Iowa Blog Roundup and District Happenings

By Sam Garchik and Other Folks

Denise O'Brien is having a party tonight! The potluck is in Atlantic, Iowa:

Please bring a covered dish, your own table service, drinks and lawn chairs and enjoy an evening of live music and fun!  Meat will be provided.  Camping on the farm will be available for those of you coming from out of town.

Harris/O'Brien Farm
59624 Chicago Rd.
Atlantic, IA
Friday June 30, 2006
6-10pm

DIRECTIONS TO THE FARM:  If you're coming on I-80 from the East or the West take exit 54.  Go 1 1/2 miles south of the interstate and turn left on Chicago Rd.  We are the first house on the left.   If you're coming from Atlantic take highway 173 (the Elk Horn Road) 3 1/2 miles north to Chicago Rd.  Turn right and we are the first house on the left.

Denise also got the EMILY's List endorsement. Information about Denise will be up on their web page soon. You can help her in the meantime by giving her a good car: The O'Brien Campaign for Secretary of Agriculture is looking for a fuel efficient vehicle to drive around Iowa for the next 4 months.  Please get in touch with us if you are interested in donating a vehicle to the campaign.
 
Ed Fallon's not gone yet. He sent out an interesting email. I want to print this in its entirety. I read this on my Feedblitz email, but it came to me from Gavin's Journal:

Dear Friends,

While the recent primary election didn't achieve the victory we'd hoped for, it has had significant political impact statewide. Here's an exchange among Kay Henderson, David Yepsen, Jeneane Beck, Mike Glover and Todd Dorman during the most recent edition of Iowa Press. This should give all of us encouragement to keep building our network of reform-minded Iowans.

One thing you can do is send this e-mail to your own lists, and recommend that others sign up for my weekly electronic updates. And be sure to share with them my promise never to inundate recipients with e-mail or sell my e-mail list. That's a promise I've kept for years, and one I continue to stand by. Thanks!

Ed Fallon

Excerpts from Iowa Press, June 23, 2006

Henderson: "Out of this race, I think I see that there is a potential in Iowa Democratic politics for a populist to be successful. Ed Fallon did incredibly well in that election. He had 38,000 people who turned out. And in a low turnout election, he would have been even more competitive. And I think you can argue that his people would have gone to the polls regardless of the type of election year it was. So I think that what it tells us is that Iowa is sort of right for a candidate, like a Paul Wellstone or maybe the former governor of Minnesota who was a wrestler, that if someone crafts a message in such a way, I think a candidate of that ilk could be successful."

Yepsen: "Jeneane, what about Ed Fallon? What do you think he did right? What did he do wrong? "

Beck: "Well, I think that his message -- I think the CIETC scandal would help an Ed Fallon because he doesn't take PAC money and he -- the time was right for him to look at the scandals that we've had in Washington with the corporate lobbyists and the CIETC scandal here in Iowa. For a candidate like that to come forward and say, 'You know, what, I don't play that game. I'm not influenced by money' -- and that's what he did well across the state and in debates in talking about that. To me that was his best argument."

Yepsen: "Mike, is the reason he did so well that the Democratic left is so very angry just about everything and Fallon became sort of the vessel for that anger?"

Glover: "That's part of it. That's part of it. But one of the things that went into Ed Fallon's relatively strong showing, 26 percent of the vote, was Ed Fallon grew as a candidate throughout the course of that campaign. And that's one of the things that -- one of the great challenges we face is to measure a candidate who is going to grow into the job. As he was in the race for governor, Fallon grew. He got more thoughtful. He got more focused. He got more -- you get better as a candidate. And as a result, he was able to attract that Democratic left that's alienated and angry. He also was able to attract a group of disaffected Republicans who are unhappy with that sort of rightward drift of the Republican Party and looking for somebody to voice their message. He actually can be a key figure in this fall election because the voters who turned out for Ed Fallon are voters that have to show up if Chet Culver is to have a chance for winning this election in the fall. Ed Fallon will be a very important person for Chet Culver come the fall election. And it will be interesting to see how he fits into that whole campaign." [emphasis mine]

Henderson: "One other point about Ed Fallon. I think when he was on the dais with Culver and Blouin at his side in debate situations, he came off looking pretty good because he didn't have consultants who said, 'In answer to this question, you give this answer.' I mean he looked normal. He looked human. There was a question; he actually answered it. So I think he came off in those settings where people were measuring the candidates against one another, I think he came off rather well."

Dorman: "There's a hunger among voters for candidates that seem genuine, and he fit that bill. Like Kay said, a lot of times the other candidates would look, you know, preprogrammed, kind of robotic. And he didn't look that way. He looked like he was answering questions honestly, and I think that built a lot of appeal to him."

And yes, I do read the JCR blog. They pointed me to this article about a new, scary group in Iowa. This is the group that dumped three Republican incumbents this spring. Beware! You may be able to fight them off with facts from Nussle and Flow. It's hard for a pimp out there, aint it, Jimmy?

District 1

Alta Price says:
I found this at DailyKos. It is long, but well worth reading, especially with the upcoming elections. The diarist discusses tactics used by the Republicans, and why the Democrats have trouble countering them. Running against Bush is not enough. Just this discussion is worth the read.

I really like the discussion on Republican "ideology". The basic idea is the conservatives have spent 40 years and millions (billions?) of dollars promoting their ideology of "government is bad" and we need "less government". This is nonsense, of course, but is accepted unthinkingly by the people. We need our own ideology to counter their ideology (the diarist also explains what an ideology is, and why we want to be ideologues!) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/28/22312/3713

If you click on the links towards the end, you get more information about the ideology this diarist suggests, which is "cheap labor conservatives", as opposed to "big government liberals". I think it is pretty good, actually.

  Leach Votes to Cut Estate Tax

By Jason Friedman

"Well, it looks like the House leadership is putting the reins on Jim Leach these days, despite the fact that its election season when he likes to remind of us of his moderate credentials.  Leach voted yesterday for the Bill Thomas plan to gut the estate tax.  Long an opponent of full repeal of the estate tax, Leach gave the repealers most of what they want. The bill exempts almost all estates from tax, slashes the tax rates on the rest and will cost at least $760 billion during its first full decade.

Another $600 billion would be added to the deficit along with an additional $160 billion in the interest on that borrowing, to be paid backby future generations so today's wealthiest families can get another Republican tax break.

Dave brought the staff together to talk about the bill and the vote.

"After thirty years in Congress, Leach has apparently decided it is more important to give millionaires a big tax break than it is to balance the budget, more important to heap more debt on the backs of middle-income families than it is to assure that our critical needs are met," he told us.

Dave reminded us about Leach's deciding committee vote earlier this week against an amendment to force companies that seek government financing for exporting to pledge to hire American workers at "livable wages."  He noted that the amendment which failed 33-34 would have passed if Leach truly represented the interests of the working people of Iowa's 2nd District.

As the meeting broke up, a volunteer that overheard part of the conversation asked, "So, what are Leach's priorities for middle-income Iowans?"  We looked at each other in complete silence.

We'll keep looking.....

Jason Friedman, Communications Director
Loebsack for Congress
385 E. College Street
Iowa City, IA 52240
(319) 321-5884www.loebsackforcongress.org

   Iowa Blog Roundup (and other things also)

It's been a very hectic week with the convention and all, but I wanted to bring you up to speed on a bunch of different issues and happenings.

Courtesy of The Left Coast of Iowa Blog, I posted Joyce Schulte's response to King's comments on Thomas. I encourage you all to read what she said, as she speaks for all of us.

Also, Chris at Political Forecast is doing a great job of keeping tabs on what's going on in this state. He pointed two things out to me that I want to pass on to you. The Eminem Domain issue keeps popping up, and it has the gov in a bind.

Wait, sorry. That's State 29. 

Seriously, Chris linked to this article in City Pages which tries to sum up all the arguments made by which rich and famous Iowans about eminent domain. I still can't figure out why the Johnson County state reps voted against the bill, which isn't to say I am accusing them of something. It's just to say I'm looking to find out why.  Chris also covered the Iowans for Sensible Priorities bloggers press conference. They had a good showing at the state convention as well, so look for them to get more traction in Iowa.

On the Trail of the Contender

Villsack was written up in the American Prospect, who teases the interview here. I got to hear the old guv talk 3 times in one day at the convention. I don't want to comment any further, and I still don't know if I am going to caucus for him, but $600,000 for Culver buys him some good will in this state.

We are starting to get a lot of event notices. It's hard to keep them all straight, and this is a statewide blog, so I'll mention these, and then encourage you all to check out our calendar:

District 1

Bill Gluba endorsed Braley, saying, "the fundamental principles and positions we share are more numerous than the few issues on which we disagree."  Also, DFQC is planning an Iraq War Forum on Tuesday, June 27. You can join the group and RSVP at DFA-Link.

District 2

Iowa Blog Roundup

Firs off: The Iraq War Issue is Being Debated Today! You can send a letter to your Congressman through True Majority.

This week, Iowans for Sensible Priorities will be holding a bloggers press conference in Des Moines. It is on Wednesday, June 21st, from 8 - 9:30 AM, at the Mars Cafe on University. Warren Langley, former CEO of the Pacific Stock Exchange will be in attendance. And ISP will be buying snacks and coffee. Contact Dave Stone at (515) 244-5656 for more info.

By the way, check out the ISP pigmobile. It's even got a new blog.

In other news, Mathemagician King is at it again. This time, he says it's safer in Iraq than in DC. This site even has video. Thanks to Ellen Ballas for pointing us this way.

And for those of you in the dark, John Edwards came to Iowa last week. His blog covered his visit here and here.

Finally, Russ Feingold announced that Rich Olive was the winner of his "Pick a Progressive Patriot" contest. Olive, an Iowa State Senate candidate, is running against Stewart Iverson in the 5th Senate District. The PPF will give Olive $5,000, in addition to giving smaller amounts to each of the other five candidates:

• Staci Appel (IA – 37)
• Bill Heckroth (IA – 9)
• Rob Hogg (IA – 19)
• Merle Johnson (IA – 35)
• Becky Schmitz (IA – 45).

More voting continues in the Blog for America fundraiser: remember to vote for Braley and Loebsack at Blog for America.

  Iowa Blog Roundup

By Sam Garchik

First off, the Democracy for America voting continues. As of 6:00 PM CST on Saturday, Loebscak was in 5th, Braley hanging on in 13th. The top five candidates will advance to an instant run-off round starting on June 19 to determine DFA's next DFA-List candidate. Keep telling people to vote for either of these fine Iowa candidtes.

I just talked to Alta Price of DFQC, who told me that the Democrats there are planning on running two people for the now open seats in Bettendorf. Linda Theiman pointed out that Braley did pretty well there, and Alta confirmed that Bettendorf if generally more socially progressive than either of the two people who the GOP is running. This is great news for Democrats who can get on the ballot.