# Democratic Party



Once again, Democrats are in denial

Ira Lacher: Why is it so difficult for Democrats to do what Republicans are great at—seize an issue and run with it in a straight line to pay dirt?

On November 2, Democrats took a shellacking, losing the governorship of Virginia and nearly New Jersey, along with many local elections, once again illustrating they can’t convince enough Americans they share their values. Three days later, proving Napoleon’s adage “In politics, stupidity is not a handicap,” some doubled down.

Despite the Democratic-controlled U.S. House finally passing President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill that promises to repair dangerously broken bridges and highways, hasten to bring broadband internet to hundreds of rural counties, and enable scores of other improvements throughout much of America, six Democrats believed it still wasn’t progressive enough, and voted against it.

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Politico calls Rob Sand a "young Robert Mueller"

I wholeheartedly agree with Ed Fallon: grassroots activists are excited about the Democratic candidates for state auditor and secretary of state. -promoted by desmoinesdem

The excitement around November 6 is above and beyond what we normally experience leading up to an off-year election. Coast to coast, young, progressive candidates are fueling that excitement — as is growing discontent over President Trump’s reign of error. Even conservative voters are pulling away from the Tweeter in Chief over his:

— Escalating trade war with China,
— Support for pipelines and fracking,
— Belief that “eminent domain is a wonderful thing,” and
— Lack of a moral compass.

In Iowa, two candidates firing up voters are Rob Sand, running for state auditor, and Deidre DeJear, running for secretary of state. Check out the great story about Rob and Deidre in Politico this week — and the entertaining comparison of Rob to Robert Mueller.

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Facebook and the Women's March

Johnson County Supervisor Kurt Friese on the big news from this weekend. -promoted by desmoinesdem

If you follow me on Facebook then you know I post a lot. Too much for some. I get that. But Saturday was special.

As an active FB user I notice the responses (or lack thereof) that my posts get. In 10 years on the medium, I have never seen a response like I did on Saturday as a result of the #WomensMarch. By far the most likes, reactions, replies, reposts, etc. that I have ever received. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a chef and a politician, so I have a healthy ego, but even I know that the reason for this huge reaction has nothing to do with me. It ain’t the messenger, it’s the message.

I am old enough to remember the protests against the war in Viet Nam. The first protest I ever saw live was in DC in 1974, a large crowd outside the Soviet embassy shouting “Freedom for Ukraine.” (Guess we might see that again). The biggest I ever participated in was the protest against the Iraq war. Until yesterday.

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Hawaii Special election FACTS. Don't believe the Hype

 

 As I was logging off my computer late last night, I happen to stumble upon a bunch of congratulatory tweets to Rep.-Elect Charles Djou whom won a special election to replace frm. Rep. Neil Ambercrombie who is seeking to win the Governorship for the Democratic party.

What was different about this special election compared to the previous 7 congressional elections, was that the Republican candidate won. Tweets ranging from local Iowans congratulating Charles Djou like Don Mcdowell to national republicans like former Governor Sarah Palin.

Many republicans already are touting a victory and defeat for President Obama after all, neil abercrombie had been life-long friends with Pres. Obama and this was the district in which he was born in.

 I had to look up the reasons why we failed to win this election. There is now way that Charles Djou defeated the democrat in a fair race unless there was some special circumstances. The republican party in Hawaii is as insignificant as the Libertarian/Green party in this country. Charles is now only the 3rd republican to hold high office in that state since statehood.

 

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Year in review: national politics in 2009 (part 1)

It took me a week longer than I anticipated, but I finally finished compiling links to Bleeding Heartland’s coverage from last year. This post and part 2, coming later today, include stories on national politics, mostly relating to Congress and Barack Obama’s administration. Diaries reviewing Iowa politics in 2009 will come soon.

One thing struck me while compiling this post: on all of the House bills I covered here during 2009, Democrats Leonard Boswell, Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack voted the same way. That was a big change from 2007 and 2008, when Blue Dog Boswell voted with Republicans and against the majority of the Democratic caucus on many key bills.

No federal policy issue inspired more posts last year than health care reform. Rereading my earlier, guardedly hopeful pieces was depressing in light of the mess the health care reform bill has become. I was never optimistic about getting a strong public health insurance option through Congress, but I thought we had a chance to pass a very good bill. If I had anticipated the magnitude of the Democratic sellout on so many aspects of reform in addition to the public option, I wouldn’t have spent so many hours writing about this issue. I can’t say I wasn’t warned (and warned), though.

Links to stories from January through June 2009 are after the jump. Any thoughts about last year’s political events are welcome in this thread.

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Free campaign advice for Democratic women and their staffers

Lynda Waddington, contributor to Iowa Independent and creator of the Essential Estrogen blog, will be the featured speaker at two seminars on “developing campaign web pages and blogs for Democratic women candidates, and those who work their campaigns.”

If you know any women who have considered running for office, or anyone who wants to work on a woman candidate’s campaign, please spread the word. Waddington promises to “show participants the good, the bad, and the (oh so very) ugly that can come with being a politically active woman in the age of the internet and high technology.”

The Des Moines seminar will take place on Saturday, November 14, from 1:30 to 3:30 pm at the AFSCME office, 4320 NW 2nd.

The Cedar Falls seminar will take place on Saturday, November 21, from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm at the Cedar Falls Public Library.

For more information, contact Jo Ann Zimmerman at 515-225-1136 or atzzzzz AT aol.com, or Marcia Nichols at 515-246-1517 (for the Des Moines event).

The seminars are free, no advance registration required.  Sponsored by DAWN (Democratic Activist Womens Network) and AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees). DAWN was founded in 1992 to recruit and mentor Democratic women to run for public office.

Speaking of women running for office, jamesvw posted information to help get out the vote for Kirsten Running-Marquardt in the November 24 special election in Iowa House district 33.

Fallons to host new radio show

I’M for Iowa made the announcement today in a mass e-mail:

For too long, Iowa’s airwaves have been dominated by Rush Limbaugh, Jan Mickelson, Steve Deace, Glen Beck and Michael Savage. Well, we have great news: times are changing!

Beginning Monday, September 21st, we will host our own talk show from 7:00 – 8:00 pm, Monday through Thursday on 98.3 WOW-FM. It’s called “THE FALLON FORUM” and can be heard from Fort Dodge to Chariton, from Grinnell to Carroll, and can be live-streamed at http://www.983wowfm.com. We hope you’ll tune in, and you can join the conversation at (515) 312-0983.

This is an unprecedented opportunity for those of us concerned about pressing economic, social and environmental issues. We want to offer true “talk” radio, as opposed to the “shock” radio dished-up by those on the far right. In fact, THE FALLON FORUM replaces some of the airtime currently given to Michael Savage, the guy who recently recommended making “the construction of mosques illegal in America, and the speaking of English only in the streets of the United States the law.”

We’ll kick off the show on Monday with Dolores Huerta. Dolores helped found the United Farm Workers of America with Cesar Chavez. At 79, she remains an energetic, outspoken advocate for many important causes, including marriage equality.

On Tuesday, we’ll dig into Iowa politics.

Zach Mannheimer with The Subjective Theatre Company joins us on Wednesday to discuss the merger of the artistic and corporate worlds. We anticipate a spirited exchange on the new sculpture garden set to open in downtown Des Moines.

On Thursday, we want to hear your thoughts on America’s historic health care debate . . . providing you keep it civil and based on fact. We’ll pull the plug on any caller who insists the legislation before Congress pulls the plug on grandma.

Thanks, and we hope you can join us on the show next week!

Ed and Lynn Fallon

Speaking of the Fallons and Iowa politics, I wonder how many primary challengers they’ve recruited in certain Iowa House districts.

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Three Iowans gain new posts at DNC

I received this news release from the Iowa Democratic Party on September 11:

DES MOINES — Longtime Democratic activist Jan Bauer of Ames is one of 75 new at-large members of the Democratic National Committee following a vote Friday at the party’s annual meeting in Austin, Texas.  Bauer also will serve on the DNC Resolutions Committee.

Other appointments Friday included: Sandy Opstvedt of Story City to the the Resolutions Committee, and Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Michael Kiernan to the Rules and Bylaws Committee.  In addition, members re-elected Opsvedt to the DNC executive committee.

Kiernan’s post is expected to give him important clout in protecting Iowa’s first in the nation caucuses. “We have a stronger Iowa delegation than at any time in memory,” Kiernan said Friday.  “This is great for Iowa Democrats and for our state.”

Iowans serving on the Democratic National Committee are Bauer, Kiernan, Opstvedt, Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald, State Sen. Michael Gronstal, Linn County Supervisor Linda Langston, Sue Dvorsky and Leroy Williams.

Since last November’s election, I haven’t worried at all about Iowa’s place in the nominating process. As long as Barack Obama is president, I don’t think he will let the DNC allow any state to jump ahead of Iowa. For what it’s worth, I don’t think any number of influential Iowans could have saved our first-in-the-nation status if Obama had lost to John McCain.

I’m more concerned about reforms that would improve the integrity of the caucus process and the ability of interested voters to participate. I also would like to see changes to the rules allocating pledged delegates, so that in 2016 one candidate won’t be able to net as many pledged delegates from, say, winning the Wyoming caucuses as another candidate nets from, say, winning the Ohio primary by 10 percent.

Share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

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Why Jews are liberals and Norman Podhoretz asks the wrong question

UPDATE: This diary generated a lot of discussion at Daily Kos. Several readers pointed me to Glenn Greenwald’s rebuttal of Podhoretz’s central claim: Jews should vote Republican because of Israel. Leon Wieseltier’s review of Podhoretz’s book for The New York Times is also worth reading.

Norman Podhoretz began his political life on the Trotskyite left but swung sharply to the right and edited the conservative magazine Commentary for more than three decades. His latest book is called “Why Are Jews Liberals?”, and he published a few thoughts on the subject in the Wall Street Journal this week.

All the other ethno-religious groups that, like the Jews, formed part of the coalition forged by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s have followed the rule that increasing prosperity generally leads to an increasing identification with the Republican Party. But not the Jews. As the late Jewish scholar Milton Himmelfarb said in the 1950s: “Jews earn like Episcopalians”-then the most prosperous minority group in America-“and vote like Puerto Ricans,” who were then the poorest.

Jews also remain far more heavily committed to the liberal agenda than any of their old ethno-religious New Deal partners. As the eminent sociologist Nathan Glazer has put it, “whatever the promptings of their economic interests,” Jews have consistently supported “increased government spending, expanded benefits to the poor and lower classes, greater regulations on business, and the power of organized labor.”

As with these old political and economic questions, so with the newer issues being fought out in the culture wars today. On abortion, gay rights, school prayer, gun control and assisted suicide, the survey data show that Jews are by far the most liberal of any group in America.

After the jump I’ll offer my thoughts about why many Jews are liberals and, equally important, why many Jews who are not liberals vote for Democrats anyway. Podhoretz is convinced that more American Jews should identify with political conservatives, but today’s Republican Party makes that unlikely.  

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Candidates selected for House district 90 special election

On Wednesday Democrats in Iowa House district 90 nominated Curt Hanson for the special election set for September 1:

Born and raised on an Iowa family farm, Hanson has been living and teaching in Fairfield for over 43 years. He attended the University of Northern Iowa and received his masters from the University of Iowa.  He and his wife, Diane, have two grown children. They are members of First United Methodist Church and Curt is also a member of the Fairfield Kiwanis Club.

“My parents taught me the importance of hard work, helping neighbors, and service to community.  Those Iowa values will guide my work as the next State Representative for District 90,” said Hanson.  “My priorities are simple: balance the state budget, create good-paying jobs in key industries like renewable energy, make health care more affordable for middle class families, and ensure our kids have the education and skills they need to get a job in these tough economic times.”

Hanson is a retired teacher and driver education instructor in Fairfield. He has been selected by his community as Fairfield Teacher of the Year and has been selected by his peers to serve those in the teaching profession at both the local and state levels. He was also runner-up National Driver Education Teacher of the Year and has served as President and Business Manager of the Iowa Association of Safety Education.

“As State Representative, I can promise the people of Jefferson, Van Buren, and Wapello Counties two things – I’ll work hard and I’ll always listen to you,” concluded Hanson.

For more information, go to www.curthanson.org.

Sounds like Hanson wants to build on the strengths that prompted CNBC to name Iowa the fourth-best state for doing business in 2009.

Today Republicans in district 90 formally selected Jefferson County supervisor Steve Burgmeier to be their candidate for the special election. Here’s his press release from Monday announcing his campaign. He’s clearly planning to run hard against same-sex marriage, which is not surprising given the way he made a show of posturing on April 27, the day the Iowa Supreme Court’s Varnum v Brien ruling went into effect.

Republicans would like to win this special election for many reasons, not least to fire up their base about the potential to demagogue against committed same-sex Iowa couples next year.

If you live in House district 90 or volunteer during this campaign, please consider posting diaries about your view from the ground. Scanning or transcribing campaign ads and fliers would be great material for a post. It only takes a minute to register for a Bleeding Heartland account. Or, you can e-mail me confidentially about what you’re seeing (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com). I’m curious to know whether The Iowa Republican’s Al Swearengen was correct about Ed Failor’s staffers from Iowans for Tax Relief running Burgmeier’s campaign operation.

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Open thread on July 4 activism

Iowa communities of all sizes will hold public celebrations of Independence Day this weekend. Most of the parades take place on July 4, but a few cities, such as West Des Moines, schedule a parade for the evening of July 3. As I wrote here a year ago, I encourage Bleeding Heartland readers to volunteer with your local Democrats on this holiday. Parades are a fun way to spend an hour or two with like-minded people in your area.

I’ll be walking with the Polk County Democrats in the Windsor Heights parade on Saturday. I haven’t decided what to write on my hand-made sign. In past years I’ve tried to express my values without a partisan slant: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (and women!) are created equal…”

Some environmental organizations, including Repower America, are encouraging people to “declare their energy independence” on the 4th of July.

This thread is for any comments on your plans for the holiday. Please also post any suggestions for a good parade sign.

If you’re traveling this weekend, drive safely and consider “ecodriving” to improve your mileage.

I have good news and bad news

The good news is, the Iowa Democratic Party’s Hall of Fame event on Saturday night raised close to $200,000, twice as much as the Republican Party of Iowa brought in with last Thursday’s “Night of the Rising Stars.” Even better, Democrats paid reasonable prices (starting at $35, I believe) for heavy hors d’oevres and a ticket to hear Tom Vilsack, Christie Vilsack and Sally Pederson. In contrast, Republicans paid $100 ($50 for those under 35) for Chex mix, a cash bar and Haley Barbour.

Now for the bad news, courtesy of Paul Deaton at Blog for Iowa:

Governor Culver bragged about the success of the event’s fund raising efforts, saying that more money had been raised this year than in any of the previous years of the Hall of Fame event. What Chet Culver does not understand is that it is false success when among the 2009 Hall of Fame Hosts are listed the powerful interests that stymie the efforts of the progressive movement to do what is right in Iowa and in Washington.

One asks what do Archer Daniels Midland, Monsanto, MidAmerican Energy, Planned Parenthood, the Iowa Medical PAC, Mediacom, the Iowa Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives, the Iowa Corn Growers Association and other political action committees, business associations and corporations want with their donation besides access and favorable attention to advance their agendas? The Iowa Democratic Party, despite statements made during the speeches, is far from being the grassroots party we need it to become. Grassroots activism, in my view, needs to eliminate the influence of the large, moneyed entities. A good place to start would be to cease accepting corporate sponsorship of party events. This seems unlikely in a Culver administration.

It’s normal for corporate interests to cozy up to the party in power, and why shouldn’t they? Look how well things turned out for the nursing home industry in Iowa this year.

I recognize the pressure Democrats are under to keep pace with Republican fundraising, but leaving big problems unaddressed for fear of offending business groups will not keep newly registered Democrats excited about voting and volunteering next year.

Looking further ahead, the corporate sponsors that made this weekend’s event a success may keep Culver from becoming the great governor he wants to be.

I don’t have an answer other than supporting individual Democratic candidates who stand for my beliefs and organizations working toward real campaign finance reform. If you have any better ideas, please post them in this thread.

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Who will step up to challenge Latham and King?

BENAWU has restarted a diary series tracking Democratic candidates in U.S. House districts across the country. So far there are no declared candidates in either of Iowa’s Republican-held districts.

If you know of any Democrats considering a run against Tom Latham (IA-04) or Steve King (IA-05), please post a comment in this thread, or in BENAWU’s thread, or send me an e-mail at desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.

Please also feel free to speculate here about who might become good candidates for us in these districts. I recognize that neither of these races are strong pickup opportunities for Democrats, but there are benefits to leaving no Republican unchallenged. Active Democratic candidates working different parts of the state should help boost turnout in our statehouse races, for instance.

Some Iowa House Democrats will get primary challengers

The Democratic-controlled legislature failed to pass some important bills during the 2009 legislative session, including a tax reform package and all major agenda items for organized labor.

Since the fiasco that doomed the “prevailing wage” bill in February, I’ve thought that electing better Democrats to the state legislature is at least as important as electing more Democrats. With a 56-44 majority in the Iowa House, it’s ridiculous not to be able to find 51 votes for some of these bills.

According to a letter I received last weekend, Ed and Lynn Fallon of I’M for Iowa are already meeting with potential progressive challengers in some House districts. I’ve posted the full text of the letter after the jump. I share their disappointment with what the Democratic “trifecta” has accomplished since the 2006 elections.

The Fallons do not specify where they are recruiting candidates. The obvious targets are the six House Democrats who refused to support “prevailing wage.” Known in Iowa political circles as the “six-pack,” these incumbents also stood in the way of other labor bills. Of those six, Geri Huser and Dolores Mertz seem particularly likely targets, because they supported House Republican efforts to ban same-sex marriage in April. Marriage equality is one of I’M for Iowa’s priority issues.

Good opportunities for primary challengers include districts that are relatively safe for Democrats in the general election. That points to “six-pack” members Huser (House district 42), Brian Quirk (district 15) and Doris Kelley (district 20).

Challenging the rest of the group is somewhat more risky. McKinley Bailey (district 9), Larry Marek (district 89) and Dolores Mertz (district 8) represent marginal districts. In fact, first-termer Marek will probably be the most endangered Democratic House incumbent next year. Bailey beat back a strong challenge from Republicans to win a second term by a fairly healthy margin in 2008, but according to this report by Iowa Independent’s Jason Hancock, some House Democrats have been “quietly concerned” that he might consider switching parties.

Mertz is a longtime incumbent in a very conservative district. In the unlikely event that a progressive challenger defeated her, Republicans would almost certainly pick up the seat. On the other hand, a smaller Democratic House caucus without Mertz would be an improvement over a larger caucus with Mertz, in my opinion. As chair of the House Agriculture Committee, she blocks any decent bill in sight, and she will be the Republicans’ biggest Democratic ally in the fight to overturn the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling in Varnum v Brien.

Two big questions come to mind. First, will organized labor put money and/or foot soldiers into serious Democratic primary races? Earlier this year, Ken Sagar of the Iowa AFL-CIO didn’t rule out supporting competitors to Democrats who are unfriendly to labor.

Second, will the Iowa House Democratic leadership spend money or political capital to defend targeted incumbents? In 2008 the Iowa Democratic Party blocked Huser’s primary challenger from access to the voter database. I heard from multiple sources at the time that the House Democrats made that call. Huser returned her colleagues’ favor by not being a team player during the general election campaign, then refusing to support the labor bills mentioned above.

I look forward to reading your comments on whether it’s worth taking on any House Democratic incumbents next year, and if so, which ones. The Fallons’ letter laying out the case for primary challenges is after the jump.

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An early look at the 2010 Iowa Senate races

Conservative blogger Craig Robinson argued last week that “Iowa Republicans Have Plenty of Opportunity in the State Senate” in 2010. The GOP has almost nowhere to go but up. Republicans currently hold 18 of the 50 seats in the Iowa Senate, fewer than at any previous time in this state’s history. After making gains in the last four general elections, Democrats now hold 19 of the 25 Iowa Senate seats that will be on the ballot in 2010. Also, several Democratic incumbents are in their first term, having won their seats during the wave election of 2006.

To win back the upper chamber, Republicans would need a net gain of seven seats in 2010, and Robinson lists the seven districts where he sees the best chances for the GOP.

I generally agree with John Deeth’s view that only a few Senate districts are strong pickup opportunities for Republicans next year. Winning back the upper chamber will take the GOP at least two cycles, with redistricting likely to create who knows how many open or winnable seats in 2012.

After the jump I’ll examine the seven Iowa Senate districts Robinson views as worthwhile targets as well as one Republican-held district that Democrats should be able to pick up. Here is a map (pdf file) of the current Iowa Senate districts.

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The young generation may be a lost cause for Republicans

Looking at this graph of party identification by age in the U.S., I was not surprised to find 40-year-olds like me in the best cohort for Republicans. My peers vaguely remember the oil shocks and high inflation of the 1970s, and then came of age during Ronald Reagan’s “morning in America.” In those days, many young people proudly identified with the Republican Party. As they grew older, lots of them continued to vote that way.

Americans who were growing up during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are much more likely to call themselves Democrats or independents than Republicans. They also voted Democratic by large margins in the 2006 and 2008 general elections. If Republicans can’t figure out a way to compete with this group of voters, Democrats will have a built-in advantage for decades.

Fixing this problem won’t be easy for the GOP and may even be impossible, for reasons I discuss after the jump.

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Events coming up this week

It’s been a week since same-sex marriage became legal in Iowa, and I’m happy to report that my hetero marriage has not yet collapsed under the strain of sharing rights with gays and lesbians.

Click “there’s more” to read about events coming up this week. As always, post a comment or send me an e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) if you know of something I’ve left out.

Advance warning: May 11-15 is Bike to Work week.

Registration is FREE. Over 500 Bike to Work Socks have been ordered from the Sock Guy. This year’s socks are green. Socks will be available at events throughout the week on a first come, first serve basis. (One pair per pre-registered rider.) Everyone who registers and takes the pledge is eligible for $1,000 in Bike Bucks for use in any sponsoring bike shop and many other prizes! Registration closes at Noon on Thursday May 14th. Questions? Check out Bike to Work Week events and businesses around Iowa at www.bikeiowa.com.

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Final results from the Iowa Legislature's 2009 session

The Iowa House adjourned for the year a little after 5 am today, and the Iowa Senate adjourned a few minutes before 6 am. I’ll write more about what happened and didn’t happen in the next day or two, but I wanted to put up this thread right away so people can share their opinions.

Several major bills passed during the final marathon days in which legislators were in the statehouse chambers nearly all night on Friday and Saturday. The most important were the 2010 budget and an infrastructure bonding proposal. Legislators also approved new restrictions on the application of manure on frozen or snow-covered ground. Another high-profile bill that made it through changes restrictions on convicted sex offenders.

Several controversial bills did not pass for lack of a 51st vote in the Iowa House, namely a tax reform plan that would have ended federal deductibility and key legislative priorities for organized labor.

Not surprisingly, last-minute Republican efforts to debate a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage also failed.

More details and some preliminary analysis are after the jump.

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Why don't Iowa leaders do more to protect the environment? (updated)

David Yepsen published his final column in the Des Moines Register before starting his new job as director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University. It reprises some themes from many previous columns, such as the need to create a world-class education system and thriving economy in Iowa, with fewer layers of government.

As often happens when I read one of Yepsen’s columns, I wonder why he ignores some obvious paths to achieving his admirable goals. For instance, he wants Iowa to “set the goal of having one of the highest per-capita incomes in the country within 10 years.” Is this the same columnist who never met a labor union he liked? It reminded me of how Yepsen periodically slams the excessive influence of big money in politics, but won’t get behind a voluntary public financing system for clean elections.

In Yepsen’s final column, one passage in particular caught my eye:

Let’s set a goal to have the cleanest environment in the country within 10 years. The cleanest air. The cleanest water. The best soil- and energy-conservation practices.

We’ve had education governors. We’ve had sporadic focus on growing the economy. For some reason, we’ve lacked a similar focus on the environment. Creating a clean environment will create green jobs, but it will also make Iowa more attractive as a place to live and do business.

“For some reason”? I think most of us have a pretty good idea why improving air and water quality has never been a high priority for Iowa leaders. Follow me after the jump for more on this problem.

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New PAC vows to hold Democratic incumbents accountable

That’s the mission of the Accountability Now PAC:

“We need members of Congress to leave the bubble of Washington, D.C. and stand with their constituents,” said Jane Hamsher, founder of Firedoglake.com and co-founder of Accountability Now. “We need members of Congress to ask the tough questions about continued Wall Street bailouts that reward the donor class, two wars without seeming end, the ceaseless assault on our civil liberties, and other issues that separate the citizenry from the DC cocoon.”

“Accountability Now is an organization built around a single guiding principle: challenging the institutional power structures that make it so easy, so consequence-free for Congress to open up the government coffers for looting by corporate America while people across the country are losing their jobs and their basic constitutional rights while unable to afford basic health care,” said Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com and co-founder of Accountability Now. “Accountability Now believes that members of Congress in both parties need to hear from their constituents, and that nothing focuses the mind of a politician on listening to citizens better than a primary.”

“Accountability Now PAC will recruit, coordinate, and support primary challenges against vulnerable Congressional incumbents who have become more responsive to corporate America than to their constituents,” said Accountability Now’s new Executive Director, Jeff Hauser. “By empowering the grassroots, Accountability Now will help create the political space needed to enable President Obama to make good on the many progressive policies he campaigned on – such as getting out of Iraq, ensuring access to affordable health care for every man, woman and child, restoring our constitutional liberties and ending torture.”

In 2007, grassroots activists banded together to oust Al Wynn out of office, and it shook House Democrats to their core. Similarly, we learned in 2006 how even a primary challenge that does not win could change behavior, as Jane Harman has been more accountable to the concerns of her constituents after a tough primary race against Marcy Winograd.

Out of these recent lessons, diverse and politically powerful groups have decided to support Accountability Now’s efforts, such as MoveOn, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), DailyKos, ColorOfChange.org, and Democracy for America, 21st Century Democrats and BlogPAC.

On principle, I agree with the goals of this PAC. Like some guy once said, “the system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It’s rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits. […] We cannot replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats […]”

However, I won’t get excited about the Accountability Now PAC until I learn more about the criteria it will use to determine which Democratic incumbents are “bad enough” to be primaried, and which primary challengers are “good enough” to be endorsed.

To my knowledge, Democracy for America was the only organization in the Accountability Now PAC that helped Ed Fallon in last year’s primary in Iowa’s third district (a D+1 district represented by Blue Dog Leonard Boswell).

How would someone thinking about a primary challenge know whether he or she is likely to get full support, like Donna Edwards in MD-04, or almost nothing, like Fallon?

Speaking of Democracy for America, it’s not too late to RSVP for their training academy in Des Moines on February 28 and March 1. Come meet noneed4thneed while you learn to be a more effective grassroots activist.

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Which Democrats are progressive enough?

Progressive Punch has added a new and incredibly useful layer of analysis to its rankings of members of Congress by voting record.

The “Select by Score” pages now indicate how progressive representatives and senators are compared to the districts and states they represent.

Select by Score Senate rankings

Select by Score House rankings

As before, you see members of the House and Senate ranked from most progressive to least progressive, based on all votes as well as on certain “crucial votes.” Calculating a separate score for “crucial votes” reveals which Democrats are not reliable when the chips are down. This helps prevent gaming of the system, as when Joe Lieberman voted against filibustering Samuel Alito’s nomination for the Supreme Court, then turned around and voted against confirming him.

For the new feature, Progressive Punch has placed every state and Congressional district into one of five categories: strong D, lean D, swing, lean R, and strong R. Each Congress-critter’s “crucial vote” score is then compared to the political lean of the district or state. In the right-hand column on the “Select by Score” pages, every member of Congress now has a rating from 1 to 5, with 5 being the most progressive. Progressive Punch explains:

The “%” and “Rating” columns underneath the “Progressive Score vs. State Tilt” are two different ways of measuring the same thing. They both measure how naughty or nice a member of Congress’ voting record has been in relation to his/her district. We’re grading on a curve. Five stars in the “Rating” column indicate members of Congress who are doing the best in terms of voting MORE progressively than could necessarily be expected given their states or districts. Those with one star are performing the worst in relation to their districts.

For more details on the methodology behind this analysis, click here for House ratings and here for Senate ratings.

Why is this useful? It’s now much easier to see which Democrats in Congress are voting about as well as could be expected, and which ones should be doing a lot better.  

Here are a few examples. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Harry Reid have identical lifetime progressive scores on crucial votes. However, since Feinstein represents a strong Democratic state (CA) and Reid represents a swing state (NV), Feinstein gets a 1 while Reid gets a 3.

Ron Wyden (OR), Barbara Mikulski (MD) and Amy Klobuchar (MN) have very similar lifetime scores, but Wyden and Klobuchar get 4s because they represent lean-Democrat states. Mikulski gets a 3 when graded on a curve that takes into account Maryland’s solid Democratic profile.

Similarly, Daniel Inouye (HI) gets a 1, while Jon Tester (MT) gets a 3 for almost the same “crucial vote” score, because Montana leans Republican.

Jeff Bingaman (NM), Jim Webb (VA) and Byron Dorgan (ND) have very similar progressive lifetime scores, but Bingaman gets a 2 for representing a lean-Democrat state, Webb gets a 3 for representing a swing state, and Dorgan gets a 4 for representing a lean-Republican state.

Scanning down the Select by Score House page, a few Democrats stand out. There’s Timothy Bishop (NY-01) with a 5 rating for how he represents his swing district, while most of the House members with similar lifetime scores get 3s, because they represent strong Democratic districts.

Dave Obey (WI-07) and Peter DeFazio (OR-04) get 4s because they represent lean-Democrat districts. Most of the House members with similar lifetime progressive scores get 3s.

Amid a large group of House Democrats who get a 2 when their crucial vote score is compared to how strongly Democratic their districts are, James Oberstar (MN-08) gets a 4 for a similar progressive score because he represents a swing district, while Michael Michaud (ME-02) and Paul Hodes (NH-02) get a 3 because their districts lean Democratic.

How can progressives use this information? One way would be to determine which incumbents in safe Democratic seats should face more pressure from the left. In extreme cases, this pressure could include a primary challenge.

Also, these rankings reveal which Democratic primaries should become top priorities for progressives when incumbents retire. For example, John Murtha (PA-12) and Henry Cuellar (TX-28) represent strongly Democratic districts but vote like Democrats representing swing or Republican districts.

For Bleeding Heartland readers who want to know how Iowa’s representatives are doing, Senator Tom Harkin was among the 22 Senate Democrats whose lifetime score earned a 5 (good work!). He’s only slightly more progressive than the average Senate Democrat; his lifetime score on crucial votes ranks 19th in the caucus.

Chuck Grassley’s lifetime progressive score is very low, around 5 percent. Amazingly, 28 Senate Republicans are even less progressive than he is.

Iowa’s House Democrats didn’t fare so well when graded on Progressive Punch’s curve. Dave Loebsack (IA-02) gets a 2 for having the 118th most progressive score on crucial votes (just over 80 percent) while representing a strongly Democratic district.

Bruce Braley (IA-01) gets a 1 for having the 147th most progressive score on crucial votes (just over 75 percent) while representing a strongly Democratic district.

Both Braley and Loebsack have progressive scores around 95 percent if you look at all votes, but given how safe their seats are, they could certainly improve on their voting records “when the chips are down.”

Leonard Boswell (IA-03) also gets a 1 for having the 189th most progressive score on crucial votes (only 64 percent) while representing a lean-Democratic district. (On the plus side, his overall score for the current session is a lot better than his lifetime score.) Many House Democrats with voting records like Boswell’s represent swing or Republican-leaning districts. When this becomes an open seat, the Democratic primary should be a top target for progressives.

You will not be surprised to learn that Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05) are in a large group of House Republicans who hardly ever vote for the progressive side of any issue.  

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Study shows how early voting helped Democrats

A new report by Democracy Corps examines the trend toward early voting in the 2008 election and confirms that Barack Obama greatly benefited from banking so many votes before election day.

Democratic Congressional candidates also did better among early voters than among non-early voters.

The study did not analyze the effects of early voting on races further down the ticket, but several Democratic legislative candidates lost the election-day vote but were saved by a strong early vote.

The Republican Party of Iowa will try to match the Iowa Democratic Party’s early-voting efforts in 2010, so we would do well to keep improving on the model. Early voting is insurance against bad weather on election day as well as last-minute smear campaigns against our candidates.

Department of odd omissions

I wasn’t surprised in November when the Des Moines Register failed to report on opposition to former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack’s possible appointment as secretary of agriculture.

I wasn’t surprised in December when the newspaper omitted the same perspective from its piece on reaction to the news that President-elect Barack Obama was picking Vilsack for the job.

But I find this January 12 Des Moines Register article by Chase Davis quite odd. The subject is how Vilsack has relatively few ties to agribusiness. Excerpt:

Secretary of Agriculture nominee Tom Vilsack raised only a small portion of his campaign cash from farmers, grocers and others with direct ties to the agriculture industry, despite serving eight years as governor in one of the country’s most emblematic farming states, documents and fundraising data show.

From his first run for governor in 1998 to his short-lived presidential bid in 2006, Vilsack raised almost $15.8 million through contributions to his campaign and political action committees. Only about 2.3 percent, or $364,000, came directly from interests connected to agriculture.

Political observers said the small share of industry donations Vilsack received could earn him credibility and a perception of independence as he prepares for his confirmation hearing Wednesday. Others note the agricultural industry has long exerted its political influence through connections, not money.

“(Agriculture businesses) are much more human than a lot of other businesses. They have a very tight network,” said Edwin Bender, executive director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics. “Money is maybe not the prime indicator there.”

To the extent that influence follows money, Vilsack can make a convincing case that he is not beholden to the agribusiness industry – which could serve him well in the position, local experts said.

Agribusiness “will have more trouble getting everything they want, and they know it,” said Arthur Sanders, chairman of the Politics and International Relations Department at Drake University.

But if companies do convince Vilsack to support their policies within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Vilsack “will have more credibility if he pushes for them,” Sanders said.

The article baffles me on two levels. It ranks Vilsack’s “top political donors associated with agribusiness interests,” and number one on the list is the philanthropist Doris Jean Newlin, whose husband was a vice president of Pioneer Hi-Bred International before he retired.

Newlin has made significant gifts to quite a few Democratic politicians, the Iowa Democratic Party, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. It’s a stretch to consider her donations to Vilsack’s campaigns the most noteworthy link between Vilsack and agribusiness, just because Newlin is married to a retired vice-president of Pioneer.

What makes the article even more strange is that it does not mention biotech companies. Vilsack was an outspoken and persistent advocate for growing more genetically-engineered crops in Iowa and elsewhere. The Biotechnology Industry Organization named him governor of the year in 2001. He even used to fly on the Monsanto corporate jet. What opposition there was to Vilsack’s appointment as secretary of agriculture stemmed primarily from his many ties to biotechnology companies like Monsanto.  

Vilsack may well have fewer connections to agribusiness than others who have headed the USDA. I think the Senate should confirm him, given that he is the president’s choice, and he is certainly qualified for the job.

But it was quite a strange editorial decision by the Register to publish a whole article about Vilsack not having strong ties to corporate agriculture, while failing to mention any of his connections to the biotechnology industry. If you’re going to report a story, at least report the whole story.

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The Republicans' problem is what they say, not how they say it

The State Central Committee of the Republican Party of Iowa went outside the box yesterday in selecting a new party chairman. They picked Matt Strawn, best known as part of the group that owns the Iowa Barnstormers arena football team, instead of someone with experience as an elected official or leader of a county GOP operation.

Strawn began his campaign for the chairmanship as an underdog compared to outgoing state GOP treasurer Gopal Krishna (at one time seen as the front-runner in this race) and former State Representative Danny Carroll. The latter appears to have been the grassroots favorite in the field; he turned out the most enthusiastic supporters to a recent public forum for the state chair candidates and was supported by several conservative Iowa bloggers.

Strawn prevailed with a combination of old-school politicking (a “Pizza and Politics” tour to ten Iowa cities) and a technologically savvy online campaign (a blog with occasional YouTube video postings).

The new Iowa GOP chairman wants to use technology to improve Republicans’ standing with younger voters:

Strawn, 35, noted that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama beat Republican John McCain by 2-1 among young adults in Iowa. He said part of the problem is Republicans have failed to use modern communications methods, such as Twitter and Facebook. People are left with the impression that the party either doesn’t know how to use those channels or doesn’t care to, he said. “Either way, we’re sending a terrible message.” […]

Strawn said at a press conference that he would reach out to all age groups as he seeks to build up party registrations, raise money and recruit strong candidates for office. He vowed to regain the majorities in both houses of the Legislature, win back the governorship and make gains in Congress.

He said Republicans could do all those things without watering down the party’s conservative priorities. “If we communicate our beliefs, we can win elections,” he said.

There’s no question that the Republican Party lost young voters by large margins in 2006 and 2008, and not just in Iowa. This map created by Mike Connery shows that if only voters aged 18-29 had cast ballots for president, John McCain would have won fewer than ten states.

Instead of complaining that “a bunch of stupid college students” sank the campaigns of “far superior” candidates such as Carroll (who lost to Eric Palmer for the second time in Iowa House district 75) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (who lost to Dave Loebsack in Iowa’s second Congressional district), Republicans should be asking themselves why young voters are rejecting their candidates in such large numbers.

Strawn’s answer is that the GOP’s failure to fully exploit new technology is “sending a terrible message” to young voters.

I sincerely hope that Republicans continue to believe that their recent election losses are rooted in communication problems. I think the Republicans’ ideology is what turns off young voters. The tendency for Republicans to campaign on “culture war” issues exacerbates this problem, highlighting the topics that make the party seem out of touch to younger voters.

When I was growing up in the 1980s, the Republican Party did quite well with the 18-30 age group, including college students. In fact, my age cohort is still relatively strong for Republicans. (A chart in this post shows the presidential vote among young Americans for the past 30 years.)

Republican campaign rhetoric in the 1980s tended not to emphasize abortion, the so-called “homosexual agenda” and other polarizing social issues. Will Iowa Republicans be ready to nominate more pro-choice moderates, or at least not demonize slightly less extreme anti-choice candidates, in 2010? Given how many party activists and State Central Committee members are also involved with anti-choice groups, I am skeptical.

The Iowa Supreme Court will rule on the Varnum v Brien case sometime this year. If the majority grants same-sex marriage rights or even state-recognized civil unions, I expect an anti-gay marriage crusade to figure prominently in Republicans’ 2010 gubernatorial and statehouse campaigns. That won’t help the party’s image with young voters, who are overwhelmingly tolerant of same-sex unions. I am not even convinced it would help Republicans with the electorate at large. The only recent Iowa poll on this issue showed that even before the publicity surrounding Varnum v Brien, 58 percent of Iowa voters supported either gay marriage or civil unions.

Some Republicans want their candidates to emphasize economic issues more and do away with “litmus tests” on social issues. Shortly after the election, Doug Gross discussed the Republican Party’s problems on Iowa Public Television. Gross worked for Republican Governors Bob Ray and Terry Branstad in the 1970s and 1980s, and he was the Republican nominee for governor against Tom Vilsack in 2002. Gross had this advice for Republican candidates:

What we really have to do is speak to the fundamental issues that Iowans care about which is I’m working hard every day, in many cases a couple of jobs, my wife works as well, we take care of our kids and yet the government is going to increase our taxes, they’re going to increase spending and they’re going to give that to somebody who is not working.  That kind of message will win for republicans among the people we have and we’ve gotten away from that.  

Ah yes, the glory days, when Republicans could win by running against “tax and spend” Democrats who supposedly took money away from hard-working Americans and gave it to “welfare queens” and other unemployed ne’er-do-wells.

Suppose the Republican Party of Iowa goes back to the future with this 1980-style message. I am not convinced that this is a winning ticket. Nationwide exit polling from the most recent election showed that a majority of voters believe government should do more, not less. The same exit poll found Barack Obama won even though most people believed Republican claims that he would raise taxes.

Moreover, rising unemployment is not just an issue for lower-income or blue-collar workers. Layoffs are also hitting groups that have trended toward the Democratic Party in the last decade: suburban dwellers, white-collar professionals and college-educated whites generally. Even in affluent neighborhoods, just about everyone knows someone who has been laid off in the past six months. Government assistance to the unemployed may be more popular now than it was in the 1980s.

Losing your job means losing your health insurance for many Americans, which is particularly scary for those who have “pre-existing conditions.” More and more people are delaying routine preventive care and treatment for chronic conditions in this tough economy. I believe that the problems with our health care system are another reason that Republican “small government” rhetoric has less salience now than it did 20 years ago. Just talk to people whose families have been devastated after a private insurance company denied coverage for expensive, medically necessary procedures.

Strawn can’t single-handedly reshape the ideology of the Iowa GOP, even if he wanted to. What can he do, besides use more online social networking tools?

Fundraising must become a big part of Strawn’s job, because Iowa Republicans have fallen behind Democrats in the money race as they’ve lost political power.

Doug Gross touched on this problem in his Iowa Public Television appearance:

Now, what I hear from large givers for the Republican Party is they are tired of losing elections. They think we need to do something different, they think we need the kind of candidates who can appeal to a broader scope of the populous, that we can’t just have litmus tests associated with one particular issue if we’re going to accomplish overall republican goals and we’ve got to accomplish that if we’re going to meet them in terms of the fundraising goal.

Even wealthy people don’t like throwing money away, so Strawn will have to demonstrate that he has a winning strategy if he wants to get major donors to open their wallets yet again.

Gross is also alluding to the fact that a lot of the business community Republicans do not agree with the GOP platform on social issues. Not only that, last year party insiders snubbed one of the all-time largest donors to Iowa Republican candidates, according to Gross:

Marvin Pomerantz is a dear friend of mine and no greater supporter of the republican party than Marvin Pomerantz over the course of his life in terms of financial contributions and otherwise.  A few months before he died he wanted to be able to go to the convention because he was John McCain’s chair, finance chair in the state of Iowa and was prohibited from doing so because some member of his family had given to Planned Parenthood.  Now, I don’t support Planned Parenthood any more than you do but at the same time you don’t punish somebody who is with us 80% to 90% of the time over an issue like that.  That’s how we narrow the party and that’s how we don’t broaden it.  We have to get away from that.

Steve Scheffler, the RNC committeeman who sat next to Gross during that taping, did not dispute this account. All I can say is wow. As it turned out, Pomerantz passed away before the Republican convention, so he would not have been able to attend. But his health was known to be poor, and it is beyond belief that delegates to the state GOP convention rejected his desire to go to St. Paul as a delegate, after everything he had done for the party over so many years. I would love to replace our campaign finance system, but with the system we have you just don’t spit on your most generous contributors. I have no doubt that this story traveled widely among Republicans in the business community.

If I were Strawn, I don’t know how I would go about mending fences with offended Republican moderates, because I doubt he has the will or the ability to take social conservatives in the party leadership down a peg.

At the end of the day, I have no idea whether the State Central Committee picked the best person to run the Republican Party yesterday. Krishna’s bizarre public attack on his State Central Committee colleagues (see also his interview with Iowa Independent), just days after he failed to show up at a public forum for candidates seeking to run the party, suggests to me that he lacked the maturity for the job. Carroll’s failure to learn from his 2006 loss to Eric Palmer makes me wonder whether he would be able to turn the party around.

As I’ve written before, Republican prospects for a comeback may have less to do with new GOP leadership than with how well the Democrats govern (in Iowa and nationally). If Governor Chet Culver and state legislative leaders are seen to be doing a good job, Iowa will continue the trend toward becoming a blue state. If Culver and the statehouse leaders screw up, the Republicans may rebound no matter what Strawn does.

That said, Strawn has his work cut out for him if he wants to do more than sit back and wait for Democrats to self-destruct. I don’t think the Republican Party of Iowa can twitter and YouTube its way out of the hole they’re in, especially when it comes to younger voters.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Strawn will need to inspire confidence among statehouse Republicans in order to minimize the number of retirements. Four Republicans in the U.S. Senate have already indicated that they plan to retire rather than run for re-election in 2010. Republicans in the Iowa House and Senate may do the same, recognizing the GOP will be the minority party for some time to come. The more open seats the GOP has to defend, the more difficult it will be for them to come back.

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Braley named Vice Chair of DCCC

Bruce Braley was elected to Congress in 2006 with the support of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” program. In 2008 he helped manage the DCCC’s Red to Blue efforts. For the next election cycle, he’s been promoted again:

The DCCC today named the second of its three Vice Chairs – Congressman Bruce Braley (D-IA) will serve as Vice Chair for candidate services, responsible for the DCCC’s offensive efforts including recruitment, money, and training.  

DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen said, “The DCCC will stay aggressive this cycle and continue to challenge Republicans who are out of step with their districts.  As a former chair and former member of the Red to Blue program, Bruce Braley knows first hand what it takes to be a successful candidate; his battle tested leadership will be a real asset to our candidates facing tough elections.”

Congressman Bruce Braley brings his experience as chair of the DCCC’s successful and effective 2008 Red to Blue Program and as a former member of the Red to Blue Program.

Vice Chair Bruce Braley said, “I’m looking forward to continuing my work at the DCCC in this new leadership role.  It’s critical for us to continue assisting our candidates with the money, messaging and mobilization they will need to get elected in the 2010 election cycle.  I will work hard to help our candidates win their races.”

Congressman Bruce Braley will serve as Vice Chair for candidate services.  The DCCC’s candidate services include recruiting, money, and training.  A Vice Chair focusing on Member participation will be named at a later date.

Last month, Van Hollen named Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida the DCCC Vice Chair for incumbent retention. Given her refusal to endorse three Democratic challengers to Republican incumbents in south Florida, it was appropriate for Van Hollen to remove her from a leadership role in the Red to Blue program.

The third vice chair “will seek to increase House member participation in DCCC efforts,” which presumably means getting more safe Democratic incumbents to pay their DCCC dues.

So Braley’s niche will be finding and capitalizing on opportunities to pick up Republican-held seats. 2010 is likely to be a more challenging environment for Democratic candidates than the past two cycles, but it’s good to know the DCCC is planning to remain on offense as well. We have a chance to achieve a political realignment, given the Democratic advantages with certain demographic groups in recent elections. Building on our success in 2006 and 2008 will require the DCCC to do more than protect our own vulnerable incumbents.

Good luck to Representative Braley in his new role. He’ll be quite busy the next couple of years, with a seat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and a Populist Caucus to lead.

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What can we learn from Congressional voting patterns in 2008?

Thanks to John Deeth, I learned that Congressional Quarterly has released its annual rankings of how members of Congress voted. The full chart is here. You can check how often the representatives and senators voted with President Bush, how often they voted with the majority of their own party, and how often they were present to vote.

Deeth noticed that our own Senator Tom Harkin

voted against George Bush’s declared position more than any other senator in 2008, according to Congressional Quarterly vote scores. Harkin opposed Bush’s position 75 percent of the time.

Harkin voted with fellow Senate Democrats 97 percent of the time and participated in 98 percent of the Senate votes in 2008. That’s an impressive attendance record for a senator up for re-election, though admittedly Christopher Reed wasn’t much of an opponent.

Chuck Grassley had a perfect attendance record for Senate votes in 2008. He voted with Bush 72 percent of the time (that’s a low number for Grassley) and with the majority of Senate Republicans 93 percent of the time.

In our House delegation, Steve King (IA-05) voted with Bush the most often in 2008, 77 percent of the time. King voted with the majority in the Republican caucus 97 percent of the time and had a 98 percent attendance record.

Tom Latham (IA-04) was unusually willing to vote against Bush’s stated position this year, voting with Bush only 63 percent of the time. Latham recognized early that a Democratic wave was building and sought to rebrand himself as a moderate, independent thinker in his swing district. He still voted with fellow Republicans 90 percent of the time, and had a near-perfect 99 percent attendance record.

Congressional Quarterly’s rankings show surprisingly little difference between Iowa Democrats in the House. Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02) both voted with Bush 13 percent of the time, while Leonard Boswell (IA-03) voted with Bush 17 percent of the time. Their party loyalty rankings were almost identical, with Braley and Boswell voting with the Democratic majority 98 percent of the time, and Loebsack hitting 97 percent on that metric. They all had good attendance, with Braley making 92 percent of the votes, Loebsack 93 percent, and Boswell 88 percent despite having surgery that required a two-week hospital stay in the summer.

The differences between Iowa’s Democratic members of Congress are more apparent when you look at their Progressive Punch rankings. Considering all his votes in 2007 and 2008, Boswell was the 180th most progressive member of the House, with a progressive score of 92.38. That’s a big improvement on his lifetime progressive score of 74.36; Boswell is clearly a more reliable vote when Democrats are the majority party that controls what comes up for a vote. Ed Fallon’s primary challenge probably nudged Boswell toward more progressive voting as well.

But even the new, improved Boswell had a progressive score of only 67.86 “when the chips were down” in 2007 and 2008. The Progressive Punch “chips are down” rankings take into account particularly important votes, such as the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Loebsack ranked 123rd among House Democrats with a progressive score of 95.41 for all his 2007 and 2008 votes and a score of 80.79 “when the chips were down.”

Braley was not far behind at number 147 among House Democrats, with an overall progressive score of 94.48 and a “chips are down” score of 76.65.

It will be interesting to see whether Boswell’s voting habits change much in 2009, with no primary challenger likely to emerge.

Looking at the big picture, Congressional Quarterly’s Richard Rubin draws some conclusions from that publication’s analysis of voting in 2008:

Bush’s side prevailed on just 47.8 percent of roll call votes in 2008 where he took a clear position. That is the eighth-lowest score in the 56-year history of the survey, although it was higher than Bush’s 38.3 percent success rate in 2007. Congress forced him to accept a farm bill and Medicare doctor-payment changes he didn’t want, and lawmakers challenged him repeatedly on issues from tobacco regulation to infrastructure spending.

Moderate Republicans fled from the president as the election neared, and the average House Republican supported Bush just 64 percent of the time. That’s down 8 percentage points from a year ago and the lowest for a president’s party since 1990, midway through Bush’s father’s term in the White House. His average support score of 70 percent among GOP senators was also the lowest for a president’s party since 1990.

As in 2007, Democrats voted with Bush far less often than they had when the Republicans were in charge and could set the agenda. House Democrats voted with Bush just 16 percent of the time on average — above their 2007 support score of 7 percent but still the second lowest for any president. Democratic senators joined Bush on 34 percent of roll call votes, down from their average support score of 37 percent a year ago. […]

At the same time, despite his political weakness, Democratic control of Congress and frequent defeats, Bush got his way on some of the biggest issues of the year.

Playing offense, the administration secured more money for his effort to fight AIDS globally and cemented a nuclear-cooperation deal with India. But Bush scored most often with blocking tactics, using threatened vetoes and the Senate filibuster to avoid significant changes to his Iraq policies, major restrictions on intelligence- gathering tactics, and removal of tax breaks for oil and gas companies. He was a resilient pinata, losing plenty of votes along the way but remaining the biggest obstacle to the Democrats’ ability to turn their campaign agenda into law.

Rubin’s analysis shows that Latham is far from a maverick within the Republican caucus. He moved away from Bush in 2008 almost exactly in step with fellow House Republicans.

Taking a broader look at the trends, I see two lessons for Democrats here. First, Barack Obama should understand that driving a very hard bargain with Congress often pays off. You don’t have to back down at the first sign of serious opposition. If even an extremely unpopular president was able to do reasonably well with a Congress controlled by the other party, a new president who is quite popular like Obama should be able to get most of what he wants from a Congress controlled by his own party.

If any of Obama’s proposals fail the first year, he should consider trying again later without watering them down. Bush wasn’t able to get everything he wanted out of the Republican-controlled Congress during his first year or two, but he kept at it and was able to get much of his agenda through eventually. Many tax cuts not included in the 2001 package got through in later years. He didn’t get the energy bill he wanted until 2005.

The second lesson is for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It’s long past time to start making the Republicans pay a price for using the filibuster. Otherwise they will continue to use it routinely to block Obama’s agenda.

Nate Silver recently looked at how Republicans have used the filibuster since Democrats gained the majority in Congress. He concluded that Reid “has been exceptionally ineffective”:

There are basically two mechanisms that a majority leader can employ to limit filibusters: firstly, he can threaten to block votes on certain of the opposition party’s legislation (or alternatively, present carrots to them for allowing a vote to proceed), and secondly, he can publicly shame them. Reid managed to do neither, and the Senate Republicans did fairly well for themselves considering that they were in a minority and were burdened by a President with negative political capital.

Time to play hardball in the Senate, not only with Republicans but also with Evan Bayh and his merry band of “Blue Dogs” if they collude with Republicans to obstruct Obama’s agenda.

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Where the ticket-splitters are

Over at Swing State Project, Shinigami wrote a great diary about Congressional districts where voters split their tickets.

The big picture is that Barack Obama carried 240 Congressional districts, of which 32 sent Republicans to the U.S. House. John McCain carried 195 Congressional districts, of which 49 sent a Democrat to the U.S. House.

McCain’s advantage on this metric may surprise you, given how badly he was beaten in the electoral college, but Shinigami notes that

As has been the case since 1968, but with the exception of Bill Clinton in 1996, the GOP Presidential nominee, win or lose, has won more ticket-splitting districts than the Democratic Presidential nominee.

Click the link for the list of all the districts and some analysis of trends. The Obama/R districts are mostly in the midwest and the middle part of the east (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Virginia), except for four in California, one in Washington, and two in Florida.

The McCain/D districts are mostly in the south, midwest and plains states, plus a few in the mountain west, two in New York and four in Pennsylvania.

Overall, just under 19 percent of House districts went for a presidential candidate from one party and a member of Congress from the other party. One of Iowa’s five districts (IA-04) fell into this category.

Really, do click over to read the whole piece. It is worth your time.

UPDATE: In the comments, Pistachio thinks it’s “crazy” that Republican Tom Latham was able to win by 21 points, even though Obama carried his district by 11 (actually, I think Obama’s margin in the district was less than that). SECOND UPDATE: Thanks to Bleeding Heartland user Johannes for linking to this spreadsheet he compiled on the presidential voting in Iowa’s Congressional districts. Obama won IA-04 by about 7.5 percent.

When the presidential votes by Congressional district have been tallied across the country (Swing State Project has these for the 2000 and 2004 elections and is working on compiling the same numbers for this year’s election), it would be interesting to see which districts had the most ticket-splitting voters. LA-02 is a special case, because if not for the corruption allegations surrounding Democrat Bill Jefferson he surely would not have lost the runoff by three in a district Obama carried by 50 points. But there are other districts with disparities as large or larger than that in IA-04. For instance, Obama carried Delaware by 25 points, but Republican Mike Castle retained that state’s at-large House seat by 23 points.

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Jackie Norris on Iowa Democrats' down-ticket disappointment

Iowa Independent’s Jason Hancock recently interviewed Jackie Norris, who ran Barack Obama’s Iowa campaign during the general election. (She conducted the interview before Norris accepted her new job as First Lady Michelle Obama’s chief of staff.)

I found this exchange particularly interesting:

II: What effect do you think the Obama campaign will have on future campaigns, especially here in Iowa?

JN: I think Iowa is disappointed that more legislative candidates and candidates like Becky Greenwald didn’t win, that we didn’t see more of a coattail effect for down ballot candidates. The lesson learned is that in the counties where the Democrats weren’t organized before they realized that when they pool their efforts and work together they could actually get something done. I think what we’ve done is come in and be the catalyst for local political organizations. My hope is that once we leave they will still be energized and motivated for the next thing, whether that is a school board, a county auditor or a statehouse candidate.

II: But why weren’t the Obama coattails longer in Iowa?

JN: Iowans are notoriously independent. I also think that a lot of the people who voted were new voters and while we educated them enough to get them out to support the president they need to now be educated about the down ballot races. Not to say we didn’t do that, because I think we did see gains. But I think no one should assume voters would vote straight-ticket Democrat just because they turned out for a Democratic presidential candidate. The state and local parties need to continue to reach out to those voters in the future.

Before the election I often urged volunteers to remind voters to fill out the whole ballot and not just the oval next to Obama’s name. Every once in a while someone would ask why I was so worried about the potential “drop-off” (that is, the people who vote Democrat for president but don’t cast a vote in the down-ticket races).

Jackie Norris’s comments to Iowa Independent suggest that she thinks drop-off was the biggest problem for our statehouse candidates. That is consistent with what I’ve been hearing from staff and volunteers around the state. It is also possible, though, that the Republican scare-mongering about one-party socialist rule drove some Obama supporters away from down-ticket Democrats.

I still want to see more thorough analysis of the close statehouse races in Iowa, both the ones we lost and the ones we won.

Did the races we lost have a larger proportion of “drop-off” ballots? Or was the problem more likely to be related to ticket-splitting?

Several of our incumbents appeared to lose on election night but won once the early votes were counted. In the districts where we fell short, was the proportion of early votes lower than in the districts we held?

If you are willing to volunteer to look closely at the precinct-level results in one or more Iowa House or Senate districts, please post a comment or send me an e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com).

Although further analysis needs to be done, the disappointing down-ticket results suggest to me that Iowa Democrats need more of a coordinated GOTV campaign in 2010 and 2012 than we had this year.

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Will any Democrat challenge Culver in 2010?

I keep hearing chatter about a possible primary challenge to Governor Chet Culver in 2010. This scenario strikes me as extremely unlikely, but I want to encourage others to weigh in on this comment thread.

Running a statewide primary campaign is expensive. Who has the money for that? I can’t think of any self-funding candidate who would step up to challenge Culver. Anyone else have names in mind?

Organized labor has money and is unhappy with the governor, largely because he vetoed a collective-bargaining bill during the 2008 legislative session.

But most labor unions supported Mike Blouin in the 2006 primary, and their backing wasn’t enough to defeat Culver before he was an incumbent. Culver will go into the next campaign with huge institutional advantages he didn’t have as the secretary of state.

It would seem more logical for organized labor to continue the strategy they adopted this year: focus their political giving on statehouse candidates likely to support their agenda. If Culver continues to disappoint, simply don’t donate to his re-election campaign. That is cheaper than spending lots of money on a primary challenger.

I think there’s a decent chance the 56 Democrats who will be in the Iowa House in 2009 will be able to pass either “fair share” legislation (which would weaken Iowa’s right-to-work law) or a collective-bargaining bill like the one Culver vetoed. Getting those bills through the new Senate will be no problem. As I’ve written before, Culver supports fair share, and it wasn’t his fault it couldn’t get through the House in 2007. I also doubt Culver would veto a collective-bargaining bill a second time.

If labor unions decide to go all out against Culver, who could they find? I can’t think of many politicians with enough stature to pull this off. A few people have named sitting legislators in conversations with me, but I find it hard to believe any of them would take that risk. Look how the Democratic establishment reacted when Ed Fallon challeged the thoroughly mediocre Leonard Boswell in the third district Congressional primary.

Anyway, none of the current leadership in the House and Senate would be likely to win the support of other Democrats who have their own reasons for being disappointed with Culver. For instance, environmentalists who wish the governor would back agricultural zoning at the county level (also known as “local control” of CAFOs) have gotten zero help from statehouse leaders since Democrats regained the majority. Ditto for liberals who want to see the legislature adopt campaign finance reform (the Voter-Owned Iowa Clean Elections act).

One person suggested to me that a primary challenger would not be able to defeat Culver, but could damage him enough to cost us the governor’s chair in 2010. I find this scenario unlikely as well. Let’s say organized labor backs someone like Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal for governor. I don’t think he will run against Culver, I’m just throwing out his name because he is well known and could raise a significant amount of money. He hasn’t put muscle behind local control or clean elections–on the contrary, he insulted a group of activists who came to the capitol in April 2007 to lobby for the VOICE act. I don’t see him getting enough traction in a primary campaign to do real damage. If anything, he could help Culver with swing voters in the general election, by showing that the big, bad “special interests” are unhappy with the governor.

I don’t mean to sound complacent. The Republican Party of Iowa is bruised and divided now but could rebound by 2010 with the right gubernatorial candidate. More important, the fiscal outlook is terrible at both the national and state level. That and other continuing economic problems pose a much bigger threat to Culver’s re-election than the prospect of a Democratic primary challenger.

What do you think?

Time to GOTV: early voting starts tomorrow in Iowa

You may recall that Al Gore carried Iowa by two votes per precinct, but did you know that early voting gave Gore his margin of victory here?

I explained why I vote early here, and Justus wrote a more comprehensive piece on the subject at BooMan Tribune.

Every vote Democrats bank early reduces the chance of losing votes through illness or family emergencies. Every vote Democrats bank early means one less phone number for volunteers to call, and one less door for canvassers to knock on election day.

The Obama campaign in Iowa is running 21 phone banks today to promote early voting. There will also be 17 “vote early for change” supporter gatherings tomorrow morning across the state. Details for all those events are after the jump.

Even if you don’t have time to volunteer today or tomorrow, keep your eye out for anyone you know who might be willing to vote before election day. On Tuesday I ran into an elderly neighbor whose husband has a lot of health problems. She’s got her hands full, so I asked her if she needed absentee ballot request forms. She said that would be wonderful–she hadn’t had time yet to look into how that worked. I went home and called the Obama precinct captain in my neighborhood, and she had a volunteer run the forms over a few hours later.

Remember to tell your friends and family that they should fill out the whole ballot and not just vote for Barack Obama. We need to win those down-ticket races.

Also remember that there are many ways to volunteer that do not involve calling strangers on the phone or knocking on strangers’ doors.

You can bring food to a campaign headquarters, offer to sort literature for the canvassers, put up an out-of-town volunteer in your spare room, or even do laundry or errands for a campaign staffer. Or, just call your local campaign office to ask what kind of help they need.

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Five reasons to get involved in state legislative races (w/poll)

cross-posted around the blogosphere

On July 4 I marched with volunteers and staff for Jerry Sullivan, Democratic candidate in Iowa House district 59.

We don’t hear much about state legislative races on national blogs, because it would be overwhelming to keep up with what’s going on all over the country.

But you should get involved on behalf of a good Democrat running for your state’s Assembly, House or Senate. Five reasons why are after the jump.

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Events coming up this week

As always, post a comment or send me an e-mail if I’ve left out a noteworthy event.

If you have kids and live in central Iowa, this coming week is your last chance to see the Asian elephant Rosie and her calf JP at the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines. July 13 will be their last day at the zoo.

Monday, July 7:

It’s Edna Griffin day at the Fort Des Moines Museum and Education Center, 75 S.E. Army Post Road in Des Moines. Sixty years ago, Griffin “led a series of protests that ultimately enforced Iowa’s civil rights statutes after she was refused service at a Katz Drug Store in downtown Des Moines because she was black.”

The Des Moines Register reports:

The tribute to Edna Griffin, who served in the Women’s Army Corps in World War II, includes a 2 p.m. ceremony for naming a room at the Grimes State Office Building, 400 E. 14th St., and a 7 p.m. theatrical tribute at the Fort Des Moines Museum and Education Center, 75 S.E. Army Post Road.

The tribute will be done by Ruth Ann Gaines and Maureen Korte, with music by John Cheatem, and a march to remember Iowa’s civil rights heroes. Both events are free. For more information, call 282-8060. […]

To recreate the mood of the era, the tribute uses monologues derived from interviews with people involved with Griffin’s protests of the store and subsequent lawsuit.

Representative Bruce Braley (IA-01) begins his annual “Congress on Your Corner” tour on Monday.  “Congress on Your Corner” meetings are designed to give Iowans an opportunity to meet with Braley to discuss their concerns, discuss recent initiatives in Congress, and open casework.

Here is Braley’s public schedule for the day:  

8:00 am                    Waterloo/Cedar Falls Congress on Your Corner

                                   Cedar Falls Conference Center

                                    3712 Cedar Heights Dr .

                                    Cedar Falls , Iowa      

11:00am                    Parkersburg Congress on Your Corner

                                   Parkersburg Veterans Memorial Building

                                    205 Colfax St .

                                    Parkersburg , Iowa

2:00pm                    Waverly Congress on Your Corner

                                   Waverly Public Library

                                   1500  W. Bremer Ave.

                                   Waverly, Iowa

The Environmental Protection Commission will hold a general discussion meeting from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. July 7 at King’s Pointe Resort, 1520 Lakeshore Drive in Storm Lake. This meeting will be followed by a walking tour of Storm Lake, starting at the resort at 3:00 p.m. At 6:00 p.m., the committee will attend the Storm Lake Preservation Association Picnic at the Storm Lake Municipal Golf Course Club House at 1528 Lakeshore Drive.  

Tuesday, July 8:

Lots going on at the Environmental Protection Commission’s monthly meeting:

The Department of Natural Resources will update the Environmental Protection Commission on the status of flooding events in Iowa and summarize its response efforts to the flood at the monthly EPC meeting July 8. They will also discuss how land use practices can contribute to flooding.

The meeting will start at 9:00 a.m. at King’s Pointe Resort, 1520 Lakeshore Drive in Storm Lake. The meeting is open to the public, with public comments starting at 10:30 a.m.

During the meeting, the EPC will also consider a proposed rule to establish criteria for awarding grants to independent recycling redemption centers. The DNR received $1 million in grants from the state’s general fund to improve these centers.

The EPC will also hear a proposal to update the Water Quality Standards Antidegradation Policy, which sets minimum requirements for the state to follow in order to conserve, maintain and protect existing uses and water quality.

DNR geologist Claire Hruby will discuss manure application on frozen or snow-covered ground at 1 p.m. on Tuesday. This issue was raised in May with an EPC motion. The EPC also received a petition from the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement to limit or ban this practice. ICCI has amended its petition and granted an indefinite extension on the usual 60-day period for response to the petition.

Look for more information about the agenda items on the DNR Web site under Commissions and Boards at www.iowadnr.gov.

Join Senators Staci Appel, Amanda Ragan, and Becky Schmitz for a fundraising reception to benefit the Senate Majority Fund:

Women of the Senate”

Past, Present & Future

Tuesday, July 8th from 5:30-7:30 PM

at the home of Roxanne Conlin

2900 Southern Hills Circle, Des Moines 50312

Join us for an evening of good food and drink and to support the Senate Democratic Majority Fund.  Valet Parking will be provided.

Suggested Contribution Levels:

Host: $1000      Sponsor: $500

Patron: $250      Supporter: $125

Guest: $50

Click here to contribute.

*all online contributions before July 6th will be recognized at the event

Please RSVP if you can attend. (The link to RSVP was broken–I would call the Senate Democrats office.)

Bruce Braley will hold a telephone town hall meeting on July 8 at 7 pm Central Daylight Time:

The purpose of the call is to allow Rep. Braley and his staff to discuss federal assistance available to flood victims and answer questions about federal disaster programs.

The technology employed by Braley will call out to thousands of Iowans in the First District who can then choose to participate in the forum when reached.

Iowans who wish to call in to the town hall themselves should contact one of Rep. Braley’s district offices for a call-in number and passcode.

Nearly 5,000 residents of the district participated in Braley’s first telephone town hall meeting last month, which was about gasoline prices.

One Iowa’s “Coffee House/Happy Hour” will be at the Ritual Cafe, 13th Street between Grand and Locust in downtown Des Moines, from 5:00 to 6:45 pm on July 8:

At One Iowa, we believe all families should have equal protections and responsibilities; the way to achieve this is through marriage.  As we continue our work toward Marriage Equality, this month we are focusing on the newly released comic (hot off the presses) “Iowa’s Noble Courage In Civil Rights” and the recently shot video “United for Equality.”

On Tuesday, One Iowa has the honor to host Andrea Fehring, our Marriage Equality Educator at Ritual; she will talk about the comic and video, and discuss how you can become more involved in this campaign toward equality.  Andrea’s presentation will start at 5:30pm. […]  

For questions, please contact One Iowa at (515)288-4019, or you can visit our web site at www.oneiowa.org.

Thursday, July 10:

A huge list of prominent Iowa Democrats including former Lt. Governor Sally Pederson & Jim Autry and Charlotte & Fed Hubbell are hosting a fundraiser for Becky Greenwald on July 10 from 5:00 to 6:30 pm at Dos Rios restaurant on 4th Street and Court Avenue in downtown Des Moines:

Contribution levels:

$1,000 – Host             $500 – Sponsor           $250 – Supporter        $100 – Friend

Please make checks payable to: Becky Greenwald for Congress

RSVP (515) 987-2800 or BeckyGreenwald@gmail.com

Individual contributions limited to $2300 and are not tax deductible.  Corporate contributions are not permitted.

Becky Greenwald for Congress * Iowa 4th District

P.O. Box 608 * Perry, IA  50220 * 515-564-3883 * www.beckygreenwald.com

Friday, July 11:

IowaPolitics.com is holding another “Cookies and Conversation” program at Drake University from 1:30 to 2:30 pm:

The program, “Food, Fuel, and Iowa ‘s Future Energy Needs” will feature panelists:

Bill Northey, Iowa’s Secretary of Agriculture; Frank Cownie, Des Moines Mayor; John Norris, Chairman of the Iowa Utilities Board; and Roya Stanley, Executive Director of the Iowa Office of Energy Independence.

The event is free, but reservations are required. Free cookies and beverages will be served.

Doors will open at 1 p.m. The program will be held in Levitt Hall, in Old Main, at 25th and University.

If you can attend please RSVP to Julie Rutz at rutz@IowaPolitics.com or call 515.226.8774. If you cannot attend but are interested in the program Mediacom will be taping the program and rebroadcasting it on its Connections Channel and Video On Demand program. The schedule will be posted on our Website at http://www.iowapolitics.com/ as soon as it becomes available.

Sunday, July 13:

House district 59 candidate Jerry Sullivan is holding a fundraiser at the Great Midwestern Café, 1250 NW 128th St in Clive, from 5 pm to 7 pm:

Partner: $500

Host: $250

Sponsor: $100

Friend: $50

Checks can be made out to Sullivan for State Representative.

Please RSVP with Mike at (614) 561-9117 or mmccall@iowademocrats.org.

The rest of the press release from Sullivan’s campaign is after the jump. It includes a link to his ActBlue page.

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July 4 open thread

Use this as an open thread to tell us about anything interesting that happened today at a parade or other holiday event.

The number of spectators at the Windsor Heights parade was way down compared to last year. I think more people than usual went out of town this year, because July 4 fell on a Friday. There were still a lot of people lining the streets, but nothing like last year.

Give to the DNC if you support the 50-state strategy

Although John McCain hasn’t raised nearly as much money as Barack Obama has, the Republican National Committee has far outpaced the Democratic National Committee in fundraising.

The DNC is trying to narrow that gap, but it will need a lot more donations from individuals, because like Obama’s campaign, the DNC is not accepting donations from Washington lobbyists or political action committees.

They’ve designed a t-shirt that says “Democratic Party–Not Paid For by Special Interest PACs or Washington Lobbyists.” If you click this link and donate at least $30, you can get one:

https://donate.barackobama.com…

I am not currently donating to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee or the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, because I am dissatisfied with the House and Senate leadership and prefer to give to individual candidates.

However, I encourage everyone to support the DNC, because I believe Howard Dean’s investment in the 50-state strategy will pay huge dividends to our party. Two or three years ago, some skeptics thought it was a waste of time for Dean to invest in the state Democratic parties, but we have won three special Congressional elections in a row this year in Republican-leaning districts.

After the jump I’ve put the full text of the DNC’s fundraising e-mail that went out today.

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How can a Democrat win in Ankeny?

(I hope he'll share his own ideas soon. - promoted by desmoinesdem)

I have my own ideas, but would like to hear from others out there.  I'm looking for constructive criticism and more importantly fresh ideas.

 

Thanks! 

March with local Democrats in July 4 parades

I have been meaning to put up a post on this, and the e-mail I received tonight jogged my memory:

Dear great democrats in Polk Co.

I’m Matthew Peirce from the Iowa Democratic Party and we’re looking for people to help out at the various parades happening over the July 4 holiday weekend.

The parades we are involved in are listed below and if you could get back to me or to Tamyra Harrison with your willingness to participate, it would be appreciated by all involved!

Thanks so very much and here is the text that was sent out over the Polk Co. Dems listserv.

Apologies for duplicates.

Matthew Peirce

Field Organizer, Polk County

Iowa Democratic Party

Office:515-244-7292

Cell:  402-540-7977

Come out and show your support for Obama, Harkin, Boswell and all the other Polk County Elected Officials and Candidates up for election this year. Bring the whole family.

We will be walking in the upcoming parades:

West Des Moines – July 3rd

Line-up begins at 5:30pm

Parade begins at 6:30pm

The parade will start at 35th and Ashworth and head east, then turn on Vine and proceed to 4th St., then turn south on 4th St. and conclude at Maple.

Urbandale – July 4th

Line-up begins at 9am

Parade begins at 10am

The parade will start at City Hall and go north on 70th to Aurora and then west on Aurora to the middle school

Windsor Heights – July 4th

Line-up begins at 12pm

Parade begins at 1pm

The parade will line-up and begin at the Sherwood Forest Shopping Center on the corner of 73rd and Hickman.

To join us and get more information, please call Tamyra at 515-285-1800 or reply to this email at polkdems@polkcountydemocrats.org

No matter where you live, I encourage you to volunteer to march with local Democrats on the 4th of July. You’ll meet nice people and help our candidates make a good impression with the friendly crowds on the holiday.

If you’ve got a flag to carry, great. If you want to make your own sign, that’s also fun. In past years I have marched with a hand-made sign that says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (and women!) are created equal…”

I will be marching with Windsor Heights Mayor Jerry Sullivan, our candidate in House district 59.

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Organized labor still angry at Culver

Jason Hancock has a story up at Iowa Independent about labor unions working hard to increase the Democratic majorities in the Iowa legislature.

It’s clear that members of the labor community are still furious that Governor Chet Culver vetoed a collective-bargaining bill passed toward the end of this year’s session:

Ken Sager, president of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, said the 2008 legislative session ended on a sour note, but he hopes that be used as motivation in the future.

“A lot of our members are very disappointed and angry that we were finally able to get a [collective bargaining] bill through the legislature and we couldn’t get the governor’s signature,” he said. “We were very surprised, and we’ve heard from a number of legislative leaders who were just as stunned as we were. Now, we’re trying to focus that anger in a productive way to help build the labor movement for the future.”

In the federation’s most recent newsletter, the veto was put in much starker terms.

“The 2008 Legislative Session will go down in Iowa labor history as the session when a Democratic governor turned his back on the unions that enthusiastically supported him and helped get him elected,” the newsletter said. “When Gov. Culver vetoed the public sector collective bargaining bill, not only public workers, but all of labor was stunned by what they felt was an out-and-out betrayal.”

Cityview weekly’s “Civic Skinny” column recently commented on the strained relationship:

It wasn’t on his schedule, but [Culver] showed up the other day at the dedication of the Iowa Workers Monument. Skinny wasn’t sure what that means – so she turned to the Senior Analyst for Civic Skinny, who had a ready explanation. “This was organized labor’s effort to recognize Iowa’s workers that started way back in 2004. With the collective bargaining veto, it would have added insult to injury to have skipped the event, but he didn’t put it on his public schedule or send out a press release to promote the dedication of the monument – which is located on state property,” the Senior Analyst analyzed. Then, morphing into a Senior Cynic, he added: “Maybe this was the advice he got from the same pollsters that advised him to veto the collective bargaining bill.” “Way back in 2004” is code for “during the Vilsack administration,” and several Vilsack people – including the former governor himself – are on the Monument committee, which might be another reason Culver didn’t play up the dedication.

I wish labor unions every success in helping elect more Democratic legislators who are strong on their issues.

If Culver had asked for my advice, I would have encouraged him to sign the collective-bargaining bill. I wasn’t persuaded by the arguments that corporate and Republican interest groups made against it.

That said, the Democrats in the legislature badly bungled the passage of the bill, in my opinion.

Let’s take a step back.

In 2007 the slim Democratic majority in the House was unable to hold together to pass the “fair share” bill that would have weakened Iowa’s right-to-work law. This was one of the hot-button issues from the earliest days of the session, and it was a blow to the leadership’s credibility not to get it through.

Statehouse leaders tried a different tactic with the collective-bargaining bill this year. Instead of making clear early in the session that it would be one of their priorities, they let it be added as a 14-page amendment to a different bill, after the first funnel deadline had passed.

In theory, bills need to be approved by a legislative committee before that funnel deadline in order to be voted on during the legislative session. There are exceptions (the leadership can introduce new bills after the funnel), but in general, major initiatives are not supposed to be introduced after the funnel date.

Then, Democrats tried to limit debate over the collective bargaining proposal, prompting Senate Republicans to take unusual steps to force debate on it.

As I said above, I support the substance of the bill. I understand why it would be advantageous for the leadership not to tip their hand early in the session about the collective bargaining bill. Doing so would have given opponents more time to mobilize against it and lean on the less reliable members of the Democratic caucus.

But look at this situation from Culver’s perspective. The Democrats in the legislature looked like they were afraid to debate the collective bargaining measure in broad daylight. That’s what is implied when you introduce a major policy initiative as a long amendment and limit debate before forcing it through on a party-line vote.

I have no idea whether Culver vetoed the bill over substantive disagreements or solely because of political considerations, but I understand his reluctance to get behind a controversial bill approved in this manner.

Let’s elect more good Democrats to the legislature. They should be able to pass a strong collective bargaining bill next year without giving the appearance of trying to slip it in under the radar.

Then Culver should sign it without hesitation.

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Which presidential candidate had the best celebrity supporters? (w/poll)

Ben Smith put up a post about Barack Obama’s prominent early supporters, who came on board when he was seen as having little chance of beating Hillary Clinton. Here is his list:

Senator Richard Durbin

Former Majority Leader Tom Daschle

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller

Oprah Winfrey

Iowa Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald

Former Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Gordon Fischer

Ted Sorensen

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine

Alabama Rep. Artur Davis

New Hampshire Rep. Paul Hodes

It’s easy to forget now that Gordon Fischer was on the fence between Clinton and Obama for some time last summer. He told the story of how Obama’s campaign hooked him in an interview with New Yorker journalist Ryan Lizza:

Obama, who had sometimes seemed to eschew the details of campaigning which Clinton appears to revel in, has become more enmeshed in the state’s idiosyncratic politics. Consider the conquest of Gordon Fischer, a former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party. Every campaign wanted Fischer’s endorsement, but the Obama campaign pursued him relentlessly. At a recent lunch at the Des Moines Embassy Club, a restaurant on the forty-first floor of the tallest building in the state, Fischer explained how Obama’s Iowa operatives used his closest friends to persuade him to back Obama. One, Lola Velázquez-Aguilú, managed to decorate part of Fischer’s house with photographs of Obama that featured thought bubbles asking for Fischer’s endorsement. (“Has anyone told you how great you look today?” an image of Obama taped to a mirror said. “So, are you ready to sign a supporter card?”) When Obama staffers learned that the late Illinois senator Paul Simon was a hero of Fischer’s, they asked Simon’s son-in-law, Perry Knop, to call Fischer and make the case for Obama. At one point, Obama himself invited Fischer onto his campaign bus and told him that he had to stay aboard until he agreed to an endorsement. When Fischer insisted that he had to make the decision with his wife, Monica, Obama demanded Monica’s cell-phone number, and he called her at once. “Monica, this is Barack Obama,” he said when her voice mail came on. “I’m with your husband here, and I’m trying to go ahead and close the deal for him to support my candidacy. . . . Discuss it over with your man. Hopefully we can have you on board.” The Fischers were sufficiently impressed to endorse him, two weeks later. “I think the Iowa campaign has been run better than the national campaign,” Fischer said.

When I read Lizza’s article last November, I showed that passage to my husband, who remarked, “That’s actually a really good argument for scrapping the caucuses.” I’m sure that wasn’t Fischer’s intention, though!

But I digress.

Ben Smith’s post reminded me that I’ve been meaning to put up a poll about which candidate had the best celebrity supporters.

For the purposes of this diary, I am focusing on celebrities who publicly endorsed or campaigned for a candidate. Lists of famous donors can be deceiving, since many rich and famous people give large sums to multiple candidates:

Actor Michael Douglas, for example, has contributed to five current and former Democratic presidential candidates. As of Sept. 30, the latest reports available, he had donated the maximum $4,600 $2,300 for the primary campaign and $2,300 for the general election to Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd, and $1,500 to Dennis Kucinich.

[…]

Another serial donor in the current election is Paul Newman, who gave the maximum contribution to Obama, Clinton, and Dodd, and $2,300 to Richardson.

Some donors have spread the wealth around but have decided to back one candidate. Barbra Streisand gave $2,300 each to Clinton, Edwards and Obama, and $1,000 to Dodd, but recently endorsed Clinton for president.

[…]

Steven Spielberg and Rob Reiner are two other celebrities who donated to multiple presidential candidates four a piece before settling on Clinton. Reiner also shot a spoof video for Clinton’s Web site.

Actress Mary Steenburgen gave money to both Edwards and Clinton, but has backed Clinton, a friend for three decades, from the get-go. Steenburgen, a native of Newport, Ark., met the Clintons when Bill Clinton was in his first term as governor of Arkansas.

Last month the Huffington Post published this piece on the top ten celebrities for Clinton and Obama. Here is their list for Obama:

1. Oprah

2. will.i.am

3. the Kennedy women (Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and Maria Shriver)

4. Ben Affleck

5. George Clooney

6. Scarlett Johansson

7. Samuel L. Jackson

8. Chris Rock

9. Robert De Niro

10. Jennifer Aniston

At least I have heard of these people. When I first saw will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” video, I swear that the only person I recognized was Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

HuffPo’s list of top ten Clinton supporters:

1. Ellen DeGeneres

2. Elton John

3. Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen

4. Jack Nicholson

5. Natalie Portman

6. Mario Lavandeira (I never heard of him, but apparently he is the celebrity blogger Perez Hilton)

7. America Ferrera (star of “Ugly Betty”)

8. Magic Johnson

9. Barbra Streisand

10. Eva Longoria Parker (star of “Desperate Housewives”)

The list of other famous people who have donated to Obama or Clinton is of course very long. I know that Bruce Springsteen and Tom Hanks are also public Obama supporters. If I’ve left out celebrities who played an important public role in either candidate’s campaign, please let me know in the comments.

John Edwards: A bunch of big Hollywood names donated to his campaign, but most of them did not play any public role, and many also gave money to other Democratic candidates.

I was fortunate enough to see one of the mini-concerts Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne did for Edwards in Iowa last November. They also campaigned for him in New Hampshire. Tim Robbins came to early-voting states to stump for Edwards as well. I heard from a friend who saw Robbins in Des Moines that his first comment to the crowd was, “I’m not Oprah.” Ben “Cooter” Jones, former Congressman and star of the tv show “Dukes of Hazzard,” also campaigned for Edwards in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

UPDATE: I can’t believe I forgot that Madeleine Stowe, Kevin Bacon, and James Denton (of “Desperate Housewives” fame) also came to Iowa to help out Edwards. In addition, Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte endorsed Edwards. Jon Mellencamp not only supported Edwards, he also invited him on stage during a concert in Des Moines.

Bill Richardson: Again, a lot of big Hollywood names maxed out to his campaign, but most of them didn’t endorse him. The exception was Martin Sheen, who came to Iowa in December to go out on the stump with Richardson. Sheen endorsed Obama after Richardson dropped out.

Joe Biden: The famous people listed here as his donors mostly contributed to other candidates as well. I cannot recall any celebrities coming to Iowa to campaign with Biden, but please correct me in the comments if I am wrong. He was often accompanied by family members, especially his sons Beau and Hunter. (UPDATE: I forgot that Richard Schiff, who played Toby the communications guy on “The West Wing,” came to Iowa to campaign with Biden.)

Chris Dodd: Many of the famous people who donated to his campaign also donated to other candidates. However, it is worth mentioning that singer-songwriter Paul Simon campaigned with Dodd in Iowa last July, and former Democratic Senatorial candidate Ned Lamont campaigned with Dodd in Iowa last November.

Dennis Kucinich: Viggo Mortensen came to New Hampshire to campaign with Kucinich after the candidate was left out of the last presidential debate before that state’s primary. Apparently Sean Penn gave Kucinich money during the 2004 campaign.

I am not aware of any celebrity supporters of Mike Gravel.

Click “there’s more” to take the poll after the jump.

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Voters reject borrowing plan for Polk County courthouse

Looks like the backers of the Polk County Courthouse renovation plan needed to do a better job of getting supporters to vote by absentee ballot:

A $132 million plan to renovate the Polk County Courthouse and build an eight-story annex next door suffered a double-digit loss today at the polls.

The result was a victory for anti-tax campaigners, who said the proposal would burden property owners during uncertain economic times.

Voters, 56.7 percent to 43.3 percent, ultimately rejected supporters’ arguments that the bond issue represented an urgent need for a courthouse some consider cramped, outdated and unsafe. […]

The proposal was projected to add $23.24 to the annual property tax bill on a home valued at $100,000. The borrow-and-build plan needed 60 percent approval to pass. The measure failed 17,603 to 13,453.

Voter turnout – 31,056, or 11 percent – was lower than some early predictions today. More than 80 percent of the 2,499 absentee ballot voters sided with the courthouse proposal.

They need to start holding referenda on the same date as regularly scheduled elections. I don’t see why this vote couldn’t have been held on June 3, when many more voters in Polk County are likely to be voting in third Congressional district primary.

Although this vote wasn’t as lopsided as last summer’s “Destiny” tax proposal vote, which only got 15 percent approval, it again highlights the lack of public trust in county officials to borrow and spend our money wisely. I don’t have an answer for how to deal with this. I think multiple poor decisions by county officials over a number of years have contributed to the problem.

Meanwhile, I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time before some big tragedy occurs due to the overcrowded conditions at the Polk County Courthouse.    

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Vote Yes on the Polk County Courthouse Referendum

The Polk County Democrats forwarded via e-mail an open letter signed by many well-known Democratic attorneys, including Polk County Attorney John Sarcone, prominent plaintiff’s attorney Roxanne Conlin, superb defense attorney Alfredo Parrish, Iowa Democratic Party chairman Scott Brennan, and past IDP chairman Gordon Fischer.

I agree with them that Polk County needs to renovate its courthouse, which is unsafe and inadequate in many ways.

I will be voting yes on April 29.

From Local Party Activists:

BUILDING FOR JUSTICE VOTE YES ON APRIL 29TH

TO OUR DEMOCRAT FRIENDS:

Our courthouse is the last bastian of direct democracy.  It is the place where any citizen with any complaint can have their issue heard and resolved.  It is also the place where criminal justice is delivered.  Access to our courthouse is the cornerstone of our republic.  Access requires a safe and secure environment, free from intimidation.  

Our Polk County Courthouse is more than 100 years old.  It is overcrowded, unsafe, and without adequate security.  The condition of our courthouse negatively impacts the delivery of justice and access guaranteed to all.

We must do something now.  A plan to fix our problem will come before the voters on April 29th.  Please join us in supporting the courthouse referendum.  The project has been carefully studied.  It is reasonable and sensible in scope, it fully restores and utilizes our historic courthouse, and solves our problem now and for future generations.

Let’s come together as our community did over 100 years ago to solve this problem and create a legacy for generations to come.  Justice deserves nothing less.

Vote “YES” on the Polk County Courthouse Referendum on April 29th.  For further information visit: wwwbuildingforjustice.org.

Marc Beltrame

Ray Blase

Scott Brennan

Roxanne Conlin

Guy Cook

Gordon Fischer

Tom Henderson

Bill McCarthy

Al Parrish

John Sarcone

Tom Whitney

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Fraud did not determine the winner of the Iowa caucuses

Every once in a while on one of the national political blogs, a supporter of Hillary Clinton or John Edwards will assert that Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses by busing in thousands of ineligible voters from out of state.

As any regular reader of this blog knows, I am no fan of Obama, and I’ve strongly criticized some aspects of the Iowa caucus system.

But I have yet to encounter any serious observer of Iowa politics who believes Obama won Iowa by cheating. I have been talking to many volunteers for the Clinton and Edwards campaigns in Iowa, and a few staffers, while researching a future diary on how those candidates might have beaten Obama here. Literally no one I’ve talked with has claimed that Obama did not legitimately win the caucuses.

No doubt there were some people from out of state who fraudulently registered to vote here on caucus night. I’ve heard that may have been a particular problem in some areas of Scott County. But I haven’t seen any evidence that the Obama campaign orchestrated any fraud, and there’s no way the cheaters were numerous enough to account for Obama’s margin of victory here.

If you don’t believe me, read this story from the Des Moines Register: Caucuses drew few ineligible voters:

The Register review of voter registration data from all 99 counties reveals a low rate of new voter applications filled out on caucus night by people whose addresses later could not be verified.

Only 1.5 percent of the new voter identification cards mailed to voters who registered on caucus night were returned to county auditors as undeliverable. That’s an indication that the vast majority of new caucus-night voters had a bona fide address in Iowa.

State officials say the low error rate is impressive, especially since caucus-night turnout vastly exceeded expectations and overwhelmed local party officials around the state.

The other argument I hear from the occasional conspiracy theorist on a different blog is that Obama’s campaign bused in large numbers of students from out of state. First, that would have affected turnout in a relatively small number of Iowa’s 1,800 precincts.

Second, as long as those students attend Iowa colleges and live in state most of the year, I have no problem with a campaign helping them get back to their campuses in early January. What’s the qualitative difference between that and my giving someone in my neighborhood a ride to the caucus if he or she can’t drive?

The caucuses never should have been scheduled during the winter vacation of most colleges anyway.  

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Events coming up this weekend

Friday, April 11, 7pm to 8 pm: House party for Ed Fallon at the home of Gene and Lucy Krauss, 3660 Grand Ave. apt. 240, Des Moines. RSVP to Jamie at (515) 822-4284.

Saturday, April 12, starting at 11 am: Young College Democrats Conference at Grinnell College. Ed Fallon will be speaking there, but I don’t know what else is on the program.

Saturday, April 12, 7 pm: “Clarence Darrow: The Search for Justice,” First Christian Church, 2500 University Ave. in Des Moines. “Gary Anderson, nationally renowned portrayer of Clarence Darrow, depicts the man many consider the most brilliant person ever to argue law.  Darrow was famous for his work in the Scopes “Monkey” Trial.  He fought against the death penalty, social injustice, racism, conspiracy laws, and civil liberties violations.” Co-sponsored by First Christian Church and the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa. Tickets are available at the door and cost $10 for students and $20 for other adults.

Also, if you are the parent of children under the age of 10, you may want to come hear Justin Roberts and his Not Ready for Naptime Players at 11 am on Saturday, April 12, at the Masonic temple in downtown Des Moines (on Park between 5th and 6th). Justin is a Des Moines native (Roosevelt High School class of 1988) and is one of the best children’s songwriters around. Really, even adults enjoy his music! The concert is a fundraiser for the Des Moines Symphony Academy–tickets cost $15.

Please consider this an open thread for posting about any other interesting event coming up soon.

BlogPac launches new campaign: From Blue to Bluer

Chris Bowers announced the launch of the “From blue to bluer” campaign on Tuesday, and asked state bloggers to spread the word. Here are some highlights from his post on Open Left:

Five years ago, starting with his Presidential campaign and continuing with his tenure as DNC chair, Howard Dean introduced the idea of a “fifty state strategy” to the Democratic Party. The basic premise of the fifty-state strategy is that in order to truly revitalize the party Democrats needed to organize everywhere in the country, no matter how red or how blue a district may be, and not just in a select few “swing district” districts.

More recently, progressives have utilized Democratic primaries as a means to successfully change Democratic behavior. So far this year, this strategy has worked in districts such as the Illinois 3rd where Dan Lipinski changed his vote on Iraq because of his primary challenger, the Iowa 3rd where Blue Dog Leonard Boswell has suddenly become a progressive on a range of issues now that Ed Fallon is running against him, and the Maryland 4th where Donna Edwards handily defeated the more conservative Al Wynn. It is in the spirit of all three of these projects that BlogPac is announcing a similar program to reform safe, blue seats at the local and statewide level: From Blue to Bluer.

From Blue to Bluer seeks to first identify, and then help elect, progressive, grassroots candidates who are running in competitive Democratic primaries in blue districts around the country. The primaries can either be for open seats or against incumbents who are either too conservative for their districts, or who are simply corrupt, or both. The goal is to find a handful of proudly progressive primary candidates for local and state legislative races, and then provide them with the national support they need to help put them over the top. Through this program, we can show Democrats across the country that that a fifty-state strategy means blue districts too, and that all Democrats, no matter how local, can be held accountable for not representing their districts or for selling out progressive ideals.

Chris’s post goes into more detail about how solidly Democratic districts do not necessarily produce progressive office-holders (and he cites some examples from Philadelphia politics).

BlogPac is asking progressive activists from all over the country to nominate candidates who have the potential to turn blue districts bluer:

At BlogPac, we want to identify, and help elect, the best progressive primary candidates in blue districts around the country. Let’s find more Anne Dickers! The first step in this campaign is finding the right candidates to support, and that’s where you come in. If you have a suggestion for a local or state-level candidate for us to support, please fill out the form below and email it to natasha[dot]the[at]gmail.com:

From Blue To Bluer Submission Form

Please send your emails as word documents with the subject line “From Blue To Bluer.”

Just because a seat is blue does not mean it can’t become even bluer. Let’s build a truly national movement, and make a more progressive, reformed Democratic Party nationwide. Send in your suggestions today. The candidates we help support will only be as good as the ones you suggest.

At Open Left, you can find the link to the submission form, which is a pdf file. It looks like this:

Your name:

Your email:

Your website, if applicable:

Suggested Candidate Name:

District:

Major towns in district and/or link to a district map:

Incumbent name, if applicable:

Why is that primary a good one for the national netroots to get involved in (1,000 words or less):

If you know of any good primary battles shaping up at the state or local level in Iowa, please consider bringing the progressive challenger to the attention of BlogPac.

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Barack Obama is now the front-runner

Barack Obama was expected to win today’s primaries in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia, but he won them by even larger margins than expected. He now leads Clinton in the pledged delegate count, and may even be leading if you include Michigan and Florida.

I agree with DrinksGreenTea that it would be disastrous to have superdelegates decide our nominee at the convention. I also would hate to see our nominee determined by the decision over whether Michigan and Florida delegates are seated. I would like to see a clear winner emerge from the primaries.

That means either Hillary needs to win all of the March 4 primaries convincingly, and win Pennsylvania in April, or Obama needs to take at least one of the following: Texas, Ohio, or Pennsylvania.

If Obama wins a big state, there will be almost no way for Clinton to overtake him, and I don’t think superdelegates will go against the candidate who leads in pledged delegates.

Hillary is paying the price for having no plan for the contests after February 5. Clearly they were counting on putting Obama away on Super Tuesday.

Weekend election results open thread

Big wins for Obama today in the Nebraska and Washington caucuses. Early returns in Louisiana also show him winning, not surprisingly.

I will be interested to see if there was more than a negligible vote for Edwards in Louisiana, since he began and ended his campaign there and has done a lot to bring the Katrina aftermath to the media’s attention.

On the Republican side, Huckabee embarrassed McCain (and Senator Sam Brownback, who backed McCain) in Kansas today. Huck seems to have a shot at winning in Washington and Louisiana too. That would be just fine by me. Anything that keeps the “Republicans divided, base can’t stand McCain” as the journalistic narrative has to be good for Democrats.

Weekend election prediction open thread

Voters will make their choice this weekend in Maine, Louisiana, Washington state, Nebraska and the Virgin Islands.

Jerome Armstrong put up the predictions from an Obama campaign memo at MyDD. I’m sure those are lowball predictions, though.

I don’t have a clue about the percentages, but I think Obama will win all these contests handily. Clinton’s best hope is probably Maine, where the demographics are more favorable to her and her base is less likely to be stuck at work (and unable to caucus) on a weekend.

What do you think?

Memo to Obama and Clinton supporters

cross-posted at MyDD and Daily Kos

I don’t have a dog in this primary anymore. My candidate, John Edwards, is out of the race. I would vote for and do GOTV for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the general. I see major drawbacks to both of them as candidates and potential presidents, but I also think either of them have a realistic chance to beat John McCain and run a good administration.

This diary contains some friendly advice for supporters of both candidates going forward.

Join me after the jump for more.

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Super Tuesday results open thread

Results will be trickling in all evening, though it may be tomorrow before we know how many delegates each candidate won.

For those who say the popular vote and the state-by-state results are meaningless because “it’s all about delegates,” I disagree. Clinton and Obama may finish within 50 delegates of each other, but psychologically, and in terms of media coverage, it will make a big difference who won the popular vote in California.

Also, it will make a big difference in the media coverage if one candidate wins at least two-thirds of the states voting today, as opposed to each candidate winning about half of the 22 states.

UPDATE: Wow, an exciting night with both candidates able to claim victory.

Obama will win 13 or 14 of the 22 states, which is impressive. True, many of them have low numbers of  Democrats participating (AK, ID, ND), but it does impress me that Democrats in the deep-red states seem to want Obama at the top of the ticket. Obama won by a surprisingly large margin in DE and won narrowly in CT and MO. He won IL by a much larger margin than Clinton won NY.

He can credibly claim that he can compete in all parts of the country.

On the other hand, Hillary looks set to crush Obama in California, despite all of the endorsements and glowing media coverage for Obama there lately. Hillary also beat Obama convincingly in MA, where the governor and both senators were for Obama, and in NJ, where some pollsters had Obama leading toward the end. She won in red states like TN and OK, not to mention AR.

It will be a while before we figure out the delegate count. If it’s a tie or close to that, Obama will be very happy, because the states set to vote for the rest of this month heavily favor him. He could have a delegate lead going into March 4, when TX and OH vote.

But given how early the networks called California and Arizona, Clinton seems to have held on to her big edge among Latinos. That doesn’t bode well for Obama’s prospects of winning TX.

I am pleased with the outcome. I didn’t want the nomination to be wrapped up tonight. We benefit from more time with our candidates in the limelight.

I hope the media will now start asking Obama more tough questions, because I’d be a lot more comfortable with him as the nominee if he gets plenty of media scrutiny in the next month or two.

More debates will help our candidates sharpen their messages as well.

All in all, a good night to be a Democrat.  

Super Tuesday prediction open thread

It is strange for me to feel so detached the day before an election. I don’t have a dog in this fight anymore. I see advantages and disadvantages to both Clinton and Obama as candidates and as presidents. I could live with either and would be enthusiastic about neither.

Super Tuesday, which looked a couple of weeks ago like it would be a blowout for Clinton, is up for grabs now with Obama surging in some key states. Put your predictions in this thread.

1. How many of the 22 states will Clinton win, how many will Obama win, and how many will be split decisions (with one candidate winning the popular vote and the other winning a majority of the delegates)?

2. Who will have the bigger winning margin: Obama in Illinois, or Clinton in New York?

3. Who will win each of the following states tomorrow?

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

Georgia

Idaho

Illinois

Kansas

Massachusetts

Minnesota

Missouri

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Dakota

Oklahoma

Tennessee

Utah

Check out MyDD and Open Left for recent polling data in these states, but keep in mind that there haven’t been any polls in some of them.

UPDATE: Obama supporter poblano has his predictions here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

It’s based on delegates, not popular vote, so he thinks several states will be a tie.

I forgot to add Americans abroad and American Samoa to the list of entities voting today. I predict Obama will win both of those groups.

I think Clinton will win these 11 states today: AZ, AR, CA, DE, MA, NJ, NM, NY, ND, OK, TN

Although Obama has all the momentum in CA, I pick Clinton to hang on (barely) there. I was persuaded by silver spring’s diary that most of the polls understate the percentage of women voters:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

I think Obama will win these 11 states today: AL, AK, CO, CT, GA, ID, IL, KS, MN, MO, UT

I think that Obama’s winning margin in IL will be bigger than Clinton’s winning margin in NY.

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A sad day for Edwards supporters

Just last week I wrote a front-page post for MyDD called Ten arguments for sticking with John Edwards. I was getting ready to post the revised version on Daily Kos today or tomorrow, when I saw the news this morning that Edwards had decided to leave the race.

I was hoping Edwards would stay in to keep his message out there. I hope that he decided to quit for political reasons, or because he ran out of money, rather than because of a change in Elizabeth’s condition.

I feel lucky to have caucused for Edwards already. I have no idea how I would vote now. For most of the past year I strongly preferred Obama to Clinton, but in the past few months I’ve grown disenchanted with Obama’s campaign and skeptical about his ability to win. Maybe I would write in Edwards or Al Gore rather than vote for either of the candidates left in the race–I don’t know.

As for how this affects the race, I also have no idea. In some states, Clinton clearly benefits, while in others, Obama may benefit. My own siblings who supported Edwards are split, with my brothers breaking for Obama and my sister strongly leaning to Clinton.

Since most Bleeding Heartland readers seem to be Obama supporters, I recommend this diary by the wonderful JedReport called Some tips for Obama supporters, from an Edwards partisan.

UPDATE: Here is a link to the text and video of Edwards’ farewell address:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Florida primary results open thread

Sigh. McCain pulled this one out and is the clear front-runner, especially since Rudy Giuliani is going to endorse him. I was hoping Rudy wouldn’t finish in the top three in a single state.

On the bright side, Romney has more money, and conservative groups are starting to target McCain, with ads such as this one comparing McCain to Hillary Clinton:

http://link.brightcove.com/ser…

Results with 77 percent of precincts reporting:

McCain 615,203 (36%)

Romney 531,139 (31%)

Giuliani 252,925 (15%)

Huckabee 228,687 (14%)

Paul 55,070 (3%)

Thompson 20,231 (1%)

Clinton 753,543 (50%)

Obama 497,341 (33%)

Edwards 218,899 (14%)

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Obama and Clinton roll out more endorsements

As DrinksGreenTea wrote in the diaries, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy is the latest big name to get behind Barack Obama’s presidential bid.

Clearly a significant chunk of the Democratic establishment does not want to see the Clintons back in charge. Also, Obama now has the backing of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick as well as both U.S. senators from the state.

Rumors continue to circulate about Al Gore endorsing Obama, but I’ve seen no confirmation of that.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton secured the backing of Florida Senator Bill Nelson shortly before that state’s primary. Her campaign is already calling on the DNC to seat Florida’s delegates despite the state’s flagrant violation of the rules.

Perhaps more significantly for Hillary, the American Nurses’ Association just endorsed her. That group represents the 2.9 million registered nurses across the country, and the endorsement will bolster Clinton’s argument that she has the superior health care plan.

My money is still on Clinton to win the nomination, but Obama’s convincing victory in South Carolina suggests that he is not out of the running either.

Huge win for Obama in South Carolina

I don’t think anyone predicted the magnitude of Obama’s win in South Carolina, with 55 percent of the vote to 27 percent for Clinton and 18 percent for Edwards. Not only did Obama nearly double Clinton’s percentage of the total vote, the youth turnout tripled, and two-thirds of young voters chose Obama.

The total turnout exceeded 500,000, and Obama alone got more votes than the total turnout in the 2004 Democratic primary in South Carolina.

An estimated 155,000 more black voters turned out yesterday than in the 2004 primary.

Also, someone pointed out in the comments at MyDD that Obama got more votes yesterday in South Carolina than John McCain and Mike Huckabee’s combined total in the GOP primary last weekend.

I am shocked that the total turnout in the Democratic primary exceeded the turnout in the GOP primary in a state as conservative as South Carolina.  

South Carolina prediction open thread

I was way off on my Nevada predictions, but I didn't do too badly on the GOP results in South Carolina.

Please put your predictions for the Democratic South Carolina primary in the comments.

This week's polls have shown Edwards gaining, especially among whites. The big question mark is, will the Obama campaign be able to produce record black turnout, giving him a double-digit victory?

I'm guessing they will. My prediction: Obama 45, Clinton 33, Edwards 22. 

Nevada results thread

I will update later when more results are available. For now, I am taking these Nevada results from TPM:

Clinton 51 percent

Obama 45

Edwards 4

Romney 52 percent

Paul 13

McCain 13

Huckabee 8

Thompson 8

Giuliani 4

Hunter 2

Time for Edwards and Obama supporters to face some hard truths.

Even if he had won Iowa and gotten the unions to jump off the fence, it looks like Edwards would not have been able to take Nevada from Hillary.

If Obama couldn’t win this state despite getting favorable media coverage, more than 80 percent of the black vote (according to entrance polling), and the key union endorsements in Nevada, then it seems that no one could have beaten Clinton here.

Hillary won at least 6 of the 9 at-large precincts on the Las Vegas strip, and one of them was a tie. Those precincts supposedly were going to be dominated by the Culinary Union, which backed Obama. That’s why Clinton supporters went to court (unsuccessfully) to try to block the at-large precincts. But Culinary was not able to deliver for Obama in most of those precincts.

I haven’t seen any data yet on what percentage of Democratic caucus-goers were independents or Republicans who switched party affiliation. Total turnout shattered predictions and exceeded 114,000.

Many of the February 5 states will hold closed primaries, which means Obama will not benefit from strong support among independents and Republicans.

Entrance polling in Nevada suggests that Clinton led Obama 51-38 among women (who made up 59 percent of caucus-goers) and crushed Obama 64-26 among Latinos. That suggests a steep uphill climb for Obama in some of the larger February 5 states.

Obama supporters have been calling for Edwards to drop out, but I am not convinced that doing so would benefit Obama. In South Carolina, Edwards is  taking more away from Hillary.

Whichever candidate you favor, it’s obvious that Clinton is in the driver’s seat. She will have to make some big mistakes to lose the nomination now.

Obama was not able to put her away in New Hampshire, and it’s going to cost him big.

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Interesting blog: 2008 Democratic Convention Watch

I just learned about the blog 2008 Democratic Convention Watch. It looks like a good place for political junkies to bookmark and check from time to time. The focus is “News and views about the 2008 Democratic National Convention and the race for the nomination.”

There’s a delegate counter and archive of past blog posts on the left-hand side of the page.

Recent posts include this one listing all of the “superdelegates” who have endorsed each of the Democratic candidates. If you click through, there is a link to a list of all the superdelegates who have not yet committed to a candidate.

You can also learn about the DNC’s standing committees on credentials, platform and rules, including who will co-chair each of those committees.

Some of you may be interested in this post about how to apply to be one of the DNC’s official state bloggers. Apparently one blogger from each state will be credentialed at the convention in Denver.  

Democratic debate open thread

I watched the rerun of the debate last night and thought all three candidates did well enough. Apparently Frank Luntz’s focus group favored Edwards, but supporters of all three candidates had plenty to cheer on.

If you want to read why Clinton “rocked,” click on alegre’s diary with video clips:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

If you want the pro-Obama version, Steven R has clips and analysis for you here:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Edwards fans will enjoy NCDemAmy’s diary, also with video clips:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Must-read analysis of IA and NH results

I urge all of you to click on this diary by MyDD user Silver Spring, who analyzed the county-level results from Iowa and New Hampshire.

I am not convinced by all of the arguments in this diary, but it is a great piece of work. I have asked Silver Spring to cross-post here, so I can promote it to the front page. In the meantime, you all should head over to MyDD and read it for yourself.

I haven’t yet had a chance to dig into the county-level results from Iowa, so I greatly appreciate this effort.

This kind of in-depth analysis sets the blogs apart from superficial mainstream media coverage.

Nevada caucus rules are better than ours

MyDD user desmoulins, who has been trained as a temporary precinct chair for the upcoming Nevada caucuses, posted this useful diary on the differences between the Nevada caucus rules and the ones drafted by the Iowa Democratic Party.

I encourage you all to click the link and read his diary, along with the discussion thread. We would benefit from incorporating some of the changes Nevada Democrats have made.

One key difference is that in Nevada, only supporters of non-viable candidates will be able to switch to a different corner during the realignment period. That will cut down on the gamesmanship whereby precinct captains of viable candidates direct a small number of people to a rival corner in order to change the delegate count.

UPDATE: desmoulins put up this interesting post about the campaign on the ground in Nevada:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008…

Fix the problems with the Iowa caucuses

It’s one of those rare days when I largely agree with David Yepsen’s latest column: Parties must probe caucus complaints, make fixes. He points out that any problems with the way the caucuses were run will be fodder for those who will try to deprive Iowa of first-in-the-nation status for the next campaign.

Already the Republican Party will be looking to ditch Iowa, because the GOP establishment can’t stand Mike Huckabee. If Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee and wins, or if Barack Obama becomes the Democratic nominee and loses, the Democratic Party establishment will also have the knives out for Iowa.

Yepsen suggests moving the caucuses to Saturday at 5 pm, a time when fewer shift workers are on duty and young families may find it easier to get a baby-sitter. I would support that change.

Yepsen lists some of the alleged problems with the caucuses, but he left out some very disturbing problems I’ve heard about. One of the most troubling reports, written by observers in a precinct on Des Moines’ south side, maintained that counting was rushed to prevent second-tier candidates from becoming viable.

I was also sorry to hear some accounts of bullying the supporters of non-viable candidates. Daily Kos user neia was disturbed by what happened at the caucus in Strawberry Point (northeast Iowa). While I am sure this is the exception, not the rule, the Iowa Democratic Party should train precinct chairs to prevent anyone from exerting undue pressure on caucus-goers during the realignment period.

UPDATE: This Daily Kos diary includes more allegations about irregularities:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Several people have asked me what happened at my precinct caucus. I told part of the story last week, but in case anyone is interested, the longer version is after the jump.

Use this as an open thread to tell the story of your precinct caucus, whether or not there were problems with the way it operated.

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Nevada unions line up behind Obama

Barack Obama is sitting pretty ten days before the Nevada caucuses, having snagged the endorsements of the Nevada chapter of the Service Employees International Union as well as the Culinary workers and their parent union, UNITE HERE. UNITE HERE is the first national union to endorse Obama.

In September, the national SEIU was very close to endorsing Edwards, but backed off and left the decision to state chapters. Since then, 11 state chapters of the SEIU have backed Edwards, and four or five have backed Obama.

We are seeing the consequences of Iowa failing to deliver for John Edwards. The Nevada unions were ready to jump in for him if he had won here. He also would have been helped in Nevada by the California SEIU, which has already endorsed him. But now that the Nevada SEIU is behind Obama, state chapters backing other candidates can’t send their members to campaign in Nevada.

Edwards was never likely to do well in New Hampshire, but he would have had a real shot at Nevada with union backing. Now he is forced to focus on South Carolina, where he is substantially behind Obama and Clinton in the polls.

If Obama does win the nomination and the presidency, I seriously doubt he will do much for labor unions. That would interfere with his posturing as the bipartisan president pushing a unity agenda.

But it isn’t the first time labor unions have picked the candidate they viewed as most likely to win, rather than the candidate most likely to become their champion. That’s the way the world works.

UPDATE: Over at MyDD, Jonathan Singer wonders if these endorsements post a danger to Obama by raising his expectations in Nevada, where he has trailed Clinton in the polls:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008…

SECOND UPDATE: Daily Kos user greenmountainboy was just in Nevada and has this to say:

The union workers and precinct captains are PISSED that their leaders pulled this crap of not supporting Edwards. They continue to run house parties for him and love the man. The power structure (Clinton and Obama) know that if Edwards gets any roots in ANY ONE of these states they are in for a real fight. If that happens watch how quickly Clinton and O’Baby join forces for “change”.

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Checking in on media culture

So it’s the day before the important New Hampshire primary. What is the political press obsessing about? Whether Hillary Clinton teared up and what the other candidates had to say about it.

It goes back to what CBS correspondent Chip Reid revealed not long ago:

Let’s face it – a lot of what political reporters report on is mistakes.

Please, journalists, stop insulting our intelligence. I don’t care if you think getting emotional is a mistake. It’s ridiculous for you to ask other candidates to comment on Hillary’s emotion. The only purpose of a question like that is to trick them into committing a gaffe.

None of this trivia has anything to do with who would be the best president. Try reporting on some issues for once.

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How the Iowa caucuses work, part 9 (w/poll)

Cross-posted at Daily Kos and MyDD. Please take the poll and comment. Now’s a good time to discuss the merits of the system we experienced last night.

When I publish a diary criticizing the caucus system, I usually hear from at least one person defending the caucuses.

This diary lists the arguments I’ve heard in favor of the caucus system, along with my responses.

More is after the jump.

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Congratulations to Barack Obama

I was skeptical, but clearly the strategy of focusing on first-time caucus-goers paid off in a big way for Barack Obama.

Turnout in my precinct went from 175 in 2004 to 293 tonight. That was way more than I ever imagined possible.

We had first-timers in our Edwards group, and so did Hillary, and for all I know Richardson and Biden did too. But there’s no question that the Obama group had the most first-time caucus-goers.

After the first division into preference groups, we had Obama 86, Edwards 83, Clinton 63, Richardson 28, Biden 24 and Dodd 9. To be viable, candidates needed 44 supporters.

After the second division into preference groups, Edwards had 115, Obama had 103, and Clinton had 72, but unfortunately, the math worked out to 2 delegates for each candidate.

In retrospect, the Edwards and Obama groups would have been better off helping Richardson to be viable. Then the delegates would have been split 2 Edwards, 2 Obama, 1 Clinton and 1 Richardson. But there was no way to know that, and during the realignment of course the Edwards and Obama groups were focused on attracting enough supporters to win that third delegate.

It’s very similar to what happened in my precinct in 1988. The delegates split 2-2-2 despite a fairly large difference in size between the largest and the smallest. That’s the caucus system for you.

By the way, the Richardson precinct captain confirmed that the campaign was advising people to go to Obama. However, a lot of them came over to Edwards anyway. The Biden precinct captain told me he did not receive any similar instruction from that campaign.

Richardson throwing support to Obama?

Various media and blogs are reporting that Richardson's campaign is instructing precinct captains to advise supporters to go to Obama if Richardson is not viable.

So far no official confirmation from the Richardson campaign.

I find it hard to belive that most Richardson supporters will go to Obama, but who knows? I'll ask the captain in my precinct later today.

Anyone else have information on this?

Iowa caucus predictions open thread

It’s put up or shut up time. How are the candidates going to do tomorrow night?

I don’t think all three will finish closely bunched together. Either someone will win by a clear margin, or someone will be in third by a clear margin.

I am having trouble making my final prediction, because I wouldn’t be too surprised by any one of the top three winning. Here goes:

Edwards 35 percent

Obama 28 percent

Clinton 27 percent

Biden 5 percent

Richardson 4 percent

Dodd 1 percent

Kucinich 0 percent

In my precinct: 2 delegates for Edwards, 2 for Clinton, 1 for Obama, 1 for Biden

I would so love to get that third delegate for Edwards, but I fear we will fall short.

On the Republican side, I have no clue about the numbers, but I think the order will be Huckabee, Romney, McCain, Giuliani, Paul, Thompson, Keyes, Cox, Hunter. I don’t think Steve King is going to deliver anything significant to Fred Thompson.

UPDATE: I forgot to include my prediction for Democratic turnout: 140,000. I have no clue about the Republican turnout, except that it will be less than 100,000.

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If Hillary wins Iowa

and anyone asks me how she did it, I will point them to this recent article in the New York Times. Yes, Hillary’s got a lot of advantages: she raised a ton of money, she’s hired a huge Iowa staff (approximately 400 people), she’s got a former two-term governor and former two-term president campaigning for her.

But there are smart ways and dumb ways to spend money. Reading this article, I was impressed with some of her campaign’s tactics.

We Iowans joke about how there’s always a presidential candidate willing to pour us coffee, take out the trash and shovel our snow. But Hillary’s precinct captains really are going to shovel snow for her supporters:

Mrs. Clinton’s office here is filled with hundreds of new green snow shovels that were being strategically distributed on Saturday to precinct captains to clear the walks of older women who might be particularly wary of going out to the caucuses in bad weather. The campaign has printed doorknob hangers with caucus locations printed in extra-large type, also to accommodate these older first-time caucusers.

The article talks about microtargeting methods that both the Clinton and Obama campaigns have been using. That’s not surprising, but I thought this was truly a master stroke:

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, in the first mailing to first-time caucusgoers who pledge to support her, includes porcelain lapel pins identifying them as Clinton supporters. Mrs. Clinton looks for women wearing those pins at her events and praises them for caucusing for the first time.

What a great idea. A lot of women will wear that lapel pin, and it’s an easy way for Hillary to spot first-time caucus-goers in a crowd. I would think that once someone has been singled out and thanked by Hillary, she would feel an extra obligation to show up on caucus night.

It is not easy to turn out thousands of people who have never caucused before. Hillary’s not my first, second or third choice, but if she can pull this off, her campaign deserves a lot of credit.

The article also alludes to Clinton campaign plans to have caterers bring food to serve to her supporters at pre-caucus parties on the caucus sites. Nate Willems suggested that was treading close to the vote-buying line and sparked an interesting discussion at MyDD tonight.

Finally, a quick question for Bleeding Heartland readers. The NY Times article quotes Michael Whouley, who came to Iowa last time to help with John Kerry’s field operation. It identified him as “a veteran Iowa caucus organizer, who is supporting Mrs. Clinton but is one of the few major Democratic strategists who have not come to Iowa for this fight.”

I thought I heard somewhere that Whouley was in Iowa to help the Clinton campaign. Anyone know if he’s been here?

UPDATE: Another thing money can buy is two minutes of television during the 6 pm newscasts in Iowa. Here is her final pitch. I think it hits the themes she needs to emphasize, but I am not convinced it will bring over a lot of undecided voters:

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A serious question for Obama supporters

Gordon Fischer put up this post at Iowa True Blue, titled “Ten Reasons to Support Barack Obama on Thursday, January 3”:

http://www.iowatrueblue.com/Bl…

10.  Barack Obama opposed the Iraq War from the start.

9.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2002.

8.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2003.

7.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2004.

6.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2005.

5.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2006.

4.  He opposed the Iraq War in 2007.

3.  The Iraq War may well be the biggest foreign policy fiasco in our nation’s history.

2.  Barack Obama had the right judgment from the start, all the way until now — the Iraq War was a tremendous mistake.

1.  The Iraq War has cost us several thousand American lives, many more wonded, and literally billions of dollars.  And, ultimately, it has made our great country less safe.

Since Gordon does not post comments on his blog, I am asking my question here.

In what way was Barack Obama opposing the Iraq War in 2005 and 2006, when, as a senator, he voted for Iraq War supplemental funding bills?

As a candidate for Senate in the spring of 2004, he said it was time for Democrats to stop getting “steamrolled” by Bush on war funding. That was around the time that John Kerry and John Edwards voted against the $87 billion supplemental funding bill (the vote was 88-12–that was way before the majority of Americans turned against the war).

Then Obama got elected and voted several times to keep funding the war.

This spring, Chris Dodd led the opposition to the latest supplemental funding bill within the Senate, but Obama sat on the sidelines. Edwards urged Congress to reject any more war funding with no timeline for withdrawing troops. (“No timeline, no funding. No excuses.”)

But Obama didn’t even announce how he would vote, let alone lead the charge to attach a timeline for drawing down troops. He and Hillary sat there until almost everyone else had voted, then finally cast their “no” votes.

Tell me again, what has Obama done to oppose the Iraq War in 2005, 2006 and 2007? Other than continually give speeches reminding people that he called it a “dumb war”?

Obama has failed to lead on defunding the war, despite suggesting before he was elected that he would take a firm line on war funding.

It’s been obvious for a long time that Bush will never draw down troops unless Congress forces his hand by using the power of the purse.

P.S. in response to this post:

http://www.iowatrueblue.com/Bl…

John Edwards has never taken money from federal PACs or federal lobbyists. And it’s a bit rich for an Obama supporter to complain about people backing other candidates trying to “buy” the Iowa caucuses, when Obama has spent more than $8 million on tv ads alone in Iowa. Who knows how many millions he will have spent on his campaign here when it’s all over?  

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Who are the teachers supporting?

I got a flier today from the American Federation of Teachers, which has endorsed Hillary Clinton. The mailer cites part of the Des Moines Register’s endorsement of Clinton to make the case that, “Hillary is prepared to bring real change.”

I’ve noticed that all of the candidates have been reaching out to teachers, referencing their education plans in campaign appearances and direct-mail pieces. Bill Richardson has emphasized his “bold” education plan in more than one piece, and he and Joe Biden have both emphasized that they would scrap No Child Left Behind.

Daily Kos user teacherken (teacherken.dailykos.com) has reviewed several of the candidates’ education proposals and has had high praise for both the Edwards and Obama plans.

The teachers I know seem to be all over the map–I don’t see any one candidate dominating this group, which will account for a large number of caucus-goers.

Those of you who are teachers, are married to teachers, or know a lot of teachers, who do you think will win this group?

Clinton's rural co-chair is corporate ag advocate

The Des Moines Register reported on Saturday that some family farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates are upset about Hillary Clinton’s choice of Joy Philippi to co-chair “Rural Americans for Hillary.”

Clinton has talked about more regulations of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), but  

Philippi is a recent past president of the National Pork Producers Council.

“That’s the poster organization for corporate agriculture,” said [family farmer Garry] Klicker, who owns about 120 acres in rural Bloomfield and raises about 130 cows and calves.

Klicker said that because Clinton picked Philippi, he doesn’t believe the candidate when she says she will champion small farms if she is elected president.

“I’m just very disappointed that Hillary would turn her back on us like this,” said Klicker, who said he is unsure whom he will caucus for but is leaning toward Democrat Joe Biden. “She says she’ll do one thing, yet when you surround yourself with people who are against the rest of us, we can’t expect anything good to happen on family farm issues.”

I know some Hillary supporters believe that she is just campaigning as a moderate and would govern as a true progressive. Stories like this are why I have a lot of trouble believing that. Corporate ag interests have too much power, and I can’t see Hillary taking them on.

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Blogger asahopkins creates new caucus calculator

Earlier this year, Bleeding Heartland co-founder Drew Miller created a caucus math spreadsheet so we could play around with different scenarios and see how delegates would be allocated:

http://www.bleedingheartland.c…

Now Daily Kos and MyDD user asahopkins has created an Iowa Caucus Calculator website, which also is a user-friendly way to explore caucus math:

http://caucusmath.com/

You enter the number of delegates for your pretend precinct as well as the total number of attendees and the number of supporters for each candidate, and it tells you how the delegates would be assigned.

Have fun!

Welcome to Iowa, out-of-state volunteers

It’s the day after Christmas, and hundreds or perhaps thousands of Democrats from all over the country will soon travel to Iowa to volunteer for their favorite presidential candidate.

I know we are supposed to laugh at the “fish out of water” trying to persuade Iowa caucus-goers, but I appreciate the level of commitment these people show by coming here and walking the walk.

Gordon Fischer linked to this article from the New York Observer: Hillary Bundlers Canvass, Humbly, in Iowa. He titled his post, “Future Presidential Candidates Take Note: How NOT To Run An Iowa Campaign.”

I admit that I laughed a few times when I read the article, but mostly I give these rich New Yorkers a lot of credit. They’re wealthy enough to pay other people to do everything for them, but here they were on a cold day in December, walking the streets of Ames to encourage Iowans to caucus for their personal friend, Hillary Clinton.

I like reading diaries by out-of-state volunteers, no matter which candidate they are supporting. So if you are visiting Iowa to help out with a campaign, consider putting up a diary like this one by icebergslim or this one by clarkent to tell us about your experiences.

If you’re in the Des Moines area and need restaurant recommendations, e-mail me at desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com. We have a lot of good options!

Will deal-cutting determine the winner in Iowa?

I’ve always been skeptical that the deal between Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards was a big factor in 2004. A lot of Kucinich supporters did go to Edwards where Dennis was not viable, but a lot went to Howard Dean despite the deal.

The Dick Gephardt supporters who flowed to Edwards as a second choice were much more numerous, and they overwhelmingly chose Edwards in the absence of any formal deal between the candidates.

I see a lot of speculation on the blogs about Bill Richardson instructing his supporters to choose Hillary Clinton if he is not viable. I don’t expect him to make that kind of announcement, and even if he did, I don’t expect that most of his supporters would move that way.

The little deals that precinct captains all over the state will make could be important, especially if Clinton’s captains try to deprive Barack Obama of delegates and vice versa.

But I don’t expect any kind of public instruction from the Democratic candidates about whom their supporters should back as a second choice.

What do you think?

Some story ideas for campaign correspondents

CBS reporter Chip Reid is “embedded” with John Edwards’ campaign and posted this on the CBS blog:

I’m a bit unhappy with John Edwards. I’ve been covering his campaign for 10 days and he hasn’t made a lot of news. Let’s face it – a lot of what political reporters report on is mistakes. The campaign trail is one long minefield, covered with Iowa cow pies, and when they step in one – we leap.

I’ve done very little leaping – and I blame Edwards. While other candidates misspeak, over-speak, and double-speak, Edwards (at least in these 10 days) has made so few mistakes that I end up being transported — newsless — from town to town like a sack of Iowa corn .

He has a remarkable ability to stay on message. Not just in “the speech,” but even in Q and A. Nothing throws him off. He turns nearly every question into another opportunity to repeat his central theme. Global warming? We need to fight big oil. Health care? Fight the big drug and insurance companies. Iowa farmers’ problems? Blame those monster farm conglomerates. And the Iowa populists eat it up. We’ll see how well it works in other states.

He’s even disciplined in his daily routine. While most reporters use the campaign trail as an excuse to over-eat and abandon their exercise routines, Edwards squeezes in a run EVERY DAY, rain, sleet, or shine.

Come on John – relax. Step in an Iowa cow pie and let me do my job.

Like my grandmother used to say, many a truth is told in a joke. Reid is half-joking, but the truth is that journalists would much prefer to cover a gaffe than report on a non-eventful day on the stump.

Here’s an idea: how about coming up with story ideas on your own, rather than waiting for the candidates to slip up?

Reid could tell us what the crowds are like at the Edwards events he covers. How many people are showing up? What’s the average age? More women or men? Are the people at these rallies mostly committed Edwards supporters, or are there significant numbers of undecided voters?

Alternatively, he could spend some time analyzing an issue Edwards brings up in his stump speech. How does that issue relate to the lives of Iowans in town X where Edwards is speaking? How does Edwards’ approach to that issue compare to what other candidates propose?

On any given day, Daily Kos users post numerous substantive diaries about the various presidential candidates. Some are about candidates’ stand on important issues, and some are about campaign strategy.

While Reid complains that Edwards isn’t giving him anything to write about, the Edwards Evening News Roundups are packed with information every day.

If these citizen journalists can come up with something interesting to write about, why is a CBS reporter sitting around waiting for a candidate to make a mistake?

“Gotcha” journalism does not serve voters well. Reporters following the campaigns need to figure out a better way to do their jobs.

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Will Latino caucus-goers break for Obama?

I don’t read the Washington Times, but MyDD user Piuma noticed a piece there about El Latino, Iowa’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, endorsing Barack Obama. Here is a link to Piuma’s diary.

The El Latino editorial includes this line, which appears to be aimed at Hillary Clinton:

No other presidential candidate, particularly divisive candidates, can unite Congress and secure the votes to finally pass comprehensive immigration reform.

(I would add that it’s a fantasy to think that any presidential candidate will be able to unite Congress on any controversial issue, but that’s a matter for another post.)

In the comments below the diary, Piuma notes:

The Obama campaign has made an outreach to the Latino community and he is endorsed by Perla A., the Vice-President of Siouxland Unidad Latina, the area’s oldest and largest Latino organization, as well as City Councilmember Sara Monroy Huddleston, one of four Latino elected officials in Iowa.  This may be one of the many surprise groups Obama will turn out who have been ignored by polling.

Obama has several field offices in Iowa towns with significant Latino populations.

I have felt all year that Obama is the candidate who would benefit most from a primary rather than a caucus, because his support appears to be more concentrated in some parts of the state. However if his campaign can turn out large numbers of Latino supporters, then he could get a significant number of delegates in towns and neighborhoods where there are a lot of Latino residents.

This newspaper endorsement is a good get for Obama and has to be disappointing for Bill Richardson.

I have seen national polling suggesting that Hillary Clinton has much more support among Latinos than Obama does. Jerome Armstrong recently argued that Obama would fare poorly against John McCain among Latino voters. It will be interesting to see if Obama can win strong support among Latinos in Iowa. If so, that could help him in several of the states that will hold primaries on February 5.

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How will turnout affect the caucus results?

It’s obvious from the recent polling in Iowa that the top three candidates are bunched closely together. The ground game will decide the outcome on January 3.

Jerome Armstrong, founder of MyDD and “blogfather” of Daily Kos, came up with this prediction about how turnout will influence the Democratic results:

Turnout numbers        Favors

<150,000               Edwards

150-170,000            Clinton

>170,000               Obama

Basically, if it’s all the tried and true 2004 caucus goers, plus another 25% or so, that Edwards has the advantage. If it winds up being a blown out caucus that has greater than 50,000 more attendees than 2004 (most of the polls are working off this assumption), then Obama wins. If it’s somewhere in the middle, bigger than what would be usual but less than what’s being projected in the polls, then it’s basically going to be something like this poll.

Although many speculate that a record turnout would favor Obama and Clinton, I am hoping for good weather and a strong turnout on January 3. I don’t want an Edwards victory to be spun away as the result of a snowstorm.

I highly doubt turnout will exceed 150,000, though. Many regular caucus-goers will miss the caucuses this year because they’d already made vacation plans and will be out of state on January 3.

What do you think about Jerome’s prediction? And how do you think an unusually high or low turnout would affect the Republican results? I have to believe that Huckabee’s ground troops will turn out for him no matter what the weather.

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Iowans, quit complaining about efforts to engage you politically

I’m tired of reading comments like this piece by Des Moines Register columnist John Carlson. Look how he mocks staffers for presidential candidates, who are just doing their jobs:

Campaign staffers, invariably Democrats, call my house every night. I haven’t a clue why they’re calling me. I’m registered independent. I’ve never caucused for a candidate in either party.

Typical conversation:

Do you have any questions about the caucuses?

Not really.

Am I going to caucus?

I dunno, I doubt it.

Do I have any questions about their candidate?

No.

If I did attend a caucus, would I consider their candidate?

I give them an audible shrug. Maybe.

They want to make the sale, but not push too hard. I say nothing more and they take the hint, thank me and hang up.

The truth is, newspaper policy prohibits me from caucusing. I just want to hear what they have to say, and for a while I egged them on.

Look, why doesn’t he just tell them he can’t caucus because of his job at the Register? Why is he making fun of people for calling him, even though he’s a registered independent who hasn’t caucused? Aren’t we supposed to want more participation in the caucuses, so the results have more legitimacy?

I’m also tired of letters to the editor like these ones recently published in the Register.

One letter complains about the frequent phone calls asking their opinions about the race. What’s wrong with polling firms trying to assess the state of the race here? What’s wrong with campaigns trying to identify their supporters?

Two letters complain about political ads on tv. At our house we usually keep the tv turned off, so this isn’t a problem for us. But are the political ads really more offensive than the ads for all kinds of other products viewers are bombarded with every day of the year?

One letter complains about a robocall for Obama by the lady who scuplts the butter cows at the Iowa State Fair. If his campaign thinks people will be influenced by her opinion, what’s wrong with them putting it out there?

One letter complains about the 80-page policy book the Edwards campaign has mailed to some Iowans. Why criticize him for trying to inform potential caucus-goers about more details on policy matters than newspapers have provided? Why blame him for giving Iowans more substance than can fit into a 30-second tv ad? A lot of people I know were glad to get that book in the mail or from a canvasser.

I’m tired of comments like this one that user JSN recently posted at the political blog MyDD:

Evidently 40% of those polled hang up (I am one of them) and we are getting called frequently. Under those circumstances all you can do is average as many polls as possible and hope for the best.

Early on I was called four times in one day. I have friends who have been called twice in a day. In the past week my wife and I have been called five times. In addition we get a giant post card a day from Edwards (after the third card he moved from second choice to 13th).

A long time ago in a galaxy far away it used to be fun to caucus in Iowa. It has not been fun for quite  awhile. We are all looking foreword to Jan 4th when all of the candidates, campaign staff and reporters leave Iowa.

Well, speak for yourself, JSN. Would you rather live in a state that had no influence on the process? Millions of Americans would love to be able to participate in selecting our president. My husband grew up in New Jersey, where the late primary meant they never got any candidate visits until the whole thing was wrapped up.

I don’t mind answering a few pollsters’ questions, and I don’t mind getting some knocks at the door from people trying to engage me in the process.

I also find it fun to meet my Democratic neighbors at the caucuses, even though I have criticized the caucus system in some of my diaries about the process.

As a precinct captain, one question I struggle with is how many times can I contact an undecided caucus-goer without making them angry and therefore less likely to support my candidate. I was struck by this part of a recent article by Roger Simon:

John Norris, who was Kerry’s Iowa director in 2004 and is now an Obama volunteer, thinks any campaigning that matters will end about Dec. 20, which is why the ground game is reaching a fever pitch right now.

Norris talks about a woman who supported Edwards in 2004 but who is now supporting Obama. Why?

“Because an Edwards volunteer only knocked on her door once and we knocked on her door several times,” Norris says.

I have huge respect for John Norris. As a precinct captain for Kerry, I remember how he held that campaign together during the fall of 2003, in the face of so many bad opinion polls.

But I would be afraid to knock on any particular voter’s door too many times, even if I had unlimited time for voter contacts in my precinct. It seems more likely than not that people would start griping about the Edwards precinct captain who kept bothering them.

Upon hearing that the Obama campaign is calling known supporters every three weeks to check on them, Nate Willems, who was a regional director for Howard Dean in Iowa, had this to say:

A late 2003 Dean focus group produced the comment from a participant, “I’d give anything for those Dean people to just quit calling me.”

I find it sad that Iowans, who are privileged to lead the nation in selecting a president, can be so quick to criticize people who are just trying to drum up support for a candidate they believe in.

I appreciate the efforts of all the candidates’ volunteers and staffers. So what if I get a few extra phone calls? It will be over soon enough on January 4.

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Candidates split late endorsements in presidential race

As we’ve noted, Hillary Clinton received the endorsement of the Des Moines Register over the weekend, and Congressman Leonard Boswell backed her last week.

The Des Moines Register reported on Monday that Congressman Dave Loebsack will endorse Barack Obama:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…


“We’re incredibly fortunate this year to have this field of candidates,” Loebsack said in a telephone interview. “There is one candidate who stands out and that’s why I’m backing Obama.

[…]

“I think we’ve got to have a leader who can bring all Americans together for a single purpose,” said Loebsack.

Congressman Bruce Braley recently endorsed John Edwards, and now he has been joined by Iowa’s first lady, Mari Culver:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

“I think John is a winner. He’s electable,” she said. “He’s been tested. He’s been on the national ticket before. The national polls show him beating all Republicans in the general elections. He inspires me. I think he inspires other Iowans, and I think he can really rally Americans in the fall.”

In that article, Mari Culver confirms that Governor Culver does not plan to endorse a candidate. Senator Tom Harkin has also said he doesn’t plan to endorse this time (his wife, Ruth Harkin, has campaigned for Hillary).

Anyone else know of any possible endorsements coming down the pike? How about the other major newspapers in Iowa?

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Read the companion pieces to the Register endorsements

They are revealing.

Looking at this piece by the editorial page editor, Carol Hunter, you can see that even they feel a little guilty that they didn’t endorse Biden:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

Also, this piece on “rating the other candidates” has some fascinating passages:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

It’s clear that they almost went with Biden:

Even in our last major round of deliberations, we kept coming back to the question, “Why not Joe Biden?”

Many of the arguments we have made on behalf of the tested leadership of Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain apply to Biden as well. He knows how to get legislation passed. He, too, has deep foreign-policy expertise. We’re inspired by his fierce defense of civil liberties. His work on legislation to combat domestic violence has no doubt prevented injuries and saved lives. He might, indeed, make a good president.

But spending virtually his entire adult life in the Senate also makes his experience somewhat narrower than that of some other candidates. And in making sometimes slim distinctions in this talented bunch, we see his well-known loquaciousness as a weakness. It reflects a certain lack of discipline, and it’s gotten him into trouble on occasion with ill-considered remarks related to race. (We do, however, wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment expressed uniformly by his campaign rivals that his heart is in the right place.)

It’s also clear that they don’t disagree with Edwards on anything of substance:

We still believe he’s right about two Americas, the one for people who have everything they need and the one for people who struggle to get by. He’s right about the stagnation of middle-class wages. He’s right that the tax system and overall economic policy have become too tilted toward the affluent, making it virtually impossible for poor and middle-class families to get ahead.

He’s right that the baby-boomer generation risks breaking the “one moral commandment” of Americans: “To give our children a better future than we received.”

Edwards is most persuasive when he appeals to America’s goodness to do better by the vulnerable among us, as he did in last week’s Register Democratic debate:

“…Somewhere in America tonight, a child will go to bed hungry. Somewhere in America tonight, a family will have to go to the emergency room and beg for health care for a sick child. …Somewhere in America today, a father who’s worked for 30 or 40 years to support his family will lose his job. That’s what’s at stake in this election. What’s not at stake are any of us. All of us are going to be just fine, no matter what happens in this election. What’s at stake is whether America is going to be fine.”

Edwards has set the ambitious goal of eliminating poverty in a generation. He’s developed creative proposals to help families save and make college more affordable. (Other Democrats have outlined similar plans.) Edwards or whoever is the party’s standard-bearer should work to take those plans to the White House.

The question on Edwards is whether a self-described fighter for change, who wants to “cast aside the bankrupt ways of Washington,” can get results in Washington. For someone trying to reunite the two Americas, would he be too divisive a figure?

This part of their analysis on Barack Obama also tells you a lot about the people on the Register editorial board:

One board member described the case for Obama in the Clinton vs. Obama discussion as a bank shot versus a straight shot in pool. Success is less certain with a bank shot, but the gamble (in this case for a more cohesive, hopeful country) might be worth it.

Another veteran editorial writer described the choice as similar to picking Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a calculating but masterful politician at maneuvering needed legislation through Congress, versus John F. Kennedy, whose youthful vigor inspired the nation to take on new challenges. That’s not a bad choice.

This endorsement shows how risk-averse the Register editors are. They were worried about a few gaffes Biden has made (as if Clinton doesn’t have 10 times as much baggage). They didn’t want someone who would antagonize corporate interests like Edwards, even though they can’t point to anything he’s wrong about. And they think Obama would be too big of a gamble.

They also fondly remember FDR for his “calculating” skills at maneuvering legislation through Congress.

Although I don’t doubt FDR’s talents in this area, I think of him first and foremost as someone who had tremendous vision. He didn’t shy away from proposing huge changes to deal with the crises of the day, even if they were a gamble, and even if they risked upsetting the powerful corporate interests of his day.

Also, FDR was a very combative and partisan president. He did his best to pin every economic failure onto the Republican Party, and his presidency succeeded in realigning American voters for a generation.

That’s very different from the Register’s praise of Hillary’s legislative skills in reaching across the aisle.

Just wanted to bring this piece to your attention.

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How the Iowa caucuses work, part 7 (w/poll)

cross-posted at MyDD and Daily Kos

When I talk to friends or family from other parts of the country, they always want to know how I think the candidates are doing in Iowa.

This diary is about why that’s a tough question to answer.

First, I’ll discuss why opinion polls can’t necessarily tell us who would win the caucuses if they were held tonight.

Then I’ll explain why it can even be difficult for active volunteers to gauge who is ahead in their own neighborhoods.

Finally, I will go over the unscientific methods we foot-soldiers in Iowa use to figure out where our candidates stand.

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Required reading on Iowa polls

Before you analyze another Iowa poll, read this post by Mark Blumenthal about his efforts to obtain more information from pollsters about their likely voter screens and the demographic makeup of their respondents in Iowa. (Hat tip to DemFromCT.) Blumenthal notes:

So why did we go to all this trouble? As should be obvious now, the differences in the way pollsters measure “likely caucus goers” in Iowa are huge, not just in how narrowly they define the electorate but in the kinds of voters pollsters select as “likely caucus goers.” But these issues are not unique to Iowa. In 2004, 21 states held Democratic primary elections with single digit turnouts (as a percentage of adults), and only New Hampshire had a turnout that topped 20%. Over the next year months, results from hundreds of polls will be released, polls that will set expectations and drive media coverage, and yet those of us that consume the data will know very little about how tightly the pollsters screen and the kinds of voters they select. If we want to be educated poll consumers, we are going to need to do something to change that. We need to push toward greater routine disclosure of methodological details.

Really, everyone, click the link and read the whole thing. Thanks to Blumenthal of pollster.com for embarking on his “Disclosure Project.”  

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Edwards campaign announces 10 new Iowa offices

The Edwards campaign announced today that they have opened 10 new field offices in Iowa in recent weeks. I have updated my diary on Where the Iowa field offices are accordingly.

As of today, 42 Iowa counties have at least one field office for a Democratic presidential candidate. The current tally of Iowa field offices is:

Barack Obama 37 (includes two in Des Moines)

Hillary Clinton 34 (includes two in Dubuque and two in Cedar Rapids)

John Edwards 25

Bill Richardson 16

Chris Dodd 13

Joe Biden 9 (with possibly two more to be added)

Click the link if you want more detailed information.

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Where the Iowa field offices are

cross-posted at MyDD and Daily Kos

I decided to write this diary when I learned that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton each have more than 30 field offices in Iowa.

After January 3, we will see whether campaigns with the most field offices did better in the counties where rivals had field organizers and volunteers working without the visibility of an office.

More information than you probably wanted to know is after the jump.

I have listed the counties in descending order, based on the number of state delegates they will assign on the Democratic side. I took the numbers from this post by Drew Miller, who calculated how many state delegates each Iowa county would contribute to the 2,500 total. [UPDATE: I corrected the delegate totals for a few counties after hearing from Drew Miller.]

I also give the 2004 caucus results for each county. Those numbers come from this table on the Des Moines Register’s website. The results reflect the percentage of county delegates assigned to the various presidential candidates (not the percentage of raw votes each one received in the county).  

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NPR debate open thread

I listened to most of the NPR debate this afternoon. Although I am usually more interested in hearing the candidates debate domestic policy, I thought it was good for NPR to go in depth on a few foreign-policy issues. The questions were solid and substantive, and the candidates had to go beyond their usual sound-bite answers on Iran, China and immigration policy.

It’s too bad Richardson couldn’t make it because of a funeral he was attending, because the format probably would have suited him. I have heard him answer questions on immigration, and he makes a strong case on that issue.

I thought Edwards, Obama, Clinton, Biden and Dodd all did pretty well.

If you listened to the debate, what did you think?

Mark Halperin’s post-debate scorecard is here:

http://thepage.time.com/excerp…

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Some thoughts on recent Iowa polls

Almost every day there’s a new Iowa poll released, and I haven’t been able to keep up with them all. If you are a poll junkie, I recommend checking MyDD and Open Left frequently, because the front-pagers and diarists there never miss a chance to analyze a new Iowa poll.

Several polls released during the last week, including the latest from the Des Moines Register, show the top three candidates bunched closely together (typically within the margin of error), with Obama leading, Clinton in second and Edwards in third place.

Obama supporters are triumphant to see him taking the lead in the Real Clear Politics five-poll averages for Iowa. However, there is good news for all of the top-tier candidates in these polls.

Obviously, Obama has to be happy with his overall lead in Iowa, which is small but has been found in several polls. His favorability rating seems high, and he seems to be tied with Hillary, or even leading a bit, among women.

A cautionary note for Obama is that he has blowout leads among voters under 35 (in the Des Moines Register poll, a 48-19-17 lead in this age group). Not only are younger voters historically less likely to caucus, they are also virtually absent from many precincts. We have very few residents under age 40 in my precinct, for instance.

Depending on the survey, it also seems that Obama is trailing Clinton and Edwards among rural and small-town voters, who punch above their weight when the state delegates are tallied. Obama would clearly be better off if Iowa had a primary.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has to be concerned that her overall support has slipped slightly, and she may no longer be leading Obama among women voters.

Most worrying for Clinton, several surveys have shown that she trails Edwards and Obama among second choices, and the Des Moines Register poll indicates that her unfavorable rating among Iowa Democrats is about 30 percent.

On the other hand, Clinton still seems to have a slight lead among older voters, and her support may be more evenly spread across the state than Obama’s. If she can bring out large numbers of new women voters, Iowa is still winnable for her. Remember that Obama has not yet faced much scrutiny in the media, but that will change now that he is leading in Iowa.

As an Edwards supporter, I am satisfied with the recent Iowa polls. He is within touch of the lead, and often leads among Iowans who have caucused before. The Des Moines Register poll assumes that one-third of caucus-goers on January 3 will have never caucused before, but I do not believe there will be that many newcomers.

Several polls indicate that Edwards leads among second choices as well, which could help him pick up as much as 5 to 10 percent on January 3.

I anticipate that on caucus night, the precinct captains for Clinton and Obama will be focused on keeping the main rival’s delegate count down, and will not be trying to undermine Edwards in the same way.

Richardson and Biden don’t seem to be surging or dropping considerably in Iowa. I still sense that both candidates have room to gain support as undecided voters make up their minds. Frankly, as an Edwards supporter I would like to see Richardson and Biden stay below the threshold in as many precincts as possible.

What do you think?

Students attending Iowa colleges can caucus in Iowa

The Yepsenity of the day is causing a stir on the political blogs. Yepsen published this post about the so-called “Illinois caucus”:

Barack Obama’s campaign is telling Iowa college students they can caucus for him even if they aren’t from Iowa.

His campaign offers that advice in a brochure being distributed on college campuses in the state.  A spokesman said it’s legal and that 50,000 of the fliers are being distributed.

The brochure says: “If you are not from Iowa, you can come back for the Iowa caucus and caucus in your college neighborhood.”

Given that lots of students in Iowa’s colleges and universities are from Obama’s neighboring home state of Illinois, the effort could net him thousands of additional votes on caucus night.

[…]

Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign, said “we have no intention of doing something here that is in any way illegal or that will raise questions about the credibility of the caucuses.”  He said election laws allow students to register and vote where they go to college and that means they can caucus in those precincts as well.

That’s fine but these are the Iowa caucuses.  Asking people who are “not from Iowa” to participate in them changes the nature of the event.

I think Yepsen is wrong and owes the Obama campaign an apology. Students from other states who attend colleges in Iowa can choose to vote either in their home states or in Iowa. That is well-established.

The Obama brochure is aimed at students attending schools in Iowa. It urges them to come “back” and caucus in their neighborhoods. Clearly they are not trying to bring in thousands of students who are neither from Iowa nor attending school in Iowa.

If the caucuses were on January 21 instead of January 3, this wouldn’t even be an issue. Many students from other states caucused in Iowa City, Ames, and other college towns in 2004. There is nothing unfair about that.

I would hope that all the campaigns are trying to identify college students supporting them and trying to encourage those students to come back to campus to caucus, if their home towns are outside Iowa.

Mike Allen picked up the story for Politico, quoting staffers for other campaigns who tried to imply that Obama is cheating:

A Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign official said: “We are not courting out-of-staters. The Iowa caucus ought to be for Iowans.”

And a Clinton spokesman leveled a thinly-veiled accusation at Obama later in the day.

“We are not systematically trying to manipulate the Iowa caucuses with out-of-state people,” Mo Elleithee said.

“We don’t have literature recruiting out-of-state college students. We didn’t bus in folks from out of state to the [Democratic party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner]. We didn’t bring in out-of-state activists to the Heartland Forum.”

In fact, Clinton is counting on the support of some out-of-state students attending Iowa universities. Sarah Sunderman of Iowa State University, who was announced in a news release as a leader of the “Hill Yea” Students Leaders for Hillary, told the Des Moines Register in October that “she will drive back early from her home in Minnesota to take part in the Jan. 3 caucuses.”

Chris Dodd for President Iowa State Director Julie Andreeff Jensen said in a statement on Saturday:

“I was deeply disappointed to read today about the Obama campaign’s attempt to recruit thousands of out-of-state residents to come to Iowa for the caucuses. … ‘New Politics’ shouldn’t be about scheming to evade either the spirit or the letter of the rules that guide the process. That may be the way politics is played in Chicago, but not in Iowa.”

I see no evidence Obama’s campaign is trying to get volunteers from other states to come here for a short time and then caucus on January 3.

Julie Andreeff Jensen worked on John Kerry’s campaign in Iowa before the last caucuses. She must be aware that there were college students from other states who caucused for Kerry.

Shame on the Clinton staffer who accused Obama of trying to “manipulate” the caucuses. It is totally legitimate to encourage your own supporters to come back to their college campuses for caucus night.

If Obama wins the caucuses, Hillary’s going to have to come up with a better excuse.

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John Edwards' positive message to Iowans

cross-posted from MyDD and Daily Kos

I’ve noticed a meme developing in the blogosphere, that John Edwards supposedly is only attacking and not providing any positive message for his campaign. I encourage you not to confuse what you read on the blogs (reports by journalists obsessed with process stories or diaries based on a campaign press release) with what Iowans have been seeing and hearing from Edwards lately.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, volunteers hand-delivered the 80-page policy book containing details on Edwards’ proposals to thousands of Democratic households in Iowa.

Since late October, active Iowa Democrats have received direct-mail pieces from Edwards about once a week. I diaried the first two of these, about his biography and his most important policy proposals and about his plan for Iraq. Since then, he has sent out a mailer on health care, a Thanksgiving card, a piece on proposals to benefit American families and a piece on providing a better life for our children. At the bottom of this diary I will reproduce the text of one of these mailers, “Fighting for American Families.”

But before I do that, I want to talk about a theme underlying Edwards’ communications with Iowans, which I believe will resonate with caucus-goers.

More is after the jump.

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Obama campaign: volunteer if you want to see Oprah

Oprah will travel to Iowa to campaign for Barack Obama, and his campaign has come up with a counter-intuitive way of doling out tickets that is either brilliant or foolish:

 

In a news release announcing the events, Obama's campaign said tickets to the Iowa events will be given first to precinct captains, then campaign volunteers, then to supporters and undecided caucus-goers.

 

It said volunteers can be guaranteed a ticket by completing a four-hour volunteer shift or attending local caucus training before the event.

 

I would never have thought to do this. When a big event for John Edwards is planned, I try to get as many undecided voters from my precinct to attend as possible. I figure, it's more helpful to put undecided voters at an exciting event than it is to pack the room with supporters.

Obama's campaign seems to have calculated that if they can get hundreds of supporters to step up their involvement by becoming precinct captains or volunteering for at least four hours, that will eventually bring in more caucus-goers than they would win over by putting several hundred undecided voters in front of Oprah.

On the other hand, isn't the whole point of Oprah's visit to excite and win over women who may not ordinarily be engaged in politics? Maybe having her address a roomful of fired-up Obama volunteers is not the best use of her star power.

What do you think–brilliant or foolish? 

UDPATE: Tom in the comments says volunteers will get preferred seating, but that others will be able to attend Oprah's events in Iowa too. 

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