Search Results for ‘social conservative’
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
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
There has been quite a hullabaloo about Alberto Gonzalez and the US Justice Dept. of late. If you haven’t heard about it, check here for a good primer. Here in Iowa, we are dealing with a different scandal involving our US Attorney, but David Yepsen thinks it might be connected to the national scandal.
When (gay) Democratic State Senator Matt McCoy was indicted for allegedly using his elected position to “extort” a $2,000 consulting fee from a company he was working for, it made us look pretty bad. But Yepsen digs deeper and actually comes up with something interesting: it turns out that Matt Whitaker, the US Attorney prosecuting McCoy, is a homophobic Republican crony. Quoth Yepsen:
Whitaker is a Republican. And not just any Republican, but a socially conservative one who ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 2002 and could well be a candidate for office again.
He recently was in the news when he was scheduled to emcee an event for the Iowa Christian Alliance, a successor group to the Iowa Christian Coalition.
After first granting him permission to host the event, Whitaker said the Justice Department revoked it after objections from liberal groups. Instead, he just attended the meeting.
So he’s a Republican with ties to the Christian Coalition, which is basically the group that controls the Republican Party of Iowa. US Attorneys are, in a sense, political appointees, so that isn’t surprising. But Whittaker’s partisanship is unusual. Continuing:
Active involvement in ideological political action groups like that is rare for U.S. attorneys in Iowa — and even the Justice Department higher-ups seemed to think better of it. For good reason. McCoy is a Democrat. And not just any Democrat but an openly gay one.
So we now have the specter of a politically ambitious, evangelical Republican with ties to the religious right going after a gay Democrat.
Well, good. If anyone wants an example of the politically charged ‘duties’ of a US Attorney in the Bush administration, this should serve well.
March 18th, 2007
There are starting to be whispers that Mike Huckabee might drop out of the Republican Presidential Primary to run for Senate back in Arkansas. Huckabee is a right wing Republican who has done better in the “liberal media” than among the Republican faithful. However, if Huckabee ends his Presidential bid, it would have major ramifications on the Republican primary. It builds up Sam Brownback as the default candidate of social conservatives and allows more room for an underdog like Brownback (or Duncan Hunter or Tom Tancredo) to emerge on the right of the Republican field.
It also has big ramifications in Iowa. Why? Because recently Huckabee received endorsements from two of Iowa’s major social conservatives, Bob Vander Plaats, who earned his conservative street cred by undercutting Doug Gross in the 2002 Republican Gubernatorial Primary and Danny Carroll, who defrauds the elderly and runs dirty campaigns. (However, in Carroll’s defense, he doesn’t smoke, drink, or make graven images). With Huckabee out of the race, the endorsements of these highly moral members of the Moral Majority would be up for grabs. If they both endorsed someone like Brownback, Brownback would automatically become a credible challenger to the “Big Three” of McCain, Giuliani and Romney in Iowa. However, if their endorsement went to a “Big Three” candidate, most probably Romney, it further starves the remaining second tier candidates of media attention and increases expectations for the endorsed candidate. Although Huckabee probably will not make any final decision until after the Ames straw poll in August, it seems increasingly likely that he may be Tom Vilsack’s counterpart as the first to be culled from the Republican field.
March 5th, 2007
The Politico has this profile of the head of the far right Iowa Christian Alliance, Steve Scheffler. Scheffler has become a major player in Iowa Republican politics over the past six years as the far right has reasserted its dominance over the Republican Party of Iowa as Democratic majorities in both houses of the state legislature, Iowa congressional delegation and our control of the Governorship attest to. Scheffler brags in the article that three quarters of the Republicans who show up to caucus “will be down the line on life, immigration, marriage and spending.” Aside from that fact that these aren’t all typical social conservative hot-button issues, it gets to the question of what the actual composition of the caucus crowd will be.
Every candidate tries to draw out special niches that they think that they will get a lot of support from. In 2004, as Roger Simon’s classic piece about the caucuses noted “Dick Gephardt targeted family farmers; Howard Dean went after the young and disenchanted; [John] Kerry pursued veterans.” With both parties holding highly competitive caucuses, there will be a lot of competition for both groups. It’s fair to say though that we can tell some of the core demographics that candidates will go after in 2008. McCain will go after veterans (and Giuliani may too), Romney will go after fellow Mormons (there aren’t a lot in Iowa but enough to make a difference), Huckabee and Brownback after fellow evangelicals (perhaps special denominational focuses after Protestants and Catholics respectively). All the candidates will go after people in all of these communities but there are some communities where they have a more significant appeal. So why does this matter? Because every person who goes to the Republican caucuses is someone who cannot go to the Democratic ones. In 2004, the fight for the Republican nomination was not competitive. This meant that only diehard Republicans attended the caucuses. In 2008, both parties will feature highly competitive primary battles. That means there will be big advantages for candidates whose niche voters are also their party’s base voters. Of all the candidates mentioned, this has big ramifications for John McCain, his special appeal is with veterans and he will probably try to emulate John Kerry’s strategy of wooing veterans in 2004. Kerry was able to attract quite a few veterans who were Independents and Republicans to come caucus for him in 2004. The problem for McCain is, many Democratic veterans will be participating in the Democratic caucuses. Another problem is that all the Republican veterans who showed up to support John Kerry will getting harassed by Democratic candidates as well, since they showed up to a previous Democratic caucus. This means that they’ll be getting a ton of phone calls from Democrats, which will drown out any attempt by McCain to reach out to them. This puts McCain at a disadvantage and it makes more likely that a right winger will triumph in Iowa on caucus night.
March 1st, 2007
If Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post can already start looking at 2008 US Senate races, we feel like it’s not too soon to start looking at 2008 Iowa Senate races. Today, we’re going to take a look at the top Democratic pickup opportunities. Although the Democrats picked up seats in 2004 to reach a 25-25 tie in the Senate, the Republicans will still be defending 15 seats in 2008, 5 more than the Democrats. Not only will the GOP go into 2008 with more seats to defend, they will be a party that is deeply divided. Nearly half of the Republicans in the State Senate walked out of the leadership election in November. They haven’t become much more unified since. Here are a list of the three most vulnerable seats that the divided Republican caucus will have to defend in 2008:
1. Larry McKibben (Marshall and Hardin Counties). McKibben represents a district that Chet Culver won by nearly 1500 votes in 2006. It consists of Marshall County, a traditionally strong Democratic county and Hardin, a mildly Republican leaning county. In 2004, McKibben edged out the Democratic candidate, Wayne Sawtelle, a labor activist, by less than 800 votes. McKibben owed his victory to piling up a huge lead in Hardin County, despite running significantly behind George Bush in Marshall County. The large labor community in Marshalltown will still be gunning for McKibben in 2008 and McKibben won’t be running on anywhere near as strong a ticket in 2008. With Tom Harkin up for Senate and Selden Spencer making a more serious attempt to run against Tom Latham, McKibben won’t have the advantages he had in 2004. He’s hanging on by a slim thread and this race will probably be decided again by less than 1000 votes.
2. James Hahn (Cedar, most of Muscatine and a little of Johnson counties). Hahn, one of the 8 anti-Lundby Republicans in the State Senate, defeated incumbent Democrat Thomas Fiegen after redistricting in 2004. Fiegen previously only represented the Cedar County part of the district and lost his bid for re-election in the new district by less than 2000 votes. This will be another place where the Democrats will benefit from having a much stronger ticket. The 2004 Democratic candidate for U.S. House, long-shot Dave Franker will be replaced on the ticket by incumbent Representative Dave Loebsack. This means there will be a whole lot more resources available in Muscatine County, a county which isn’t that important in a statewide race but is a crucial swing county in the 2nd Congressional District. John Kerry won Muscatine County in 2004 by 500 votes despite a weak showing statewide. Chet Culver won it by 2000 votes. If the Democratic Presidential nominee has a Chet Culver-like performance in the Presidential and gets 55% of the vote, this seat should go. If Iowa continues to be a tightly contested swing state, it probably won’t.
3. Mary Lundby (Linn) Although Lundby is the Republican leader in the State Senate, she is one of the most moderate members of the Republican Caucus who replaced former leader Stew Iverson in a coup in April 2006. She was also one of two Republican State Senators to oppose an amendment to the Iowa Constitution to ban gay marriage during the last legislative session. Her socially moderate views make her a good fit for a State Senate district that has about 12,000 Democrats, 12,000 Republicans and 17,000 Independents in the suburbs of Cedar Rapids that she won with nearly 60% of the vote in 2004. However, it does not make her a good fit in the Republican Party of Iowa which is dominated by social conservatives. Her only ally in the Republican caucus on the gay marriage issue, Maggie Tinsman, was defeated in the 2006 primary by an extreme right wing organization called Iowans for Tax Relief. She was beaten by a fellow who can best be described as the Steve King of East Iowa, David Hartsuch. Considering that half the Republicans in the State Senate don’t support Lundby, it won’t be a surprise if Iowans for Tax Relief tried to beat Lundby in the primary. If they do, an ultra conservative will be very vulnerable in this moderate seat. The other possibility is that Lundby, a cancer survivor may call it quits. After all, why would anyone in their right mind really want to manage a Senate caucus with a proclivity for sectarian violence that would make an Iraqi province blush? If the seat becomes open, it will become an extremely competitive race and with compartively high costs to run a campaign in the Cedar Rapids media market, it will easily become the most expensive State Senate race in the state. However, if Lundby stays on the nature of the district makes it Republican favored but still competitive. However, the mix of all three possibilities, a Republican primary, retirement and re-election keeps this seat highly competitive.
Other vulnerable Republicans are (in alphabetical order): Jeff Angelo (South-Central Iowa), Jerry Behn (Boone and Dallas Counties), John Putney (Benton, Grundy, Tama and part of Iowa County), Brad Zaun (suburban Polk County) and Mark Ziemann (Allamakee, Chickasaw, Howard and Winneshiek Counties)
February 6th, 2007
I suppose the “hearts Huckabee” line is going to catch on soon and then become very, very uncool, so I’m sorry about that.
Today, though, Republican Presidential Candidate and Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee announced endorsements from Blue Bunny Bob Vanderplaats, best known for losing a statewide election a few months back, and Danny Carroll, former President Pro Tem of the Iowa House representing Grinnell. He lost last November, too.
But more importantly, recall the story we broke last October, detailing how Danny Carroll is implicated in a scandal that made its way to the Iowa Supreme Court and resulted in the suspension of a lawyer’s license to practice. Basically, he helped the lawyer steal over $40,000 (and a free trip to Vegas) from a struggling old lady in Grinnell.
Well, I guess we can always trust Danny Carroll to “stick to his principles,” eh? We can if you believe Mike Huckabee himself:
Danny Carroll earned great respect during 12 years in the General Assembly as a conservative leader who always held true and firm true to his principles yet worked so successfully with people from across the political spectrum to accomplish meaningful results in health care, tax policy, education and economic development. Iowa ’s social conservatives know that Danny Carroll has always been a clear, strong voice on the issues that matter most to them.
It sounds like, not only is Mike Huckabee talking out of the side of his mouth, but Crooked Danny Carroll might be positioning himself to run for something again. We will be watching him.
January 31st, 2007
In 1996 a recently elected state representative from Central Iowa sought out the land deal of the decade. What did he get? He made over $50,000 from scamming an elderly woman in Las Vegas, with the help of a local attorney (who would subsequently be disbarred), setting the stage for the biggest scandal in Central Iowa politics this side of CIETC.
Representative Danny Carroll of Grinnell is the Republican Speaker Pro Tem of the Iowa House. He was elected to the Iowa House in 1994 and was elected Speaker Pro Tem in 2003. Carroll is owner of the “Carroll Pumpkin Farm” and is a lobbyist with Iowa Telecom. An extreme social conservative, he has campaigned with GOP presidential hopefuls such as Senator Sam Brownback, Governor Haley Barbour, Senator John McCain, Governor Mitt Romney, and former House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich.
The mention of Gingrich is especially pertinent. With Democrats poised to take back the U.S. House and end the Gingrich-led Republican Revolution, the following tale of abuse of power and exploitation demonstrates that the GOP “culture of corruption” has clearly found its way into local Iowa politics, namely through Danny Carroll.
In 1999, Grinnell attorney Brian Bisbee was disbarred by the Iowa Supreme Court for “seriously violat(ing) his ethical responsibility as (a) lawyer.” Bisbee was representing Cora Creamer in the sale of her property to Representative Danny Carroll. Mrs. Creamer was an elderly widow who had fallen behind in her bills. She owed approximately $7,900 in back fees and taxes on her property and she wanted to sell her home. Typical practice is for a person to sell their home and subtract the liens and back taxes from the sale price at closing. What Bisbee didn’t disclose was that he was also participating in the transaction financially by working closely with Representative Carroll who was providing the financing for the deal. In the disbarment proceeding, an unnamed Grinnell realtor is mentioned. The Iowa Progress team has recently uncovered property records that decisively prove that Representative Carroll was the person behind the financing of the transaction as well as the holder of the deed & title.
Essentially, Bisbee & Carroll took a 50% interest in Mrs. Creamer’s Las Vegas home as payment for settling the liens and back taxes on the property.
They did not disclose to Mrs. Creamer that she only owed $7,900. The 50% interest in the home would amount to approximately $50,000. This placed Bisbee in the incredibly unethical position of both representing the interests of the seller and the buyer who was working behind the scenes to finish the deal - Danny Carroll. The liens and back taxes were all paid by Representative Carroll - as shown here. You can also search the public records on the Clark County Recorder’s site HERE.
Now, the rules relating to real estate professionals in Iowa operating out of state are shady, but for lawyers they are very clear. According to the Supreme Court opinion:
“Nothing in the record before us suggests that Bisbee disclosed to his client that the proposed financial arrangement was more advantageous for him than for her. Given this obvious conflict, it became Bisbee’s burden to establish that his transaction with Creamer was fair and equitable.”
Representative Danny Carroll participated in the scamming of a poor elderly woman for his, and Bisbee’s, own financial gain. This is what the Supreme Court said of Bisbee’s conduct:
“Bisbee’s financial entanglement with Creamer […] was costly to her. Moreover, his failure to cooperate in these proceedings has impeded the administration of justice and reflects poorly on his fitness to practice law. His disregard for his client’s interests, as well as those of the profession, demands a lengthy suspension.”
Bisbee was disbarred in 1999, but because he declined to name his partner in crime directly, Carroll largely got off the hook — though not completely: after Bisbee’s disbarment, Carroll “voluntarily” retired from Ramsey-Weeks, the Grinnell real estate firm where he had been employed. I called up Bisbee yesterday who now runs an evangelical shelter in Missouri, to see if he’d answer any questions about his relationship with Carroll. He politely declined. Remember folks, this was a sitting state representative who had also served as a County Supervisor for many years prior. He participated in a deal that “impeded the administration of justice” and bilked a poor older woman of around $50,000. This is the same Representative Danny Carroll who says he values seniors.
But talk is cheap. And unfortunately, it seems Danny Carroll doesn’t put his money where his mouth is.
November 3rd, 2006
Because this fair web site hasn’t been around for more than two and a half days, we didn’t post about it when it came up, but Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen wrote last Thursday under a headline “Left/right extremes drive Iowa political landscape.” He argued that “social conservatives” like the Christian Coalition are becoming more and more influential in Iowa:
Religious conservatives will also be a factor in the re-election plans of Des Moines Democrat Matt McCoy, an openly gay legislator. He’s already got a primary challenger, and Republicans are also planning to field a candidate. While his district is heavily Democratic, it also includes many south-side Catholics and blue-collar evangelicals.
Bottom line: Republicans are hoping the work of the alliance can counter the Democratic trends and intense passions coming from the left these days. The election of 2006 in Iowa seems no place for moderates or middle-of-the-roaders. ’Tis a battle of the zealous.
And then he forgot to talk about any groups on the “extreme left.” All he says about us is some dismissive remark about our “intense passions” — whatever that means.
March 13th, 2006
