The Boz drew a huge crowd to Main Lounge last night for a rally in anticipation of campus satellite voting this Monday. Students were not only treated to their svelte Congressman but got to see Eric Palmer, Mari Culver and Steve Mauro (Mike Mauro’s son).
Steve (he looks like his dad) went first and did a good job of stressing the importance of the oft-overlooked Secretary of State position. He said Mauro will push for more “safety, security and integrity” and will continue the great job Culver has done in increasing voter access. He assured the crowd that Mauro will fight for a paper trail in all of Iowa’s 99 counties. It’s good to know that the ball won’t be dropped when Chet moves on up.
Next, school favorite Eric Palmer spoke. He seemed really fired up and told us that his number one priority is increasing the minimum wage. Palmer has been getting better every time I see him—he’s always full of energy and nothing ever sounds canned. After tonight, I’ve no doubt that anyone who sees Palmer and Carroll next to one another will choose the former. Carroll is just too stiff and has that sleazy Nussle polish. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Carroll had “gone Washington” too. Maybe he’s been rubbing elbows with Newt too often.
After Palmer was Mari Culver, Chet’s “brunette better half.” She stressed the need for continued progress in Iowa and Culver’s long commitment to increasing civic participation as Secretary of State. She noted that during Culver’s tenure, voting among 18-24 years olds had increased 50% (since 1996) and that Iowa moved from 11th to 6th in the country in voter turnout. She said that Culver had education as a top priority and would move to bring teacher salary to at least the national average and get tuition at the state’s universities under control. While Nussle may claim to focus on education, Mari pointed out that Jimmy boy voted through the largest cuts in student loan funding in history. Mari is quite good.
Following Mari was the main attraction—the Boz. He started by telling us that, although we hear it every few years, this really is the most important election “in my [his] lifetime.” He said that America was in danger of losing its promise and that he wanted to ensure that his grandchildren had the same opportunities that he did. He seemed so energized that he didn’t need to say a word to assuage doubts about his health, but he stressed that he felt better than he had in years, and that he was more prepared for Congress than he had ever been before. He said he wasn’t about to “go fishing” anytime soon—he wants to “die with my boots on.” He said that a Democratic majority could start to rebuild what has been lost during repuglican control these last few years—America, he said, needs to start being a “good neighbor” abroad and working with allies to accomplish common goals.
I’m glad Boswell stressed universal values and the ability to reach a common understanding in foreign policy—his message was far from the gloom and doom fated war of civilizations that the Bush clan drums up everyday. I think Boswell understands (and I’m projecting now) that for all the radicals in the Middle East there are good people who care about the same things that families in America do—to lose sight of that basic commonality is dangerous because it leads us to dwell on and thus increase our differences. It makes us pugnacious when diplomacy is called for, pugnacious when prudence is called for. Recognizing that diplomacy is possible doesn’t mean that we won’t fight radicals and keep America safe. I think Boswell understands, unlike the condescending fear mongers in the Bush administration, that Americans don’t have to be scared into strength or leadership.
October 4th, 2006
Tonight at 7, Mike Blouin sat down to chat with Grinnell students for about an hour in the Loose dorm lounge. It had a smaller attendance than yesterday’s Fallon event, but that made for a more personal atmosphere. We formed a circle in Loose lounge’s mismatched, anachronistic armchairs and spoke pretty candidly about politics and college antics. (Thankfully, Hannah and I got to Loose early enough to tuck away the empty 30 racks of Natty Light before Mike arrived…) Read more after the jump.
Blouin was the candidate you’d least suspect would command the interest of an audience of college kids. Of the three candidates, he’s the oldest, and he has been cast — perhaps undeservedly — as an “establishment candidate”; so that’s not quite Grinnell material.
But Blouin engaged us. His demeanor was something between professorial and “quirky uncle,” and it worked. I know my opinion of him changed because of the event. Here are some interesting morsels:
Blouin began his speech with a very strong position in favor of a clean elections law. His language was surprisingly firm and insistent. Money, he said, was his biggest complaint about what has changed in Iowa since he got involved in politics.
He also gave us a brief biography. He went to Loras (at age 16), decided to settle in Iowa, got married, became a teacher (as did his wife), got elected to the legislature and was fired for it, had a child with his wife who had been fired for getting pregnant, had to live on a legislator’s salary alone, and worked his way up to being in charge of economic growth (and job creation) in Iowa. He resigned from his job working for Vilsack to run for governor, and he did it early so that there wouldn’t be any question of his objectivity.
Blouin also talked about his plan for government-sponsored health insurance. No one asked him to clarify, but it sounded a lot like Kerry’s plan (something short of “universal,” but still “universally accessible”). Andy McGuire has been the point-person on this, and she has served both with doctors (as a medical expert and researcher) and insurance companies, so she really knows the health insurance system, etc.
The second half is critical of Nussle:
He criticizes Nussle’s oversight of our deficit, but he drives it home by relating it to government services (education and health care).
Q&A:
On giving companies tax breaks to draw them to Iowa:
“I’d be a hypocrite if I said we should never do it. In the ideal, I wouldn’t do it ever. In the ideal world, you wouldn’t have to. In the ideal world, states wouldn’t be giving away their tax breaks in competition with each other… The trouble is we live in a very real world… And until the courts — I say the courts because Congress will never do this — find a way to stop it, we’ve gotta compete…we’ll lose the opportunity to keep our young people.”
He then talks about how our education is great, but people come here for education and then leave, and that’s something he wants to discourage.
He then talks about how the jobs he brought to Iowa had a lot of benefits. The tax breaks he gave businesses came with a lot of requirements, including pay that was above average per capita income in the state, guarantees that they’d stay, etc. In the cases when we didn’t keep businesses here, it was because other states (e.g., South Carolina) gave away unreasonably huge rewards to companies. So Blouin is in favor of tax breaks with guarantees like that.
Eric asked about Iowa’s food deficit (we import 85% of our food):
Blouin deconstructs the statistic and said that it involved seasons, etc. He also said that promoting organic farming (which is mostly for human consumption) will improve that situation.
On my question about abortion:
He states his position (here on his web site) pretty persuasively. I usually get annoyed by the “I’m pro-life personally but not politically” politicians but Blouin wasn’t annoying. He gives concrete examples of the (strategically) liberal programs he’d support to reduce abortions while still honoring his promise to maintain the right to choose. And, finally, he deflects potential criticism for his 1970s votes for a ban on abortion by explaining, “Now it’s taken me years to get to [this] point, but I’m comfortable.”
So then I asked if he’d support laws like the requirements that abortion clinics provide information to pregnant women about the pain their fetus will feel or about adoption services, and he said, unequivocally, that he will not sign any bill that would affect abortion on either side of the issue. He claims, to explain why his pro-life position is actually more effective than Nussle’s, “Republicans want an issue. I want a solution.”
On Alec’s question about the “WalMart laws”:
He likes them, but he needs a democratic legislature.
“I think there’s something seriously wrong with a corporate mindset that hires people at low wages, condemns government giveaways, and calls their employees together to explain how they, as employees of WalMart, can go get Medicaid services. Yeah, it oughta be illegal.”
And he says Eric Palmer is a great candidate who could help change the balance in the legislature.
On Alec’s question about requiring health insurance by law (like Massachusetts):
“To mandate people to buy something they can’t afford to pay for, in itself doesn’t work. You’ve gotta make sure that you’ve got a product — a basic product — that’s affordable for everyone. I want to see how it works in Massachusetts, and I think we can get a pretty good read in a couple of years.”
He goes on to talk about Andy McGuire’s medical qualifications. And then he gives a pretty detailed account of what improvements he wants to make. And he proposes “bridge health insurance” for recent college graduates if they are looking for jobs in Iowa.
He also talks about how he wants to bring down pharmaceutical costs. He wants transparency in drug pricing, but it’ll take creativity to make it constitutional. He thinks he has a solution (by asking for transparency only for drugs that the state buys directly).
On Hannah’s question on McGuire’s donations to Republicans:
Greg Ganske, who unseated Neal Smith, was also McGuire’s neighbor, which explains her donation.
Jim Nussle was her brother’s neighbor, so she donated to one of his early congressional campaigns. But,
“When he abandoned the value system he said he had, she and [her husband] dropped him. 35% of Iowans are Democrats. You’ve got to get to 51%. You’ve gotta reach out to Independents and progressive Republicans who are scared to death of the Nussle/Vanderplaats ticket, and Andy can do it.”
Then a jab at Ed Fallon (although not mentioned by name):
“You know we’ve got another candidate in this race who publicly endorsed Ralph Nader in the 2000 general election against Al Gore. Helped bring us George Bush. And who, through his organization, endorsed a couple of incumbent Republicans in the legislature. That’s what he did. That was then. This is today. And he’s a very competent guy, and he’s got a right to run. I don’t think you can bash him for it… He probably wished he hadn’t done it back then…”
On Eric’s question on whether Blouin would raise taxes to increase teacher pay:
“I don’t think we have to raise taxes to do it.”
He talks about the need to improve pay for teachers, nurses, and day care providers.
All in all, it was an interesting event. I wish more students had made it out.
Oh! And, on his way out, he made a joke about how blogs can be scary. Boo!
April 23rd, 2006
Today the Register reports that (surprise surprise) Iowa House Republicans neglected to pass an education bill that would increase teacher salaries or funding for preschools. Republican House Speaker Rants:
“We have a revenue estimate that we have to abide by, by law,” he added. “I wish we had more to give, but that’s the amount of money we have available to spend.”
Can you blame them? Allocating tight funds sure is hard, ain’t it? Sure we all want teacher salary increases, but where will the money come from? Certainly not a cigarette tax.
Democrats failed to get a cigarette tax increase approved Wednesday in the Iowa House.
Rants, a Sioux City Republican, is against a tobacco tax increase and says the revenue it would raise would set the budget up for trouble in the future as cigarette sales declined.
Would revenue really fall significantly from a tax? New Yorkers pay 7.50 for a pack of cigarettes and yet the percentage of smokers is just under the national average. What gives?
Sure, there’s evidence that cigarette tax increases lower smoking, but the decline in use is most significant among children. And with ballooning state medical costs (the proposed tax was designed to pay for health care in the first place), reducing smoking can save money in the long term by cutting out a major source of health care woes- cigarettes.
Maybe Iowa Republicans should put that in their pipe and smoke it.
March 16th, 2006
