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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.
June 12th, 2008
After Sam Brownback dropped out last week, speculation immediately started as to which candidate the prominent social conservative would support. It was generally assumed that Brownback would lend his endorsement to a candidate shared his socially conservative views. However, as the Politico reports, Rudy Giuliani, who is pro-choice and pro gay rights, has been courting Brownback. While Brownback is not giving it up on the first date, he said he was “much more comfortable” with Giuliani’s position on abortion and gave Giuliani a chaste kiss on the cheek, describing him as a “wonderful candidate.”
If Giuliani gets the Republican nomination, he will need to have a prominent social conservative on the ticket to keep the right wing of the Republican Party happy. Prominent religious fundamentalists and extremists like James Dobson have declared that they would never vote for Giuliani, although at this stage, it’s just posturing. Giuliani would to do everything he could to appease them and have a Vice Presidential nominee would perform that task. It would be a role that Brownback would be perfectly suited for. That is why Brownback is meeting with Giuliani and making such a public display of it. Giuliani is the only candidate who needs Brownback and would put him on the ticket. (After all, Kansas isn’t a swing state). Brownback is a failed Presidential candidate who knows what he wants and is not afraid to go get it.
October 26th, 2007
The Politico is reporting that Sam Brownback is expected to end his bid for the Republican nomination for President tomorrow. Brownback never recovered from finishing third, behind fellow social conservative Mike Huckabee, in the Iowa Straw Poll in August. Brownback’s withdrawal from the field helps consolidate Huckabee’s position as the leading social conservative amongst the Republican field.
Brownback’s withdrawal leaves several key Iowa Republican activists up for grabs. Chuck Hurley, one of Iowa’s leading social conservatives, was a Brownback backer and will be courted by Presidential candidates seeking support amongst caucusgoers from the religious right. Another major Brownback supporter was convenience store millionaire Don Lamberti. Lamberti’s son, former Republican State Senator and Congressional candidate Jeff Lamberti, is a leading John McCain supporter. Given their family relationship, not to mention the close ties between McCain and Brownback, it’s quite possible that Lamberti will switch his support to McCain.
Brownback joins Tommy Thompson as the second Republican candidate to drop out directly or indirectly because of the straw poll. (Jim Gilmore also had a short-lived and rather pathetic bid for the Presidency but dropped out to focus his energies on trying to lose a U.S. Senate seat to former Democratic candidate Mark Warner). The Straw Poll will have once again have significantly winnowed the Republican field, depriving Republican caucusgoers of choices in order so that the Republican Party of Iowa can make a few extra bucks.
October 18th, 2007
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
Iowa State Representative McKinley Bailey announced his endorsement of Joe Biden today. Bailey is a first term State Representative and was widely courted by Presidential campaigns because of his service in Iraq in the 82nd Airborne Division. Biden has picked up endorsements from a number of Iowa legislators as part of his campaign’s increased focus on the caucuses. Bailey is also a member of a prominent political family in Hamilton County. However, his father, Hamilton County Supervisor Doug Bailey has not just endorsed Obama, but is a member of Obama’s statewide leadership team.
It’s also interesting to note that Hillary Clinton announced her retirement savings plan in the Bailey family’s hometown of Webster City. It seems the Clinton campaign may be using the split between father and son to scoop up support in North Central Iowa.
However, regardless of what the Clinton campaign does, it appears that Thanksgiving and Christmas may be interesting in the Bailey family. While many Iowa families may go to the caucus together, it does necessarily mean that they support the same candidate when they get to their caucus location.
October 11th, 2007
Cross posted at Iowa Independent
Jerry Falwell died two days ago. Will the Christian Right soon follow? That is certainly one of the questions being debated amidst the 2008 presidential contest. The front-runner for the GOP nomination, Rudy Giuliani, is pro-choice. But he has come under fire; recently for these views and his lead is shrinking nationwide and in Iowa.
Will the Christian Right try to stop Giuliani from winning the nomination? Could they if they tried? In this sense, perhaps the real legacy of Jerry Falwell won’t be known until the GOP has its nominee.
The cover story of the New Republic’s current issue is a lengthy (and intriguing) tribute to the idea that Giuliani can win the GOP nomination. Nestled within, however, is this paragraph:
Then, of course, there is the religious right. Though their power is on the wane, Christian conservatives are not going to allow Giuliani to have the nomination without a bitter fight… Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, put it this way: “If he wins, he’ll do so without social conservatives.” Then he added that a Republican presidential candidate can “no more win without conservative voters than a Democrat can without overwhelming support from blacks.”
Earlier today, James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, and one of the leaders of today’s Christian conservative movement announced he would not support Giuliani if he were the Republican nominee:
Speaking as a private citizen and not on behalf of any organization or party, I cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008. It is an irrevocable decision. If given a Hobson’s – Dobson’s? – choice between him and Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, I will either cast my ballot for an also-ran – or if worse comes to worst – not vote in a presidential election for the first time in my adult life.
On the other hand, Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, urged social conservatives to give Giuliani a chance. According to the Hotline, Reed told viewers of the Christian Broadcasting Network that Giuliani “can still potentially win over pro-family voters” if he focuses on issues where they agree. Giuliani had campaigned for Reed last May when Reed was running in Georgia’s lieutenant governor primary; Reed went on to lose the election, but has maintained an affinity for Giuliani, apparently talking him up in January at the National Review Institute.
Here in Iowa, Giuliani has the support of former Congressman and failed gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle, who was conservative on social issues while in Congress. However, Nussle’s running mate, the more conservative Bob Vanderplaats, in addition to the very conservative Danny Carroll, has endorsed former Arkansas governor and pastor Mike Huckabee. Iowa Republicans–especially the grassroots–are well known conservatives. Two polls taken in 2000 showed that about 60 percent of likely GOP caucusers thought abortion should be illegal, according to the Des Moines Register. The Register reported in the same article that Giuliani hasn’t decided yet whether to participate in the Ames Straw Poll, a crucial test of Republican support in Iowa.
Whether Giuliani will win the Iowa caucuses or the nomination remains to be seen. But what is clear is that a Giuliani victory would be a crushing blow, perhaps a fitting epitaph, for the movement that Jerry Falwell helped create.
May 17th, 2007
Douglas Burns had the chance to conduct an exclusive, 45-minute interview with former Senator and current Presidential candidate Mike Gravel. No subject was off limits, and in the end Gravel ends up making a $50 bet with Burns. We’ll see if Burns ever sees the money. Read the interview over at Iowa Independent.
Here’s a little snippet from the interview:
Iowa Independent: When I watched the debate the other night, and don’t take this the wrong way, but you seem awfully angry for a 76-year-old. Why are you so angry?
Sen. Gravel: I’m angry because every day you and I are talking about this thing people are dying. How would you feel if you were over there (Iraq) getting shot at, getting crippled, because your leaders didn’t exercise proper judgment. What about the people who are going die between now and Christmas because we don’t end the war? That’s a reason to get angry. That’s blood. That’s people dying and we sit here complacently and say, “That’s far away.”
May 15th, 2007
Iowa Independent, which is the web site I have been spending most of my time on, has the story. Former Republican Governor Terry Branstad criticizes Presidential frontrunner Rudy Giuliani for “some baggage” he carries as a candidate:
“I think he’s got some baggage both from his multiple marriages and from his stand on some of the social issues,” Branstad said in a recent interview in Carroll.
Go read the full story at Iowa Independent. And bookmark it while you’re there, because there’s a lot of excitement to come out of that site, I promise.
May 3rd, 2007
Angela Davis is our commencement speaker this year at Grinnell College, and nobody I know here is 100% pleased. The presidential candidates we invited all turned up their noses at us (perhaps expectations at commencement are too high, and some folks are bound to leave at least a little underwhelmed), and I guess Angela Davis was somewhere on the list.
Recently, Ken Black at the Marshalltown Times-Republican took us to task for being a little too communist for him (emphasis added):
Of course, I know that Grinnell College is one of the most liberal in the United States. That goes without saying.
The pricey and very exclusive college has long been a bastion for those with communistic tendencies, but rarely have they been so bold about it as they are now.
Recently, I received a press release from the college, seeking publicity over its commencement keynote speaker. Of course, this is probably not the kind of press coverage they wanted, but any coverage is good coverage, right?
Angela Davis will be speaking. The name may not mean much to you. It didn’t mean much to me until I continued to read the first paragraph of the press release.
“She was associated with the Black Panther Party in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the Communist Party of the United States of America,” the press release stated. “Still an activist, she now works for … prison abolition.”
Let’s take these one by one, shall we?
And then he takes them “one by one.” He hates the Black Panthers for being anti-capitalism and anti-authority. He hates the Communist Party because its goal was supposedly to devastate our country, Soviet style. And he hates the prison abolition movement because he doesn’t quite understand it.
But believing in academic freedom isn’t just for communists. Pretty much all of our Founding Fathers believed in it. Sure, it takes a certain level of self-awareness and maturity to know how to listen to what others say, consider it carefully, and decide not to agree with it, but doing that on a regular basis is a worthwhile endeavor. It’s how we learn in college, and hosting an important thinker like Angela Davis makes sense in that context.
To quote a famous Grinnellian who was also probably too much of a Communist for Ken Black, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”
April 9th, 2007
In an article for the New Republic online, Jonathan Cohn points out that one possible unintended consequence of the frontloaded primary system is that it increases the likelihood of a protracted primary and would elevate the importance of late primaries like those in Oregon and West Virginia. While almost every four years, political pundits salivate at that thought of a fierce primary that would last months or even a floor fight at the convention to determine the nomination, Cohn hints at a more disturbing historic truth in his article: the primaries that he mentions as the late primaries, Oregon, West Virginia and Indiana were once the early primaries. West Virginia was where John Kennedy effectively clinched the nomination in 1960 and Indiana and Oregon were decisive battlegrounds in the 1968 primary contest between Hubert Humphrey, Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy. (The first time a Kennedy ever lost an election was when Bobby Kennedy finished second to Eugene McCarthy in Oregon.) The drift of the primary schedule has turned what were once early primaries into laggards.
We’ve expressed our concern about the frontloading of the primary process before. But this drift towards earlier primaries has the potential to end the Iowa Caucuses as we know them. The “Super-Duper Tuesday” on February 5th and Florida’s move to hold its primary on January 29 may force the Iowa Caucuses to be held, at latest, on January 7. If this trend continues, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the caucuses are held in 2007 in order to preserve their primacy. If that happens, then the Caucuses are finished. Holding a Presidential Primary or Caucus in 2007 would be so absurd that it would make wholesale reform of the Presidential nominating process inevitable. If there is top to bottom reform of the process, Iowa will not be first in the nation anymore. The interests opposed to Iowa are dramatically stronger than those that support Iowa and once the caucuses lose the advantage of stasis and institutional conservativism, the Iowa Caucuses will be not be first in the nation before. The timeline for selecting a Presidential nominee has drifted earlier and earlier every election. But this drift cannot go on indefinitely and it seems increasingly likely that it will be ended after 2008 as the possibility for root and branch reform grows greater as another Presidential primary moves up in the calendar. And it seems more likely that one of the prime candidates for root and branch reform will be the Iowa Caucuses.
The timeline for selecting a Presidential nominee has drifted earlier and earlier every election. But this drift cannot go on indefinitely, and it seems increasingly likely that it will be ended after 2008, as the possibility for root and branch reform grows greater, and as another Presidential primary moves up in the calendar. And it seems more likely that one of the prime candidates for root and branch reform will be the Iowa Caucuses.
March 25th, 2007
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