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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
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
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
In an interview with a progressive blog today, Ed Fallon claimed, “We’re doing really well, our own internal polling shows us up.” It’s not a surprise for Fallon to make a claim when the Boswell campaign released its own internal from Anzalone Lizst, the firm that polled for new Democratic Congressmen Don Cazayoux and Travis Childers, that had Boswell receiving 65% of the vote.
This jibes with the KCCI poll that had Boswell winning by a two to one margin. However, Fallon’s campaign finance reports, which show him having only $28,000 on hand the day before he had to meet payroll, does not show him spending any money on pollsters. (Nor does it show him spending on money on television, radio, mail, newspaper advertisements or any other form of paid media) So if Ed Fallon hasn’t hired a pollster and can’t afford to pay one, why does he claim he has internal polling, let alone internal polling that seems at odds with all the other information about this race?
Our guess is that Ed Fallon probably took a survey, not a poll. A survey is unscientific and involves asking a bunch of people without dealing with complicated things like sample size or filtering likely voters. This means that Ed Fallon may actually be ahead according to his “polling”, provided, of course, that a third of the electorate are vegetarians from Sherman Hill and everyone who votes outside Polk County is a member of CCI. Then again, this blog may be given Fallon too much credit for assuming that he merely mistook the difference between a survey and a poll. (Which is covered the second week of Statistics 101).
Fallon has a history of lying and of sleazy behavior. He may have just made up his “internal polling” entirely, which would be a good deal for Fallon. After all, the less he spends on internal polling, the more money he can pay himself.
May 22nd, 2008
Although Ed Fallon claims Paul Wellstone and Russ Feingold to be heroes, he diverges from Wellstone and Feingold on an important policy position, the so-called “Fallon Loophole.” The Fallon Loophole refers to the practice when politicians pay themselves salaries with campaign money, a practice typically considered to be unethical that the State Legislature tried to end during the last legislative session. Fallon attacked this bill as “status quo politics at its worst” and “a silly bill.” However, it seems two of the men Fallon would claim as heroes, Paul Wellstone and Russ Feingold would strenuously disagree.
In 1995, John Kerry introduced an amendment to close the Fallon Loophole federally. Unfortunately, it failed but gained the support of Paul Wellstone and Russ Feingold, not to mention Tom Harkin, Ted Kennedy and every other committed progressive in the Senate.
However, a lot of people did agree with Ed Fallon that closing the Fallon Loophole was “a silly bill.” Fallon can claim the support of Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Trent Lott and Rick Santorum. They shared Ed Fallon’s belief that this bill represented “status quo politics at its worst.” It’s good to know that Ed Fallon can claim such distinguished company in his campaign to fight “the status quo” by lining his own pockets.
May 19th, 2008
Small towns in Iowa have always feared losing their schools. While businesses can always come back to Main Street, once the school has left, it is gone forever and a large part of town goes with it. Typically, the loss of the school is the tipping point that sends a town into an oblivion from which, it will almost certainly never return. It is this tension that is animating the current conflict over the state’s decision to close the school in Russell Iowa, a town of less than 600 in Lucas County. The school district, (which is most clearly outlined on this map of the neighboring Chariton school district) is the 19th smallest in the state and represents an area with exactly 750 active registered voters.
The state is closing the school chiefly because the school district has continually run into budget issues and is projected to have a budget deficit of $382,000 by the end of the school year (which is a very significant debt for a school district with five fourth graders and a graduating class of 12.) The school also had other non-compliance issues including a lack of handicapped-accessible facilities as well.
Locals are claiming a conspiracy to shut down the school. The Russell School Board President told the Ottumwa Courier, “It became clear to me their goal was to shut us down…I started to think to myself that this was a sham. I think that was their agenda from the beginning: Shut us down.” However, while the local residents of Russell rail about a plot by the State Board of Education to shut down their schools, they aren’t addressing the most important issue, their children’s education. According to the State Board of Education, eight of the school district’s teachers were not properly licensed in one of the smallest school districts in the state.
It seems what is neglected in this is the basic fact that this is about the education of the children of Russell. While having its own school may help sustain a small town, it doesn’t help the children who attend the school. In such a small and limited school, one can’t imagine that there are many AP classes or opportunities for advanced instruction. Parents are forced to choose between dooming their town and handicapping their children in life. It is a tragic choice. But, in the end, whether Russell, Iowa continues as a small town of 559 instead of a settlement much smaller is not worth impeding the education of one child.
April 22nd, 2008
While the top of Ed Fallon’s balance sheet shows a very solid fundraising quarter, the details hide a sad truth. Fallon’s ethics woes have hurt him badly among potential donors. Fallon’s credibility gap over issues related to I’M for Iowa has led to fewer and fewer donors trusting him. While Fallon claimed 2,082 total donors for the quarter, almost 80% of them wrote their checks before mid-February. In the last six weeks of the quarter, Fallon’s fundraising slowed to a trickle. The result is that Fallon has already spent nine out of every ten dollars that he has raised and, after counting for outstanding debts, he has less than $3000 available to spend on the last 90 days of his campaign. If Fallon’s fundraising continues to dry up, he won’t have enough money to meet his payroll, let alone pay himself through “the Fallon loophole“. Of course, if Fallon had been upfront about I’M for Iowa and its donors, none of this would have happened. But, like Richard Nixon, it seems it was not the crime that brought Ed Fallon down, it was the cover up.
April 15th, 2008
Although we find it a bit repetitive and dull writing about Ed Fallon, one would think that the Fallon campaign would feel the same way about lying. Unfortunately, Fallon’s now endemic dishonesty was exposed again. A Fallon press release claimed that the FEC had given Fallon a clean bill of ethical health after mounting evidence of Fallon committing campaign finance violations. Unfortunately, the FEC didn’t. According to FEC spokesman George Smaragdis, “no Commission employee made any determination relative to the specific circumstances of any campaign. Only the Commission can make such a determination.” Even prior to the FEC disavowing Fallon’s claims, suspicions were raised due to the fact Fallon never used a direct quote or cited a specific FEC employee by name in his press release.
However, the same Fallon staffer who contacted the FEC, campaign manager Lynn Heuss, was the same Fallon staffer who told the Iowa Campaign and Ethics Board that Fallon was considering a third party bid for Governor, something Fallon immediately denied and claimed was a miscommunication. This comes after earlier this week when Fallon lied about his income from I’m for Iowa. Between that and his false claim of a statement from the FEC, that’s a minimum of two outright Fallon lies this week alone. In fact, there’s even a third lie if you believe Fallon was actually lying about considering a third party run for Governor in 2006, considering that Heuss is Fallon’s current and former campaign manager, former legislative aide, partner in I’M for Iowa and is registered to vote at the same address as Fallon. One presumes that a miscommunication between two people so close on a such a basic question would be rather unlikely.
It’s sad that Fallon, a former clean elections advocate, has sunk so low. When the Iowa House tries to pass a bill to ban candidates from paying themselves (incidentally, one of the election law reforms Barack Obama passed in Illinois), he attacks the Democratic Party leadership as “bought and paid for” and expresses the hope that, unless his favored clean elections legislation passes, Democrats lose their majority in the Iowa House. It seems that Fallon doesn’t just support Ralph Nader anymore, he’s starting to warm towards Chris Rants too.
The shame of it is that Fallon believes everything he’s doing is right. He’s been so caught up in his crusade for Congress, he seems to have lost track of right and wrong. He’s a clean elections advocate who is refusing to disclose donors to his amorphous partnership. He’s a man running on integrity who is brazenly lying. One is reminded of a Greek tragedy, or at least the Alec Guinness character from Bridge on the River Kwai. He’s so caught up and obsessed with his bid for Congress, he thinks no one will notice when he makes up FEC opinions, not even the FEC itself. Imbued with self-righteousness, Fallon seems to think he’s starring in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington when he’s merely playing the title role in Billy Liar.
April 3rd, 2008
Ed Fallon today attacked a bill that would ban politicians paying themselves with campaign funds as “status quo politics at its worst.” The bill was introduced because Fallon had paid himself nearly $14,000 with campaign funds after the end of his 2006 gubernatorial bid, making Fallon one of the most notable politicians to line his own pockets with campaign funds since Alan Keyes paid himself $8500 a month to run for Senate in 1992. Although Fallon claimed there was leftover money in his campaign account because “most candidates aren’t as fiscally responsible as I am,” Fallon had nearly $40,000 still in the bank at the end of his gubernatorial campaign. In a close three-race where you being outspent, saving that much money isn’t exactly fiscally responsible.
But then again, Fallon was considering running through November even if he didn’t win the primary. Although Fallon denied contemplating a third party run for Governor, an email from his campaign manager/business partner/very close personal friend Lynn Heuss to the Iowa Campaign and Ethics Board stated that the reason that Fallon was paying himself after the Democratic Primary and had kept his campaign account open was because “there was also the possibility that he would decide to run as a 3rd party candidate” in addition to the need to perform administrative tasks. One wonders how such a miscommunication could occur between two people who are so close.
Although perhaps it wasn’t a miscommunication. Fallon already backed Ralph Nader in 2000 stating at a rally the week before an election “I can’t, I won’t and you shouldn’t vote for Al Gore” and later condemned the Polk County Democratic Central Committee for asking all Democratic candidates to support the Democratic ticket no matter. Although Fallon later said he only endorsed Nader when Al Gore added Joe Lieberman to the ticket, his published remarks on the subject don’t address Lieberman at all and seem more focused on attacking the Vice President and future Nobel Laureate as “to the right of Bill Clinton.” As a result of the loyalty pledge, Fallon compared the actions of the Polk County Democratic Central Committee to the Nazi Party in a hyperbolic statement of utter tastelessness.
In fact, it seems more likely that Ed Fallon is lying again. Fallon has already spent the week obfuscating about the financial irregularities of his “business” I’m For Iowa. He told one reporter that he only took a small draw from the business and another that he was paying himself a salary of over $30,000 a year. However, Ed Fallon has been consistent about one thing. He refuses to disclose the financial records of I’M for Iowa, reinforcing the fact that there is something rotten in Sherman Hill.
But in the meantime, Fallon, the erstwhile crusader for campaign finance reform, is attacking a bill prohibiting candidates from paying themselves as “status quo politics at its worst” and hiding the financial records of I’M For Iowa from public disclosure. For someone who claims to believe in clean elections, Ed Fallon certainly seems to be running his in the muck.
March 31st, 2008
David Yepsen was singing the praises of Chet Culver today for undermining efforts to allow teachers and other public employees the same rights as private sector employees. Apparently if this happens, there’s a chance that teachers may negotiate for smaller class sizes as part of collective bargaining and why would any Iowa school want smaller class sizes? Except, of course, that there is a definitive link between class size and academic performance among students. Yepsen also brings up the scary fact that the collective bargaining bill would mean more binding arbitration which Yepsen is sure means higher costs to government. However, Ed Tibbets in an exhaustive piece for the Quad City Times shows that binding arbitration only happens rarely. In fact, it only occurs in 1% of all contract disputes in Iowa. In fact, binding arbitration may work against teachers and other public employees union. While opponents of the bills claim that in arbitration cases involving school districts, teachers prevail against management 57% of the time (although includes a mere 63 cases that occurred over the past 5 years), the Quad City Times’ review of arbitration cases in Scott County shows the contrary and management prevailing over public employees almost 60% of the time.
However, this isn’t stopping the fearmongering. Far-right organizations like Iowans for Tax Relief are claiming (without any data to back up their claims, of course) this could lead to disastrous rises in property taxes, leading Iowa to become more like such states as Maryland, Kansas and Maine and less like such states as Alabama, Arkansas and New Mexico (which incidentally not only have the lowest property taxes in the nation but rank in the bottom for household income, percentage of those living in poverty, employment and just about every other indicator of economic and social health available). So why is Chet going against fairness for teachers and other public employees (along with virtually every Democrat in the legislature) to bathe in the good graces of Iowans for Tax Relief and David Yepsen?
One assumes this is political posturing, designed to strengthen Culver’s hand in his dealings with the legislature. After all, as the Sioux City Journal notes “Culver raised no objections with the substance of the bill, just the process by which it passed. Spokesman Brad Anderson said Culver was ‘not pleased’ that he wasn’t notified earlier, and felt the public should have been included in the debate.” This isn’t politics, it’s personal pique.
As a result, Culver’s annoyance with Mike Gronstal and Pat Murphy, he’s fanned the flames of this issue in a way that has energized Republicans and hurt working people. Iowa Democrats have waited 40 years to pass progressive legislation and for Culver to show such pettiness by standing in the way is disgraceful and sullies an otherwise admirable record as Governor. As Jack Kibbie notes, one imagines that Culver will support the collective bargaining bill “because of his future. He’s running on the Democratic ticket, I presume.” But if Culver continues to stand against guaranteeing public employees the same rights as their private sector counterparts, he’ll be as good a fit on the Republican ticket as on the Democratic one.
March 30th, 2008
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