easier and far more efficient in urban areas like Des Moines and Cedar Rapids.
While disparities in caucus-goer to delegate ratios from county to county may seem a little alarming, the truth is that urban areas are still immensely important, and that a candidate can win the caucuses without putting practically any resources into the less populous half of Iowa’s 99 counties. A campaign will hire more than 10 full-time field organizers for Polk County before they will hire a single full-time organizer for Grundy County. And most importantly, I don’t know a single Iowa Democrat who will argue that Polk County (Des Moines area) Democrats don’t have enough influence on state politics, the state party, or the caucuses.
I hope this will be the start of a series of posts written here as a defense of the Iowa Caucuses. Toward that end, I’m looking for more arguments to respond to. So, dear readers, please participate: What arguments against the Iowa Caucuses do you find most compelling?
March 6th, 2007
In his column in today’s Register, David Yepsen sees Tom Vilsack’s departure as a bad sign for the caucuses. Now the first primary is not Iowa but the invisible primary of fundraising. Now a candidate needs to raise a lot of money to compete and if they can’t, they will be forced to drop out. Yepsen sees a scenario where “by Labor Day, there may be only three or four viable candidates in each party.” This is all baseless fearmongering.
First, there’s a long precedent of candidates dropping out early because they can’t raise money. If David Yepsen wants some examples, from 2000 alone, I’m sure that Lamar Alexander and Elizabeth Dole could have told Yepsen that, if not a couple of others. But Vilsack’s the only candidate, at least on the Democratic side who won’t be able to raise money. Of the three second tier candidates remaining, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson all will have ample financial resources. Both Biden and Dodd are Senate Committee Chairs and Richardson is the former Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. All three are national political figures to a much greater extent than Tom Vilsack and should be able to raise considerable amounts of money. They all should have more than enough money in the bank to be competitive into 2008. (Provided, of course, that they do a better job budgeting than Vilsack did.) Yepsen is falling into the common tendency among columnists to draw as grand conclusions as possible from events. Vilsack’s dropping out is not indictative in and of itself of some major new trend. He just couldn’t cover his payroll, and one should be careful drawing larger conclusions than that.
February 27th, 2007
Bill Richardson is coming to Iowa in early March and one of the events on his schedule is a house party at the Indianola residence of State Representative Mark Davitt. Needless to say, when a state legislator has a house party for a Presidential candidate, it seems quite likely that the state legislator is supporting that candidate. And if Davitt is endorsing Richardson, it offers Richardson a major boost in Warren County.
Davitt is a well-liked State Representative who defeated another popular incumbent, former State Senator Doug Shull, to win re-election to his third term in 2006. Davitt’s family also has strong local roots. His father also served as a State Representative from Warren County and his wife is the publisher of the local paper. Davitt is the leading Democrat in the 14th most important county in the state in the Iowa Caucuses.
Mark Davitt is comparatively unknown next to another politician who endorsed a candidate in the caucuses this week, Tom Daschle, who endorsed Barack Obama. But it’s doubtful whether the mind of any caucusgoer will be swayed by Tom Daschle’s endorsement. However, while Mark Davitt is nowhere near as well known nationally or even statewide as Daschle, his opinion is a lot more likely to sway caucus goers, particularly those in Warren County. Iowa Caucuses are not won by the endorsements of major national politicians, they are won by the support of well-respected community leaders like Mark Davitt. If Davitt is backing Richardson, his endorsement is worth more than that of 10 Tom Daschles.
February 25th, 2007
Hotline just reported that Dave Loebsack may have endorsed Barack Obama at Obama’s rally in Cedar Rapids today. Although Leonard Boswell frequently appears at the events of caucus candidates, including Hillary Clinton’s event in Des Moines in January, there seems to be genuine uncertainty about whether Loebsack is pulling the same trick as Boswell or is committed to the Obama campaign. Chase recently speculated on who our congressmen would endorse. It seems possible that in the case of Dave Loebsack, the speculation may be over.
February 10th, 2007
I’ve been told a lot recently that I’m the future of America; I’m the reason it is important to fund education, fix the health care system, and reign in the escalating deficit; I’m the future of the Democratic Party. Sure this is from some hand-squeezing, baby-kissing politicians seeking to win in November, and I know that it is good campaign rhetoric. But I also think it is true. In fact, not only are we the future of the Democratic Party, we are the present. My colleagues and I register the voters, we knock the doors, and we make the calls; we organize visits from candidates, we interview them, and we blog about them. We are not the only ones, but our contribution is significant. We do this not just on our campus — although that in itself is a substantial task — but in the county as well, and there are many others like us across the state and the country. We work by and large for free. Given these candidates’ propensity to pay lip service to our services, I would’ve thought they would be willing, if not eager, to include us at party-building events. Such events help prepare us for that ‘future’ that we are supposed to figure so prominently into, and also inspire and motivate us to keep doing our work in the present.
I would’ve thought, for instance, that they would want us to be able to attend the Jefferson Jackson Dinner on October 14. This is an important annual event in Iowa politics, one that in the past students have been able to attend. Last year several candidates for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination were there, providing many of us students a first introduction to Chet Culver. We also met recent college grads working on campaigns or for the IDP. Sure, we sat in the nosebleeds, but the point is that for $20 we got to go listen to prominent Iowa politicians and feel like we were actually part of the Democratic Party.
This year I was excited to see that Bill Clinton is going to be the keynote speaker. When I learned that the cheapest seats would cost $100 a person, I was disappointed, to say the least. As much as I would like to go to the JJ Dinner and hear the Big Dog, as a student (and someone who spends hours every week in unpaid get-out-the-vote efforts) I can’t afford to shell out $100 for one meal. I know I’m not the only student in this position.
What accounts for the exorbitant increase in ticket prices? Well, given that in the past year food prices haven’t skyrocketed and the Hy-Vee Hall Events Center hasn’t suddenly become immensely popular, it seems that it might have something to do with the former president’s fee for the engagement. Rumored to be over a quarter million dollars, it looks like maybe the IDP is passing that expense onto us. It is a move that makes financial sense, but it also sends the message that low-income or financially burdened Democrats (like students) aren’t important members of the party.
This message is incongruous with what many politicians I’ve spoken to recently are telling me. Everyone from U.S. Congressmen to gubernatorial candidates keeps repeating that we students are the future of the party. At a Grinnell College Democrats event yesterday, Pat Murphy and Eric Palmer commended us for having such a large and active group, saying that we would have a major impact on the elections. The thing is we know it. While it is nice to hear, the words are empty in the face of such an inconsiderate exclusion from a major party event. Regardless of from where this oversight arose, it would be hypocritical and ungrateful of the party not to make some allowances for those of us that may be unable to make generous financial contributions, but who have given our equally valuable time.
September 21st, 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
The Register is also covering Fallon’s statement of support for the party’s nominee. For the most part it’s the same statement on his website & stuff we already know, but it does include a positive mention:
Fallon has a loyal, grass-roots following and often scores the loudest applause during candidate events where he appears with the others.
The article also mentions some new Blouin proposals:
In other primary news, Blouin proposed restoring cuts to the state’s community college system over the past five years. The proposal was the third in a series related to education by the Blouin campaign this spring.
Blouin also proposed spending an additional $40 million on job-training programs affiliated with Iowa’s community colleges. The announcement came in the wake of a financial scandal involving the management of a central Iowa job-training program.
April 11th, 2006
