Blog for Iowa spent a couple of hours on the phone with the (so far unchallenged) Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Bob Krause of Fairfield. Today in the first of a three-part series, we review his background, including what it was like to be an ROTC student on campus at the University of Iowa during the 70's, why he is running for the U.S. Senate, as well as his opinions on issues of interest to Iowans.The campaign has issued position statements and press releases on several topics, including: Health care (supports public option); Grassley's efforts to take credit for the stimulus package; and Tammy Duckworth's nomination for Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Check out KrauseforIowa.com for more info.
BFIA: Describe for Blog for Iowa readers the process that you went through in deciding to declare your candidacy for United States Senate.
BK: It was an evolutionary thing. I've been either in the frontline of politics or in the background for quite a number of years. I've been on the state central committee for almost 6 years and I have worked with various institutions within the party and legislative campaign organizations, and am currently chair of the IDVC (Iowa Democratic Veterans Caucus).
The IDVC organization was created in large part because of some very thorough staffing work by John Kerry five years ago, but later it started going stale, and there were parts of the state that weren't covered very well. Also, there were a number of proposals to help campaigns help us identify veterans in order to get the word out on what the Democrats were doing with and for the veterans - and we were hitting brick walls. I decided at that point that the only way to get the Democratic veterans better organized in Iowa is if we found a candidate that was enthusiastic, interested in veterans, and was willing to invest the time and resources identifying those people, and I looked around and I was really the only person in a position to run.
So that was the core of it and today it is the base of my campaign. We've got a base of about 10,000 people around the state. The veterans that I've worked with have been very loyal and cooperative and so they've allowed me to build a base that would be hard to duplicate. The next step is further expanding that base.
Even though Grassley has been perceived as being an insurmountable giant, there's enough people out there that he has voted against consistently over the years, that there's a potential for a fairly large coalition. Looking at his votes on medical care for disabled American veterans - literally a 70% anti-disabled American veterans voting record - it's like taking an apple pie and using it for a frisbee. Then he came out for the flag burning amendment to be patriotic. That one really hit me pretty hard. It's an emotional thing and it angered me.
But there are other places where Senator Grassley - especially as we get closer to election time - waves the banner of bi-partisanship, such as proclaiming his work with Max Baucus, a conservative Democrat, as bipartisan, and it's just not the case. We've seen time and time again in the Senate since the Obama administration has started, that the proposals will come out of the House, they'll be very people-oriented, then they get to the Senate, and the wall of forty holds back the tide and Grassley never really diverts from that wall of forty.
BFIA: As you know, Blog for Iowa is a progressive blog. Do you consider yourself a progressive?
I do. I've always looked to heroes in my life. I would look to Harold Hughes, I would look to Harry Truman, FDR, Teddy Roosevelt. Those people as I was growing up I thought were great Americans, great statesmen, and they had a vision of America that I agreed with. They were the people that I would look up to. When I sent you the revised file I tried to put a little bit of my philosophy in that.
BFIA: Your press releases make you sound like a progressive....
BK: Well, it comes from the heart...
BFIA: ...but I just didn't know if you would call yourself a progressive...
BK: I think it has been dangerous to call yourself a progressive or liberal...liberal has been besmirched by Rush Limbaugh....there was a great deal of money that was spent to try to hang that word out to dry in the late 70's and 80's and by and large it was successful and it hamstrung us as a party. It was like a hand-grenade right in the middle of our philosophy.
BFIA: And it was the right that framed the issues, and then we were stuck with that frame.
BK: The conservatives ran the agenda - but now they don't and it's a wonderful thing. For the first time since I was a very young man, the ball is in our court, but getting back to that definition in the bio that I sent you, I quote from the book of proverbs and I can't remember the chapter or verse although it is in the bio and it essentially is that it is possible to hold on too tightly to things and lose everything but the liberal man shall be rich. He that waters others waters himself, and I think that is a statement of my faith and a statement of how I perceive myself, that I want to give because when you give in life we are always enriched.
BFIA: What newspapers and websites do you go to for your news?
BK: Actually, they are probably more conservative than you'd think. I go to some of the mainstream ones, CNN; I go to Drudge report, I go to Bloomberg, Financial Times, the Economist. Local blogs I have just gotten into, yours, Iowa Independent, the Des Moines Register. Huffpo, Dailykos, I look at them but they're sometimes hard for me to get into - I'm a snippet person (laughter). I want to go in and see a headline and then I want to back out. They don't snippet well on DailyKos...
BFIA: ...No they don't... they're definitely not snippet people...
BK: Yeah, so that would be kind of the short version of that.
BFIA: What is your opinion of the recent Iowa Supreme Court ruling striking down Iowa's ban on gay marriage?
BK: Well, it has become the law of the land and it is the result of a very progressive phrase in the Iowa Constitution that's been there since 1857 when our Constitution was put together - this is the first time anyone's ever asked me that question during the campaign. The only other question that was even close to that was when I was asked at the 2nd District Central Committee meeting, about a week or so ago about the don't-ask-don't-tell policy [of the military]. I have explicitly stated that I think it's time we stopped it. It was probably necessary politically as a transitional policy, but I think society has changed. I think we have lost some very good people from the military because of that policy.
One thing that is kind of unique for a progressive Democrat is to have an extensive military background. When I was a young man and going to the U of I through ROTC, being in the military was not popular. My dad had served, my uncles had served, and I just thought it was part of my duty to the country, even though it was a strange time. Then I became an officer, and at the time there were fewer than 7% of the officers corp in the Army that claimed to be a Democrat, about 70% claimed to be Republican and the rest were independent. It was kind of a scary phenomenon, when the warrior class of society was that heavily toward one party, not with the rest of the country, so I got some of the pain that went with that. I'm proud to have done it and proud to have survived through that. I think if anything, in my little universe, I helped add some balance to the system that was necessary at the time.
But to answer your other question in terms of gay marriage, yes, it's the law of the land, it's in the state Constitution. At the federal level where my policy hat is, it's traditionally covered by the interstate commerce clause that says states honor the social laws and compacts of other states...so we accept the legality of the document and historically, it's not been an issue that the federal government gets into. And I think at this point with the evolution of society maybe that's the way to go, you have the states make their individual decisions as in the case of Iowa and I support the Constitution of Iowa.
Be sure and check this space next Wednesday, June 23, for Part II where we will find out more about the candidate including his thoughts on President Obama's first Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, what he does at his day job working for a defense contractor, and CAFOs.
