Welcome to the latest installment of my series about efforts by Leonard Boswell’s campaign and its supporters to make the third district primary about Ed Fallon’s faults rather than the incumbent’s record of service.

Boswell’s staffers and supporters have criticized Fallon for the following four alleged ethical problems:

1. his work and fundraising for the Independence Movement for Iowa (I’M for Iowa)

2. the salary Fallon drew from unspent campaign funds following the 2006 gubernatorial primary

3. allegations that Fallon pondered running for governor as an independent after losing that primary

4. Fallon’s stand against taking contributions from PACs while allowing PACs to encourage their individual members to donate to his campaign.

For my take on the I’M for Iowa allegations, see this diary and this follow-up piece.

I addressed the controversy over Fallon’s salary from his gubernatorial campaign in this post.

Today I’m covering the Boswell campaign’s claim that Fallon considered running for governor as an independent after losing the 2006 primary to Chet Culver. Join me after the jump for more.

Thursday’s Des Moines Register contains a lengthy report on Governor Chet Culver’s recent vacation stay at a Florida condominium owned by Bill Knapp, a leading donor to Democrats in Iowa.

Knapp has been a friend to the Culver family for decades and “was the biggest individual contributor to Culver’s gubernatorial campaign in 2006, donating $112,500.”

The article quotes Knapp as saying Culver pays $1,000 per week in advance when his family stays at the condo. It then quotes a real estate broker in Florida as estimating a comparable condo would rent for $2,700 per week.

Charlie Smithson, executive director of the Iowa Ethics & Campaign Disclosure Board, said he didn’t have enough information to say whether Knapp is a restricted donor or whether ethics rules were broken. “Ultimately, that’s the board’s decision to make,” Smithson said.

Smithson said no one has complained about the condo deal, but the board would have to look into it if someone did.

I doubt there will be any formal complaint regarding this issue, because the Register also reports that State Representative John Putney, a Republican and personal friend to Knapp, stayed at the condo during this year’s legislative session as well.

Unlike Culver, Putney did not pay up front for the use of the condo. Instead, he says that he treated members of the Knapp family to expensive dinners (costing about $600 per evening) in exchange for the use of the condo.

The Register quotes Putney as saying Knapp “has never asked me for one thing legislatively,” and quotes Knapp as saying he doesn’t ask Culver for anything or offer him gifts.

Although it’s natural to stay at the home of a close family friend, it would be prudent for elected officials or appointees to pay market rates for those vacation stays, so as to avoid any appearance of impropriety–especially when the owner of the vacation home is a large campaign donor.

State Senator Dick Dearden on Wednesday announced plans to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission over Ed Fallon’s alleged use of the I’M for Iowa movement to promote his Congressional campaign:

Dearden, also a Democrat, alleged that Fallon’s group violated federal campaign law by promoting his campaign for Congress without disclosing its source of money.

Dearden supports U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell, the Democrat Fallon is challenging in Iowa’s 3rd District primary on June 3.

[…]

Boswell and his campaign aides have raised questions about the relationship between I’M for Iowa and Fallon’s campaign for Congress, but have not formally alleged wrongdoing. Dearden said he took the action without consulting Boswell or his campaign.

“He collects money and he’s using the Web site – undisclosed money – to further his campaign,” Dearden, of Des Moines, told reporters at a Capitol press conference.

Dearden was referring to at least three e-mail messages sent from I’M for Iowa to the group’s supporters, in which Fallon’s candidacy was mentioned. Federal campaign law forbids corporate money from being spent in a campaign for federal office. Dearden’s argument is that the e-mail constitutes promoting Fallon’s campaign by a group that is not required to disclose its source of money.

Since the FEC does not currently have enough members to take official action, this complaint will almost certainly not be resolved in time for the June 3 primary. By filing the complaint, however, Dearden is assisting the Boswell campaign’s efforts to keep the media narrative about Fallon’s alleged ethical problems.

Fallon issued a press release trying to shift the focus back to his differences with Boswell over the issues:

Des Moines, March 9, 4:00 pm CDT – “I live simply.  I’ve always been a voice for ethics in government, and I have never taken a penny from a PAC or lobbyist.  Clearly, Boswell’s people are trying to discredit me on my strengths instead of discussing the real challenges facing America.  Voters deserve better than this.  I welcome the FEC’s investigation and I am eager for a debate with Congressman Boswell on the important issues, including campaign finance reform.”

Meanwhile, Fallon and the Boswell campaign sparred over the incumbent’s voting record on withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

The Boswell campaign points to five votes in support of a timetable for ending combat in Iraq. I think that the issue, though, is whether Boswell (like many Congressional Democrats), voted for some bills that called for bringing troops home by X date, yet were willing to support Iraq War supplemental funding bills that did not contain timetables for withdrawal.

It’s great to be on record calling for an end to combat operations in Iraq, but as long as Congress continues to sign blank checks to fund Bush’s war, the policy won’t change.

Leonard Boswell continues to line up union endorsements in his re-election campaign against Ed Fallon. This came today from the Boswell press office:

Des Moines Firefighters Endorse Congressman Leonard Boswell

Des Moines, IA – The Des Moines Association of Professional Firefighters (IAFF 4) announced their endorsement of Congressman Leonard Boswell today.  They cited Boswell’s support of the FIRE Act grant program, which has provided funding to local, county and state agencies to provide fire and rescue protection for Iowans.  Boswell has also supported the SAFER Act program, which helps local fire departments recruit and hire both full-time and volunteer firefighters.  The Windsor Heights fire department has recently benefitted from this program.

“I’m grateful for the support of career firefighters in Des Moines and Urbandale,” said Congressman Boswell.  “I am committed to providing all I can to ensure our first responders are appropriately equipped to respond to any type of emergency, including terrorism.  Our firefighters are the first to arrive on the scene of these emergencies and I will continue to work toward enabling them to do the job.”

“We count on Congressman Boswell as a knowledgeable and skilled leader.  He continues to provide analysis of vital intelligence information that keeps America prepared to respond to emergencies and threats.  Firefighters rely upon and deeply trust Leonard Boswell,” said John TeKippe, President of IAFF 4.

IAFF, Local 4 represents approximately 300 firefighters in Des Moines and Urbandale.

Mary Mascher put up a post at Blog for Iowa a few days ago detailing action on several bills last week at the legislature. I recommend keeping an eye on that blog for legislative news as we get closer to the end of the session.

I read in the Des Moines Register that yesterday both chambers passed a compromise smoking ban bill, which covers almost all public places:

Iowans will still be able to smoke in the gambling areas of casinos, although smoke would be prohibited in casino restaurants, gift shops, bars and employee areas.

They can smoke in the outdoor areas of bars, the outdoors areas of county fairs and the State Fair except the grandstands, in limousines and in retail tobacco stores.

Other exemptions are designated areas of correctional facilities, the state veterans home in Marshalltown and Iowa National Guard facilities.

I’m pleased that restaurants and bars will be smoke-free. That will protect a lot of employees from second-hand smoke, and I doubt it will hurt business. The Waveland Cafe in Des Moines has no seen business drop off since it went smoke free last fall, because people like me, who had avoided bringing their families, are now eating there more often.

I was interested to read that the smoking ban did not have enough Democratic votes to pass either the House or the Senate. In both chambers, a majority of Democrats were joined by a small number of Republicans. The Register has the roll-call vote on this bill, in case you want to see how your representatives voted.

Governor Culver’s office indicated that he “looks forward” to signing the bill.

The Senate on Monday passed a bill expanding health insurance coverage for children, including some young adult children. According to the Des Moines Register,

The bill now returns to the House, which passed a less specific version last month.

A children’s welfare advocate who expressed doubts about the original House bill praised the version that passed in the Senate Monday.

“I think we’re getting there. We’re getting there,” said Carrie Fitzgerald, senior health policy associate for the Child and Family Policy Center. She said the new bill includes more specifics, such as measures to prevent eligible children from being taken off public programs.

As my husband and I have learned during the past five years, the cost of health insurance for young, healthy adults increases once you have a child, and with every additional child. If a parent’s employer does not provide your health insurance, the cost of a private plan can easily be out of reach for middle-income families.

It’s short of the universal access to health care we need in this country, but making more children eligible for low-cost state insurance plans is a step in the right direction.

David Mizner has written a diary I recommend to all supporters of Barack Obama. It highlights behavior that inadvertently harms Obama’s campaign by driving away some Democrats who otherwise lean toward him.

Mizner was an active supporter of John Edwards for president, as his diary history shows. Like me, he wrote regular front-page posts advocating for Edwards at MyDD. But after Edwards dropped out, Mizner voted for Obama in the New York primary on February 5.

On its surface, Mizner’s latest piece is an inside-baseball critique of editorial bias at the Daily Kos. He demonstrates how Markos Moulitsas has in recent months become an uncritical cheerleader for Obama, after being skeptical toward all the Democratic candidates in 2007.

But I recommend this diary not because you should care about what some blogger thinks of Markos. Rather, I think Mizner has touched on the alienation many Democrats feel when they encounter the overheated Hillary-hating and Obama-loving rhetoric from Obama fans:

It’s no coincidence that in the last two months the site has devolved into a propaganda organ for the Obama campaign. Although it’s aggravating to come across Drudgery at the top of the rec list and casual claims that Hillary is a sociopath, it’s not the nastiness that’s worrisome (freedom is untidy); it’s the laziness, the unquestioning partisanship, the lack of brainwork. These days at Daily Kos there’s no exchange of ideas, no debate. Obama is good, Hillary is bad, case closed.

It’s probably not wise to go looking to Daily Kos or any other political blog for Truth, but the progressive blogosphere fancies itself the reality-based community, and that commodity is in short supply at the mothership. If you’re a progressive untouched by enthusiasm for Obama or hatred for Hillary, you must be wondering what race Kossacks are watching. In the race I’ve watched, Obama has not campaigned as a transformative progressive. In the race I’ve watched, he has failed to offer a single bold policy initiative, coddled a virulent homophobe for political purposes, voted to fund the war in Iraq and justified doing so by parroting a disgusting rightwing talking point, echoed the GOP claim that the Social Security system is in crisis, refused to join Edwards in opposing the Global War on Terror framework, joined George Bush in seeking to expand the size of the military by 92,000 troops, said he would increase the military budget, supported corporate free trade, enlisted Tom Daschle to assemble a base of support on K-Street, raised buckets of cash fromlobbyist-law firms, and bashed unions for helping Edwards until he himself was the beneficiary of labor’s largesse. Et Cetera.

A dozen links in that passage didn’t come through when I copied and pasted, but click to the original diary and you’ll see that Mizner has the links to back up what he is saying.

This passage also made a crucial point that Obama supporters rarely acknowledge:

I’m not going to defend the Clinton campaign’s race-baiting or its praising of McCain at Obama’s expense. Nor, though, will I defend the Obama’s campaign sexism, or its willingness to claim race-baiting where there is none. I believe history will show both that the Clnton campaign wanted to turn Barack into the “black candidate” and that the Obama campaign wanted to turn Hillary into the racist candidate. They both exploited racial resentment.

Several links in that paragraph didn’t come through. The most important one is to the memo that the Obama campaign distributed in South Carolina, which sought to portray the Clintons as using racially divisive rhetoric. That memo was designed to give Obama an edge among blacks and white liberals, and it worked, but it also distorted Hillary’s comments about Lyndon Johnson and Bill’s comments about the “fairy tale.”

My impression is that intense Obama supporters can’t understand why everyone isn’t as outraged as they are over the latest stupid comment by some Clinton supporter. First, the Obama campaign has crossed lines too, as Mizner points out. Second, many progressives have, according to Mizner,

abdicated the job of trying to hold Obama accountable. Both Move On and Blue Majority gave him endorsements without offering so much as constructive criticism. Kos himself hasn’t written one word critical of Obama in several weeks, during which time Obama has sent nothing but alarming signals on the sphere’s signature issue: Iraq. Unlike Hillary, he wouldn’t ban corporate mercenaries and his advisors are describing his modest withdrawal plan as a “best case scenario” and calling for a large residual force. Also unmentioned by Kos and the other Daily Kos front page bloggers is Obama’s attempt to denythat he once held certain liberal positions.

Again, the links did not come through, but you can find many in the diary.

When Obama puts up red flags, and onetime reasonable progressives have nothing but praise for him and condemnation for Hillary, it turns off a lot of Democrats.

Speaking of the devolution of political discourse lately, I can’t resist linking to a diary Mizner wrote last month: “Do You Miss Edwards Yet?” The opening paragraph was a classic:

Ah, 2007. How I long for those halcyon, pre-Ferraro days when a major issue in the primary was the dangerous influence of corporate power. Thanks to Edwards, the Big Three battled over who would be more willing and able to take on corporations. There was reason to doubt that the policies proposed by Obama and Clinton–and even by Edwards, perhaps–would deliver the bold change they promised, but at least the issue of corporate power was front and center. Now, though, with Edwards gone, the issue is barely an issue, and somewhere CEOs and Wall Street execs are laughing.

Ain’t that the truth.

Last week Elizabeth Edwards wrote a fantastic guest post for the Think Progress blog asking why people like her (who have had cancer in the past) are left out of John McCain’s health care reform plan. A great video clip of her slamming McCain’s health plan can be found in this diary by NCDem Amy

McCain has ignored her comments, while one of his fund-raisers tried to pretend her concern about cancer patients being excluded from coverage was not a legitimate issue for political discussion.

But at some point, I think McCain will have to address the issues raised by Edwards. This week it emerged that she has joined the Center for American Progress as a senior fellow.

Already on Tuesday she appeared on NPR to explain how McCain’s plan “falls short in every conceivable way.” NCDem Amy’s diary includes a link to the podcast of that NPR interview, if you’d like to listen.

Elizabeth Edwards has been active intermittently on political blogs since the last presidential campaign, and she will be blogging more regularly in her new position.

Health care will be her main focus at the Center for American Progress:

“As many can attest, I have an opinion on everything,” Edwards said tonight about her new role. “But I am particularly concerned about the state of health care in America and I am grateful to CAP for giving me the chance to continue to advocate for universal and quality health care coverage for all.”

I can’t wait.

Oh, by the way, Edwards confirmed in an interview for Wednesday’s edition of Good Morning America that she prefers Clinton’s health-care plan to Obama’s. I am not at all surprised, since the Clinton plan was closer to that proposed by John Edwards during the presidential campaign.

In fact, while I have no inside information, my hunch is that if not for Obama’s inferior health care reform proposal and his use of Republican talking points to attack Hillary’s proposal, John and Elizabeth Edwards would have endorsed Obama for president by now.  

This is part of a series I’m writing about efforts by Leonard Boswell’s campaign and its supporters to make the third district primary about Ed Fallon’s faults rather than the incumbent’s record of service.

Boswell’s staffers and supporters have criticized Fallon for the following four alleged ethical problems:

1. his work and fundraising for the Independence Movement for Iowa (I’M for Iowa)

2. the salary Fallon drew from unspent campaign funds following the 2006 gubernatorial primary

3. allegations that Fallon pondered running for governor as an independent after losing that primary

4. Fallon’s stand against taking contributions from PACs while allowing PACs to encourage their individual members to donate to his campaign.

For my take on the I’M for Iowa allegations, see this diary and this follow-up piece.

Today I will focus on the controversy surrounding the salary Fallon’s gubernatorial campaign paid him following his loss in the June 2006 primary.

Campaigns routinely pay staffers for weeks or months after the race is over. Just last week I spoke to someone who is still working at John Edwards’ headquarters in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, more than two months after Edwards suspended his presidential campaign.

It is more unusual for the candidate to be paid for doing campaign work after the election. No one disputes that Fallon received $13,750 from his gubernatorial campaign between June and November of 2006. The payments are allowed under Iowa law “as long as the candidate is doing work related to the campaign.”

Before drawing any salary from unspent campaign funds, Fallon checked with Charlie Smithson, executive director of the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board. According to Fallon, Smithson “assured me that I, along with other staff, could be paid to work on campaign related tasks.” What were those tasks?

Though the campaign was over, there was still plenty of work to do with data entry, file drawers, computer files, and office equipment.  I also wanted to make sure the key issues in my campaign continued to receive attention through the general election.  So, three staff and I stayed on part-time.

Now that this has become an issue in the Boswell-Fallon race, Iowa House representative Rick Olson is leading a charge to ban politicians from taking salaries from campaign funds:

Rep. Rick Olson, a Des Moines Democrat, criticized candidates taking salaries from campaign money. In remarks on the floor of the Iowa House today, he vowed to work with Democratic leaders to introduce legislation known as the “Ed Fallon loophole” to make the payments illegal.

“I find that unbelievable,” Olson said. “If that’s what the law is in the state, that we can pay ourselves salaries after we’ve been defeated. I think that’s a hoax and a sham.”

Smithson declined to comment on the specific situation when contacted by the Des Moines Register, but said that legislators should

take a broader look at the issue. Lawmakers should question if candidates – at any stage during or after their elections – should be able to pay themselves for running for public office, Smithson said.

The Iowa legislature has two “funnel” deadlines for bills, and both have passed this session. In theory, that means that new bills, which have not already been approved by at least one committee, may not be introduced until the 2009 legislative session.

However, the leadership in the Democratic-controlled Iowa House and Senate may try to get Olson’s proposal through this month:

Democratic leaders in the Iowa House and Senate agreed Tuesday to work on a proposal that would make it illegal for political candidates to pay themselves a salary out of campaign contributions.

Brian Meyer, an assistant for House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, said Tuesday that the Democratic leader, along with Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal, a Council Bluffs Democrat, have agreed to draft legislation to halt such payments. The proposal could be introduced as soon as Thursday, Meyer said.

A deadline has passed for most lawmakers to sponsor new legislation, but bills sponsored by legislative leaders can be introduced at any time and remain eligible for debate.

If legislators push this bill through, I will have written my last check to the House and Senate Democratic leadership funds. It is totally inappropriate to make the Iowa legislature an arm of Leonard Boswell’s re-election campaign.

It is also absurd to treat the so-called “Fallon loophole” as a five-alarm fire when Iowa has no limits on the size of contributions candidates for the legislature or statewide office may accept. That’s right, a wealthy person can write a check of any size to any state legislator’s campaign.

Also, legislative leaders refuse to allow the Voter-Owned Iowa Clean Elections Act (which would create a voluntary public-financing system similar to those used in Maine and Arizona) to move forward.

Fallon responded to this legislative effort in his campaign website blog on April 2. Among other things, he claims lawmakers are getting back at him because his political advocacy organization, I’M for Iowa, has been highly critical of the Democratic leadership in the legislature. He also notes that statehouse Democrats are content to ignore far more serious loopholes in our campaign finance rules.

I’ve put the full text of that blog post after the jump, but here is a relevant excerpt:

The real loophole that needs closing is the one that allows legislative leaders to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from PACs and lobbyists, funnel it to special funds, and then ship it to targeted candidates.  Successful candidates are then reminded by leaders that they won because of the money funneled into their campaigns.

The Des Moines Register’s editorial board on April 6 criticized the proposed legislation on different grounds:

A thistle to Democratic legislators who would bar candidates from drawing a salary from campaign donors. This bill (aimed at Ed Fallon, who is challenging Leonard Boswell) is an Incumbent Protection Act. Challengers who give up day jobs to run for office must fend for themselves or be independently wealthy. Meanwhile, the taxpayers support or subsidize incumbents. If contributors want to spend their own money for the care and feeding of a candidate, it is no business of the Iowa Legislature.

Incidentally, Fallon gave up two paying jobs in order to run for governor: his seat in the Iowa House (in a safe Democratic district), and his part-time position as executive director of the non-profit organization 1000 Friends of Iowa (a group I am involved with).

To my mind, the controversy over Fallon’s salary in 2006 is just another facet of Boswell’s effort to direct third district voters’ attention toward anything but how the incumbent has voted during his six terms in Congress.

The Republican presidential candidate is at a big financial disadvantage compared to the likely Democratic nominee.

John Kerry raised over $40 million in March 2004 after clinching the Democratic nomination. He was still far behind George W. Bush in the money race, because the president had not had to compete in the primaries and could devote a lot of time to big-ticket fundraisers.

John McCain clinched the Republican nomination on February 5 and formally won enough delegates to be the nominee on March 4. But he only managed to raise $15 million in March. According to Marc Ambinder, Mitt Romney has promised to help McCain raise another $15 million or so from Romney supporters.

To put that in perspective, Barack Obama raised more than $40 million in March, and Hillary Clinton, who is quite the longshot for the Democratic nomination, managed to raise about $20 million that month.

At MyDD, Jonathan Singer noted that Obama raised more money in March alone than McCain raised in the entire first quarter.

I know a lot of you are worried about the continuing Democratic contest, but I think we should relax and let the rest of the primaries play out. The likelihood is that after Puerto Rico votes on June 7, Obama will be far enough ahead that the superdelegates will move decisively in his direction.

Meanwhile, McCain isn’t going to be building any kind of warchest that Obama can’t match.

The Boswell campaign put out this press release today:

CONTACT: Betsy Shelton

                                                                                            515-238-3356

Congressman Leonard Boswell Receives Endorsement of Building Trades Council

Des Moines, IA – Congressman Leonard Boswell received the endorsement of the Iowa State Building and Construction Trades Council today.  Congressman Boswell continues to fight for issues important to the Building Trades, including building and maintaining infrastructure, and focusing on issues relating to working families.

“I am honored to receive the support of the Building Trades,” said Boswell.  “These hard working men and women share my commitment to protecting working families.”

“As a member of the United States Congress, Leonard Boswell has consistently fought for issues important to the working families of Iowa.  The Iowa State Building and Construction Trades Council is proud to endorse Congressman Boswell because we know his re-election will send a strong advocate for working Iowans back to Washington,” said Bill Gerhard, State Building Trades president.

The Iowa State Building and Construction Trades Council has approximately 35,000 members in Iowa.  The Council represents 15 building trades unions engaged in the construction industry.

It’s not clear from the release how many of those 35,000 members live in the third district.

This endorsement isn’t surprising, in that unions typically back incumbents, and Boswell has gotten all of the trade union endorsements so far in this race.

Additionally, though Fallon was a strong and consistent supporter of organized labor in the Iowa legislature, he has been outspoken against certain new road projects in the state. The Building Trades Council presumably supports all new road projects.

To cite one example that applies to residents of the third district, supporters of a proposed four-lane beltway in northeast Polk County are counting on Boswell, who serves on the House Transportation Committee, to secure substantial federal funding. Fallon opposes building this road, which would be a poor use of transportation funding and would be environmentally harmful as well.

I have seen research showing that maintaining existing infrastructure supports more jobs than building new roads, but I can’t find the link right now. If I can find it tonight, I will add it to this post.

Over at Century of the Common Iowan, noneed4thneed put up a link to the latest Rasmussen poll of Iowa. Holy cow–Obama beats McCain here 46 percent to 42 percent, but Hillary loses to McCain 51 percent to 36 percent. McCain has hardly ever campaigned here and finished fourth in the Republican caucuses. Noneed4thneed noted that Rasmussen found

McCain leads Clinton by a two-to-one margin among unaffiliated voters. However, Obama leads McCain 46% to 37% among those same voters.

The latest round of Survey USA polls had a similar finding (sorry, no link). Obama and Hillary look poised to win a comparable number of electoral votes against McCain, but they do it in different ways. Obama was ahead in Iowa against McCain, but Hillary was trailing the Republican. Assuming Obama is the Democratic nominee, I have to believe he would be heavily favored to win Iowa. Rasmussen's poll may show his lead within the margin of error, but Obama has a huge volunteer army to draw on here from the caucuses, while McCain didn't build any kind of organization in Iowa.

the ad for John McCain you may see on the lower left-hand side of your screen does not in any way, shape or form constitute an endorsement of McCain by this blog.

Bleeding Heartland will strongly support the Democratic nominee this fall.

We are part of the liberal Blogads Network, which is how the ad found its way to this page. If McCain’s campaign wants to throw away its money advertising on liberal blogs, I’m not going to complain.

(UPDATE and correction: Bleeding Heartland founder Drew Miller informs me that the McCain ad was being served by Google, not Blogads. Apparently Drew put up some kind of filter to block johnmccain.com, so the ad will no longer show up on this page.)

My share of all advertising revenues generated by Bleeding Heartland will be donated to BlogPAC, a political action committee run by the bloggers Matt Stoller, Chris Bowers, Mike Stark and Natasha Chart:

http://www.blogpac.com/core

Blogpac funds progressive leadership and experiments with injecting new voices in the political process using internet activism. We give grants, no strings attached, to activists on the internet who have a demonstrated record of success in either creating progressive change or creating the space for progressives to make change. We also seek moments to inject progressive power into the political system through focused internet and new media activism.

Stoller and Bowers used to blog at MyDD and now run the shop at Open Left.

Chart posts on several liberal blogs, including MyDD and Open Left.

Stark is most famous for asking Virginia Senator George Allen (shortly after the “macaca” incident) if he had ever used the n-word. It was a question no mainstream journalist would ever have asked Allen, but the senator’s dishonest reply opened the door to a stream of stories about how Allen had casually used racial slurs in the past.

One of my favorite bloggers, Steve Gilliard, later wrote that Jim Webb owes his Senate seat to Stark, because Stark helped drive a media narrative that was devastating to Allen.

A few days ago, Des Moines Register reporter Jane Norman wrote a story about earmarks Iowa’s members of Congress obtained for projects in 2007. The article was based on the 2008 “Congressional Pig Book,” published by Citizens against Government Waste.

The Register notes:

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that takes aim at waste and fraud in government.

To qualify as pork, projects must meet one of seven criteria: a request by just one member of Congress; no specific authorization; no competitive award; no presidential request; a greatly increased budget amount compared with the previous year; serving only a local or special interest; or no congressional hearing.

Norman’s main point was that Iowa’s members of Congress obtained far more earmarks in 2007 than they had the previous year, totaling

$184.6 million in earmarks, or $61.79 in Iowa pork for every man, woman and child in the state.

It’s a major rebound for Iowa, which languished in 37th place in a similar study in 2006. That year, lawmakers obtained $72.2 million in earmarks, or $24.34 per Iowan.

(Note: Earlier this year, the group Taxpayers for Common Sense did its own analysis and came up with somewhat different numbers for 2007: the Iowa delegation was calculated to have obtained about “$152 million in earmarked money from Congress – or $51.10 for every man, woman and child in the state.”)

Norman noted that since Democrats took control of Congress in he 2006 elections, Senator Tom Harkin now chairs a “key appropriations subcommittee.” The “Congressional Pig Book” apparently singled him out for getting “$40 million for 44 projects in his own bill,” according to Norman.

I don’t know why the authors would single out Harkin, when their own book shows that Senator Chuck Grassley obtained more pork for Iowa in terms of total dollar value. Grassley collaborated with Harkin on a large number of earmarks for Iowa projects.

I also get a little tired of self-appointed taxpayer watchdogs expressing righteous indignation about this or that project that got a few hundred thousand dollars from the federal government. The Pig Book shows that the more than 11,000 earmarks in 2007 accounted for about $17.2 billion in federal spending.

Meanwhile, the U.S. spent several times that amount on the continuing war in Iraq in 2007, with little to show for it besides more American casualties.

That said, there’s no doubt that a lot of earmarks are wasteful appropriations for projects of limited benefit to the broader community. The Pig Book contains a ton of information about the earmarks each member of Congress has obtained. You can search all the Iowa earmarks from 2007 on this page of the Des Moines Register’s website, or search for earmarks by any member of Congress at the Citizens Against Government Waste site.

I used that search engine to find the total number of earmarks that each Iowa member of Congress obtained last year. The total dollar amount for each member comes from a table published in the Des Moines Register on April 3 (no link, because I could only find this table in the print version). Note that not every dollar earmarked by an Iowan ends up in Iowa, because some of these projects operate in many states.

Chuck Grassley (R), 155 earmarks, $321.4 million

Tom Harkin (D), 194 earmarks, $302.8 million

Tom Latham (R, IA-04), 63 earmarks, $67 million

Dave Loebsack (D, IA-02), 27 earmarks, $53.5 million

Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03), 27 earmarks, $33.1 million

Bruce Braley (D, IA-01), 26 earmarks, $27.5 million

Steve King (R, IA-05), 13 earmarks, $9.8 million

Why does Latham, a Republican, lead our House delegation in terms of earmarks? He is the longest-serving Iowan in the House (having been first elected in 1994) and serves on several subcommittees of the House Appropriations Committee. Also, his district includes Iowa State University, and a lot of federal funding goes to major research universities.

The data for the Democrats surprised me. How did the freshman Dave Loebsack secure so much more than Leonard Boswell? At first I thought it must be because Loebsack’s district includes the University of Iowa, but only two of Loebsack’s 27 earmarks were for the university.

Looking down the list more carefully, I realized that the dollar amount credited to Loebsack is inflated because he was one of 13 House members to earmark $24 million for the Department of Education’s National Writing Project. Most of that money will not go to Iowa.

Even if we remove that one from Loebsack’s list, he is still left with 26 earmarks (almost as many as Boswell), totaling $29.5 million (almost as much as Boswell). Keep in mind that Loebsack is only halfway through his first term, while Boswell was elected to Congress in 1996.

Braley is not far behind, despite being a freshman as well.

It’s no surprise that King is at the bottom of the list. Not only is he a Republican in a Democratic-controlled chamber, his idea of constituent service seems to revolve around making outrageous statements. Oh, and also suing to prevent non-native English speakers from receiving voter information in other languages. He has no major universities in his district either.

If you dig around in the database and find anything particularly noteworthy, please put a comment in this thread.

Remember that Republican group, Iowa Future Fund, which has been running advertisements against Governor Chet Culver since last summer?

Mrs. Panstreppon alerted me to an article she wrote at TPM Cafe: American Future Fund & Iowa Future Fund, GOP Fronts. You should read the whole thing, but here are some excerpts (the embedded links did not come through–you’ll have to click over to TPM Cafe to see those):

American Future Fund (AFF) is running ads in support of Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) and Iowa Future Fund (IFF)is running ads against Governor Chet Culver (D-Iowa)and there has been speculation in the media as to who is behind AFF and IFF. Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker posted about AFF and IFF and the Des Moines Register and Minnesota NPR among others have run stories about the two entities.

Last week, Minnesota Democrats filed an FEC complaint against American Future Fund.

I reviewed AFF and IFF documents filed with the Iowa Secretary of State on 8/7/07 and the incorporator is Jessica Young at 98 Alexandria Pike, Ste 53, in Warrenton, VA. That is the address of Holtzman Vogel, a law firm owned by two very influential and well-known Republican operatives, Alex N. Vogel and his wife, Jill Holtzman Vogel.

[…]

On 2/7/08, an Eric Peterson filed a fictitious name resolution in order for Iowa Future Fund to do business as “IFF”. Peterson listed himself as IFF president, secretary and director but no address or phone number was provided.

Jessica Young as IFF incorporator has the power to appoint directors so I assume she appointed Eric Peterson. But Young isn’t talking. I called her at Holtzman Vogel and was referred instead to an attorney named Teresa who told me that it was the firm’s policy to keep client matters confidential. When I pointed out that HV seemed to be the client, she refused to comment.[…]

According to Stu Rothenberg at the Rothenberg Report, Republican operatives Ben Ginsberg and Edward T. Tobin III are also involved in IFF and AFF. Ginsberg, former counsel to the Bush-Cheney campaign, is a partner in Patton Boggs’s public policy and lobbying group. Tobin, former executive director of the Republican Governors Association, is a partner in Wilmer Hale’s fairly new Public Policy and Strategy Group.

David Kochel has acknowledged that he is an IFF advisor but refuses to say anything more. Kochel, a former Iowa Republican Party director, was most recently an advisor to the ill-fated Romney campaign and he advised Lamar Alexander in 2000. Kochel, along with Jennifer Dean, owns JDK Marketing and Public Affairs.

Who is Eric Peterson, Iowa Future Fund president, secretary and director? One guess is that he is Eric Peterson, Summit Farms business manager. A 2007 Iowa State U. grad, Peterson donated $2k to Rudy Giuliani in December as did other Summit Farms employees along with Peterson’s employer, wealthy Iowan businessman, Bruce Rastetter.

Bruce Rastetter, a big Republican donor, owns Hawkeye Renewables which owns and operates four ethanol plants in Iowa.

[…]

Rastetter himself is politically ambitious and considered running against Senator Tom Harkin this year.

[…]

Is Bruce Rastetter, a least in part, funding Iowa Future Fund and American Future Fund? It would certainly suit him politically to do so because he can keep the extent of his financial support of the Republican Party secret. Rastetter seems to be a practical guy in that he just made his first ever contribution to a Democrat, $25k to Gov. Culver. I doubt if Rastetter would want the governor to know he is funding ads criticizing him.

Bleeding Heartland readers, do you know anything more about Eric Peterson or other people behind the Iowa Future Fund?  If so, please put up a comment or e-mail me confidentially: desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.

Courtesy of Moveon.Org. Footnotes supporting all these statements, with links, are after the jump.

We need to spread the word that McCain is not a moderate maverick–he is a hard-core conservative. Even my stepmother, who wouldn’t vote for him, was under the mistaken impression that he was pro-choice.

10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don’t):

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has “evolved,” yet he’s continued to oppose key civil rights laws.1

2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain “will make Cheney look like Gandhi.”2

3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.3

4. McCain opposes a woman’s right to choose. He said, “I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned.”4

5. The Children’s Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children’s health care bill last year, then defended Bush’s veto of the bill.5

6. He’s one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a “second job” and skip their vacations.6

7. Many of McCain’s fellow Republican senators say he’s too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He’s erratic. He’s hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”7

8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.8

9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his “spiritual guide,” Rod Parsley, believes America’s founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a “false religion.” McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church “the Antichrist” and a “false cult.”9

10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0-yes, zero-from the League of Conservation Voters last year.

UPDATE: DemFromCT wrote a great post today, “McCain Runs Into Trouble On Health Care Reform.” He noted this hilarious headline from the Boston Globe:

McCain camp working out healthcare details

Aides struggle to sort out his promises

Back in 2002, Steve King hadn’t yet become an embarrassment on the national stage; he was merely a crusader for intolerance in the Republican-controlled Iowa legislature. Tom Vilsack was a first-term governor nervously eyeing a midterm re-election campaign under the very popular President George W. Bush.

Seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?

Anyway, King was obsessed with passing a law declaring English the official language of Iowa. Didn’t you know how difficult it had become for Iowans to express themselves without official acknowledgment of English’s status?

Vilsack vetoed one version of the bill, then signed the rewritten bill that came to his desk. Disappointed liberals were assured that Vilsack had made the smart play by taking the issue off the table for the November election. Besides, the new bill contained all kinds of exceptions, so it would be little more than a symbolic measure.

Well, this week a judge in Polk County “ordered Iowa Secretary of State Michael Mauro to stop using languages other than English in the state’s official voter registration forms”, the Des Moines Register’s William Petroski reported. (If you want to read the ruling, click here.)

In 2006 King, by then a U.S. Representative in Iowa’s fifth district, complained that then-Secretary of State Chet Culver had put voting information in Spanish, Laotian, Bosnian and Vietnamese as well as English on the secretary of state’s website.

Attorney General Tom Miller had determined such action was acceptable because the official English law allowed for “any language usage required by or necessary to secure the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, or the Constitution of the state of Iowa.”

King filed suit last year against Culver and Mike Mauro, who was elected secretary of state in 2006.  District Judge Douglas Staskal concluded that voter registration forms in languages other than English are against the law, and voided the “improper exercise of agency power.”

Miller, like Culver and Mauro a Democrat, may appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court:

“Our view is that although the Iowa English Language Reaffirmation Act requires all official forms to be in English, it does not prohibit government officials from providing materials in other languages as well,” Miller said. “We argued that position to the District Court. This principle can be particularly important in the area of voting rights of citizens.”

If this ruling is upheld, it will hamper efforts to register voters whose native language is not English.

I’m with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board, which wrote on Saturday that “it’s time for Iowa lawmakers to repeal this embarrassing law.”

They should do so because the law is mean-spirited and sends an anti-immigrant message. They should do so because it makes Iowa seem xenophobic. They should do so because it’s unnecessary when studies show today’s immigrants are learning English as quickly as their predecessors.

And to lawmakers who may have thought the law was toothless because it included exemptions, Judge Staskal’s ruling tells them otherwise. The law applies to “official action” from government, which is broadly defined. It could have a “chilling effect on speech by causing government employees to refrain from non-English communication all together,” he wrote.

There is still time for legislators to repeal the official English law this session.

Don’t let the ghost of Steve King constrain voting rights in the upcoming presidential election.

One of the biggest scandals in Washington journalism is the media pack’s willingness to cover up John McCain’s legendary temper. The same journalists who happily depicted Al Gore and Howard Dean as angry and unstable rarely mention McCain’s tendency to fly off the handle.

Tom Harkin reminded us of this problem on Thursday:

“Yeah, I’ve been on the receiving end of it and yes, I’ve seen it, and yes, everyone here knows about it,” Harkin said.

“It can be scary,” he said. “Flying off the handle without discussing things with people, working things out … I’ve seen it a couple, three times here.”

McCain claims that what makes him angry is waste and corruption in Washington, but look for stories of his temper tantrums to trickle out in the coming months. This is common knowledge among everyone who has worked in the Senate or the Washington press corps.

On Thursday I wrote about how Ed Fallon’s I’M for Iowa movement has become an issue in the campaign for the Democratic nomination in the third Congressional district.

I am returning to the topic to address some points Chase Martyn raised in an article for Iowa Independent, “FEC disputes Fallon campaign statement,” and in the comment thread below that article. I agree with Chase on a couple of specifics, but disagree with the larger point he is making.

My post included the text of an April 2 press release from Fallon’s campaign titled, “FEC Confirms Boswell’s Allegations Baseless Against Fallon.” It asserted that the information services department of the Federal Election Commission “confirmed that Ed Fallon has done nothing illegal or unethical.”

An FEC spokesperson told Iowa Independent, “No Commission employee made any determination relative to the specific circumstances of any campaign. Only the Commission can make such a determination.”

Reading Fallon’s press release, it appears that a campaign official reviewed the relevant portions of the rules with someone from the FEC in order to confirm the content and/or intent of those rules. But the release should not have claimed the FEC confirmed the Fallon campaign’s position regarding I’M for Iowa.

I have to agree with Chase that this kind of “amateur mistake” is not going to cut it. Fallon’s press shop needs to have an extra copy editor and tighter supervision to make sure nothing like this happens again.

Chase is troubled by the fact that I’M for Iowa is not legally obliged to disclose its donors:

What if Leonard Boswell sent out an email from his personal email account soliciting donations to his personal bank account in exchange for intangible political advocacy services?

Don’t you think Ed Fallon would be the first in line to criticize him for inviting corruption?  Even if, as Fallon says (and I believe him), he respects Boswell and doesn’t think he’s an evil or dishonest man, Boswell’s actions would introduce too many ethical questions to allow him to effectively represent us in Congress.

I agree that if Fallon were elected to Congress, it would be inappropriate for him to continue to raise money for outside political advocacy by I’M for Iowa. In that event, it would be best to shut down I’M for Iowa or transfer it to new ownership outside Fallon’s household, so as not to create any opportunities for (or even the appearance of) corruption.

Chase’s larger point seems to be that Fallon should have made I’M for Iowa a 501(c)4 organization rather than a general partnership.

I don’t know the details about what it takes to set up a 501(c)4 compared to a business like I’M for Iowa. I know from friends who are in the small business world that it gets complicated when you are trying to decide whether to establish a general partnership, an S-corp, a limited liability corporation, etc.  Each variant has pros and cons.

I am involved in several non-profit organizations, and it is frustrating not to be able to take a position on certain issues because of limitations related to 501(c)3 status. While 501(c)4 organizations can undertake political advocacy, the reality is that some controversial issues get overlooked by 501(c)4s as well.

So I see a niche for a business like I’M for Iowa, although as I wrote in my previous post, I have never contributed to I’M for Iowa and haven’t followed its work closely. If people are willing to contribute money to support Fallon’s political advocacy related to CAFOs, eminent domain, coal-fired power plants and so on, I have no problem with that.

It’s not as if I’M for Iowa is hiding what issues it works on.

Chase is concerned that Fallon could evade contribution caps for Congressional candidates by taking unlimited large donations for I’M for Iowa, paying himself a large salary through I’M for Iowa, and then turning around and writing large checks to his own Congressional campaign.

Fallon lives simply and has disclosed his modest income, so it would be a huge red flag if he started writing big checks to his Congressional campaign (which we would learn about from campaign disclosure documents).

Meanwhile, Boswell has already had American taxpayers write large checks to his campaign, in effect, by using his franking privilege to send out three glossy direct-mail pieces that had the look and feel of campaign literature. Those were very different from the typical constituent letter you get from Boswell’s office on regular paper in a regular envelope.

The Des Moines Register has given Boswell a “thistle” for using his franking privilege to send out material that “crashes across” the line between “legitimate constituent communication and overt political campaigning.” I have seen no estimate of how much these mailings cost taxpayers. Will Boswell’s office disclose those numbers?

Chase notes in a comment that

The issue of Boswell receiving corporate PAC money might be of concern to many, but we are only able to complain about it because he is forced to disclose it.

So now I am supposed to be more worried about hypothetical scenarios related to potential I’M for Iowa donations than I am about real, existing sources of Boswell’s campaign funds.

I know from experience that Boswell will often not represent my views on matters of great importance to me. I know that for years I have been getting numerous action alerts from progressive groups urging me to contact Boswell on this or that bill.

Invariably, they are just trying to get Boswell to take the mainstream, majority Democatic position for or against whatever bill is the issue.

Matthew Grimm recently noted in a piece for the Down with Tyranny! blog:

A more sophisticated rating [of Boswell’s voting record] at Progressive Punch’s When The Chips Are Down scale shows that when substantive matters with sharp partisan divides are voted on, Boswell is frequently ready to rubber stamp much of the Bush corporate agenda.

Here is a link to Progressive Punch’s scorecard for all House members. Boswell ranks 188th in terms of his support for progressive stands “when the chips are down.”

I don’t know why Boswell has voted the way he has. I don’t know if it has any relationship to campaign contributions from corporate PACs that promote different policies from the ones I favor. Ultimately, his reason for not consistently representing the Democratic Party’s views and values is irrelevant to me.

I want to worry less about whether my member of Congress will vote with the Democratic majority consistently, particularly if we end up with another four years of a Republican president.

I want to address one more point related to I’M for Iowa. While not claiming that Fallon has broken any laws, the Boswell campaign is trying to undermine the legitimacy of political advocacy work as opposed to a “real job.”

Boswell spokesman Mark Daley has suggested there is something illegitimate about I’M for Iowa:

“If he’s going to run on clean elections, then he should come clean about what he’s doing,” Boswell campaign spokesman Mark Daley said.

[…]

The ethics questions are the latest jab by Boswell ahead of the June 3 primary.

“On the surface, this looks like a fund to give him a job,” Daley said.

I notice a similar theme running through the comments by some Boswell supporters on various blogs: Fallon has never had a “real job.” I object to the idea that political advocacy and community organizing are not real jobs. Furthermore, I am active with 1000 Friends of Iowa, for which Fallon served as executive director for a number of years. Just because it’s in the non-profit sector doesn’t mean it’s not a job.

If Fallon decided to pursue political advocacy work full-time after the 2006 gubernatorial campaign, and people were willing to contribute money to I’M for Iowa, why is that less legitimate than getting people to invest in a different kind of business?

To me this looks like a smokescreen by the Boswell campaign to raise doubts about Fallon.

Why doesn’t Boswell want this campaign to be about his voting record and what he has done as representative for the third district?  

Barack Obama says he will withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months if elected president. He was recently endorsed by Bill Richardson, who advocated keeping no residual troops in Iraq (combat or otherwise).

So I was intrigued by this story from the New York Sun about a confidential policy paper written by an adviser to Obama:

http://www.nysun.com/national/…

The paper, obtained by The New York Sun, was written by Colin Kahl for the center-left Center for a New American Security. In “Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement,” Mr. Kahl writes that through negotiations with the Iraqi government “the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000-80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground).”

Mr. Kahl is the day-to-day coordinator of the Obama campaign’s working group on Iraq. A shorter and less detailed version of this paper appeared on the center’s Web site as a policy brief.

Both Mr. Kahl and a senior Obama campaign adviser reached yesterday said the paper does not represent the campaign’s Iraq position.

I would like a stronger statement from Obama that he categorically rules out keeping tens of thousands of troops in Iraq through the first two years of his administration.

Otherwise Bill Clinton will be proven correct: the idea of Obama as a consistent opponent of the Iraq war is a “fairy tale.”

A few posts down I mentioned that Elizabeth Edwards has been going after John McCain for his totally inadequate health care reform proposal. As she has noted, both she and McCain could be excluded from his program because their cancer would be considered pre-existing conditions.

Instead of addressing her substantive arguments, McCain’s national finance co-chair, Fred Malek, whines that she should not be talking about cancer in a political context:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Finding a cure for cancer is a vitally important mission for this country. Supporting that mission should unite everyone – and should be off-limits from the political and partisan battlefield.

…I just hope that it doesn’t become a common occurrence on the campaign trail. The cancer conversation is best left to the experts, researchers, and doctors.

Yes, let’s all join together and find a cure for cancer, while not mentioning that cancer patients could be denied coverage under McCain’s health care plan.

Click the link to read diarist Dean Barker’s discussion of the highlights of Malek’s career. They include his work compiling a list of high-ranking Jews in the  Bureau of Labor Statistics for President Richard Nixon in 1971.

You can find statistics about sexual assault and resources for survivors and those who wish to become counselors at the website of the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault:

IowaCASA’s mission is to unite people and organizations to promote a society free from sexual violence and to meet the diverse needs of survivors.

[…] Today, IowaCASA has 27 member sexual assault crisis centers serving survivors of sexual assault throughout Iowa. Eleven staff work on several initiatives including: technical assistance and training to member centers; civil legal assistance for survivors of sexual assault, including immigration assistance; improving responses to sexual assault within communities of color; a training initiative for assisting survivors with developmental disabilities; a national project providing peer-based assistance to other sexual assault coalitions; statewide sexual assault prevention; training for allied professionals; and public policy efforts at the state and national level.

If you or someone you care about is in danger because of an abusive situation, the site provides this advice:

Email is not a safe or confidential way to talk to someone about the danger or abuse in your life. To discuss a confidential issue please call our office at 515-244-7424 or the statewide Iowa Sexual Abuse Hotline at 1-800-284-7821 to be connected to a sexual assault counselor in your area.

I’ve put contact information for all member centers of the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault after the jump.

As I’ve noted recently, the primary to represent Iowa’s third Congressional district has taken a strange turn, whereby the incumbent seems to be trying to make the race primarily about the challenger’s faults rather than the incumbent’s record of service.

I’ve been too busy in non-blog life to write up the day to day sparring following a recent e-mail from Leonard Boswell’s campaign, which attacked Ed Fallon on several fronts.

The criticism of Fallon by Boswell’s surrogates and supporters has focused on four issues in particular:

1. alleged ethical questions related to Fallon’s work for the Independence Movement for Iowa (I’M for Iowa)

2. the salary Fallon drew from unspent campaign funds following the 2006 gubernatorial primary

3. allegations that Fallon pondered running for governor as an independent after losing that primary

4. Fallon’s stand against taking contributions from PACs while allowing PACs to encourage their individual members to donate to his campaign.

I will cover each of those issues in a separate diary, because I don’t have time to write about all of them at once. Today, I will address the allegations related to I’M for Iowa.

Chase Martyn of Iowa Independent published a piece on March 20 called “Fallon Faces Campaign Finance Questions.” Martyn raised questions about I’M for Iowa’s ability to collect unlimited donations without disclosing the sources:

Although I’M For Iowa participates in political advocacy and relies on contributions to stay afloat, its financial status does not fit the typical mold for this type of organization. Rather than registering it as a nonprofit organization with the Internal Revenue Service under sections 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4) or 527, Fallon runs the organization as a for-profit general partnership, making its tax status no different from most home businesses. He and his current campaign manager, Lynn Heuss, co-own the business.

But there is a difference between I’M For Iowa and most typical businesses: Rather than sell products and services to customers, it accepts donations for its political advocacy work. While the donations are not tax-deductible, the business can accept unlimited amounts of money. And because of its tax status, it is not required to disclose information about its sources of funding.

Martyn also noted that two e-mails sent to I’M for Iowa’s distribution list appeared to have promoted Fallon’s Congressional campaign:

On Feb. 29 an e-mail Fallon wrote to his I’M For Iowa group invited readers to visit his campaign Web site and participate in campaign activities to coincide with his 50th birthday. And on Jan. 12 he sent an I’M For Iowa e-mail announcing his candidacy for Congress and providing a lengthy critique of his primary opponent’s voting record.

The result is a complicated question involving the nuances of campaign finance law. Can an unincorporated business accept unlimited contributions without the requirement to disclose its contributors and then use contributed funds to promote a congressional campaign?

Martyn suggested that even if no laws were broken, the questions could hurt Fallon’s image, since he has been a strong advocate of clean-elections laws (such as the Voter-Owned Iowa Clean Elections Act, which would create a voluntary system of public financing of election campaigns).

The Des Moines Register didn’t follow up on the Iowa Independent story until after the Boswell campaign drew attention to it a week later. Thomas Beaumont examined various questions related to I’M for Iowa in the Register on March 29:

The organization is a trade name registered with the Polk County recorder. Small businesses such as lawn care services and other sole proprietorships register this way.

However, some other advocacy organizations, such as the 15-year-old, Des Moines-based State Public Policy Group, is also registered the same way as Fallon’s group.

I’M for Iowa is not a corporation, over which the Iowa secretary of state has regulatory authority.

Fallon’s group does not have to report its sources of money or what kind of business it is. But it receives no money from corporations, said Lynn Heuss, Fallon’s partner in the organization.

It runs on contributions from individuals who support its agenda, which includes limiting large livestock confinements, curbing global warming, promoting campaign finance reform and preventing abuse of eminent domain.

It seems clear that there is no legal barrier to using the I’M for Iowa e-mail list to promote Fallon’s Congressional campaign.

Martyn wrote in Iowa Independent:

A representative of the Federal Elections Commission would not comment on any matters that regulators may have to rule on, but FEC regulations do not seem to explicitly prohibit coordination between a campaign and an unincorporated business entity owned by a candidate.

Beaumont’s March 29 article for the Register notes that

Campaign finance law bars corporate contributions from federal races. However, the law specifies corporations and limited liability companies, which Fallon’s group is not.

According to a press release from Fallon’s campaign on April 2, the information services department of the Federal Election Commission “confirmed that Ed Fallon has done nothing illegal or unethical.” The full text of that release is after the jump, but here is a relevant excerpt:

Fallon campaign manager, Lynn Heuss, provided the rules the campaign reviewed with the FEC Information Officer: From the FEC Candidate Guide, Chapter 4, Section 10, “Partnerships are permitted to make contributions according to special rules. 110.1(e) and (k)(1). For further details, see Appendix B.”

In addition, Chapter 4, Section 12 of the FEC Candidate’s Guide says, “When candidates use their personal funds for campaign purposes, they are making contributions to their campaigns. Unlike other contributions, these candidate contributions are not subject to any limits. 110.10; AOs 1991-9, 1990-9, 1985-33 and 1985-60. They must, however, be reported (as discussed below).” And a little further down under “Definition of a Candidate’s “Personal Funds” it says, “The personal funds of a candidate include: Assets which the candidate has a legal right of access to or control over, and which he or she has legal title to or an equitable interest in, at the time of candidacy; income from employment; ….”

Heuss clarified the only contribution the business has made is sending out two email messages, which constitute an in-kind donation, and is not in violation of FEC regulation.

(UPDATE: Chase Martyn reported on April 3 that the FEC denied making “any determination relative to the specific circumstances of any campaign”. Martyn added that Iowa Independent had merely questioned the ethics of how I’M for Iowa was used and not alleged that any laws were broken.)

If no laws were broken, what is the problem? The Boswell campaign has tried to suggest that there is something underhanded about I’M for Iowa. From the Register’s March 29 article:

“If he’s going to run on clean elections, then he should come clean about what he’s doing,” Boswell campaign spokesman Mark Daley said.

[…]

The ethics questions are the latest jab by Boswell ahead of the June 3 primary.

“On the surface, this looks like a fund to give him a job,” Daley said.

Although I’ve donated to Fallon’s gubernatorial and Congressional campaigns, I have never contributed money to I’M for Iowa. As a result, I haven’t followed the organization’s work very closely.

But if individuals want to give money to help Fallon advocate for clean elections, or organize opposition to coal-fired power plants and CAFOs, what is the problem?  

Non-profit organizations are unable or unwilling to take a position on some kinds of political disputes, so there is a niche for a business like I’M for Iowa.

Does the Boswell campaign mean to suggest that advocacy work is not a real job? That seems strange. Barack Obama’s supporters and television commercials have praised that candidate for working as a community organizer after finishing law school.

Frankly, I’m a little surprised the Boswell campaign wants to go down this road, since Boswell’s campaign accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate PACs in 2007 alone. I’m supposed to be concerned about the hidden agenda of individuals who have contributed to I’M for Iowa?

Asked to comment in the Register article of March 29, Fallon characterized the allegations as typical establishment politics:

“The political establishment attacks a candidate on his strength,” Fallon said. “My strength is my commitment to issues. They are looking for ways to discredit me.”

Fallon’s campaign addressed the controversy in more detail in statements released on March 31 and April 2. The full text of those press releases are after the jump.

I am surprised to hear that the Republican National Committee’s Rules Committee has approved a proposed 2012 nominating calendar that would keep the Iowa caucuses first, followed by New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

I had assumed that the GOP establishment would have the knives out for Iowa, since Mike Huckabee’s triumph here hurt establishment favorite Mitt Romney, while this year’s nominee John McCain, another establishment favorite, finished a distant fourth place.

Keeping Iowa first is not a done deal:

The measure, which passed 28-12, must now be approved by the rules committee meeting in August, scheduled for the week before the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Finally, the measure must be approved by delegates to the convention.

Still, it’s interesting that this calendar has support within the RNC rules committee for now.

Since Barack Obama seems very likely to become the Democratic nominee, I would assume that the Iowa caucuses are safe if he wins the general election. If he loses to McCain, however, I expect members of the Democratic National Committee to change the calendar. A lot of angry Democrats will blame Iowans for picking a loser again.

Governor Chet Culver on Tuesday signed into law Senate File 2347, which requires all Iowa counties to use optical scan voting machines and paper ballots.

The state will spend an estimated $4.6 million to replace touchscreen voting machines in 19 counties that have been using them.

It’s a relief that all 99 counties will be using similar voting equipment, which is less vulnerable to tampering than touchscreen machines and allows for hand and machine recounts in the event of a close election.

The Des Moines Register quoted Sean Flaherty of Iowans for Voting Integrity as saying voters will also save time in the counties that are replacing the paperless machines. Voting by touchscreen takes longer and leads to bigger backlogs at polling stations.

A lot of credit goes to Secretary of State Mike Mauro, who showed leadership on this issue despite the governor’s early objections to the cost of the plan and complaints by some officials in the counties that had purchased touchscreen machines.

I just got a robo-call from Governor Chet Culver inviting me to a fundraiser that he and Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge are hosting for Congressman Leonard Boswell this Saturday, April 5.

The event starts at 6:30 pm at the Hotel Fort Des Moines (10th and Walnut in Des Moines). The Too Many Strings Band will perform.

I received an invitation to this event in the mail two or three weeks ago. It looks like they are expecting contributions of at least $25 to Boswell for Congress, with hosts, sponsors and patrons donating at higher levels.

If any Bleeding Heartland readers attend this fundraiser, please put up a diary afterwards to let us know how it went, how big the crowd was, and anything interesting the speakers may have said.

I expect they will raise quite a lot of money for Boswell’s campaign this Saturday.

Be glad Hillary Clinton didn’t take the advice of the Barack Obama supporters who have been urging her to drop out for more than a month now.

Democrats are making huge gains in voter registration in Pennsylvania, a must-win state for our nominee this fall.

Does anyone think this would be happening if both candidates weren’t working the state hard in the runup to the primary?

Smintheus has more on the Pennsylvania trends at Daily Kos:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

And Jonathan Singer adds some useful analysis on Pennsylvania at MyDD:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008…

The indispensable nyceve put up this diary about a fantastic blog post by Elizabeth Edwards: Why Are People Like Me Left Out Of Your Health Care Proposal, Sen. McCain?

Just click the link and read the whole thing. We need to hammer McCain on this issue, because his health care reform plan is totally inadequate.

You couldn’t miss this front-page story in the Des Moines Register on Monday:

Plan to reshape Ankeny tackles troubled spots

City officials and developer DRA Properties are transforming a 1,031-acre World War II munitions plant site into a live-work-play development called Prairie Trail. They expect 10,000 people to move there by 2020.

To realize their new urbanist dream, however, the developer and others are working to eliminate concerns about the land, some of which has been designated as a Superfund site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It’s a designation the EPA gives to uncontrolled hazardous waste sites identified as risks to human health.

[…]

There are two primary environmental concerns within the development, said Iowa DNR and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials.

The most critical is the 38-acre parcel to be converted into a city park. The land was used as a landfill and industrial lagoon decades ago by the Army, John Deere and the city. The area is where production waste of mainly metal particles and oils was disposed. Spots within the site, including toxic sludge left in the old industrial lagoons, contain unsafe levels of metals such as lead, chromium, copper, arsenic, manganese and antimony, according to the EPA.

EPA officials said the metals will have to be put out of human contact. Under a proposed plan, that would be done by a combination of removing soil and sealing the ground with a thick plastic barrier and clay cap.

Today, one in 10,000 people has a chance of getting cancer from a lifetime’s worth of exposure at the site, EPA toxicologist Jeremy Johnson said. After the cleanup, he said, those odds will be one in 1 million. “Those cancer risks won’t be there,” he said.

The landfill and lagoon area is a Superfund site. It is not on the Superfund national priority list, which identifies the country’s worst hazards.

However, it is not known whether the site would qualify for the national priority list, said Gene Gunn, a branch chief in the EPA Superfund program. It is not being considered for the list, which is largely a designation for projects to receive federal money, because the parties responsible for the contamination have voluntarily agreed to pay for the cleanup.

“I wouldn’t be very concerned with it,” Gunn said of the site as it would be after the cleanup. “The action that’s going to take place there will leave it in a protective state.”

Under a draft proposal, a covenant on the land would prevent houses from being built on the lagoon and landfill site, and the groundwater near there would be monitored for 30 years.

The Prairie Trail development is a great concept: a mix of residential, retail and public space in the center of town, easily navigated by foot or bicycle for those who choose not to drive.

However, community activists were raising concerns two years ago about the potential for schools, parks and houses to be placed on contaminated ground. I wish the Register had given the story prominent coverage at that time.

I hope they do a good job cleaning up this site, but frankly, I would hesitate to buy a home anywhere near that lagoon or landfill.

to teach people in the U.S. and around the world that “the climate crisis is both urgent and solvable.” Good for him.

It’s no use just scaring people and making them feel helpless and powerless to change our energy consumption and policies.

A Siegel has the story at Daily Kos:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

The Center for American Progress Action Fund has more at their website (http://www.americanprogressaction.org/). I am reproducing some material from that organization after the jump, but the links did not transfer from my e-mail to this post, so you’ll have to go to the website to pick those up.

I didn’t see this last week, because despite my requests, the Boswell campaign is still not sending their press releases to me (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com). But on Friday the United Auto Workers came out for Boswell in the Democratic primary to represent Iowa’s third Congressional district. Via Iowa True Blue, here is the release from the campaign:

Des Moines, IA – Congressman Leonard Boswell received the support of the Iowa United Auto Workers State Community Action League (CAP) today.  “I’m honored and proud to have earned the support of the UAW,” said Boswell.  “These hard working men and women share my commitment to protecting working families, making college more affordable, creating jobs that can’t be outsourced and bringing health care to every American.”

“Leonard Boswell stood by our side time and time again in pushing for CAFE standards that help the environment, lessen our dependence on foreign oil, and produce manufacturing jobs across our country,” said Dennis Walker, President of the Iowa UAW State CAP.  “He fought to stop the sale of Maytag when our jobs were attacked, and has worked tirelessly to bring jobs back to the Newton area.”

The UAW has approximately 30,000 active and retired members in Iowa.

It’s not clear how many UAW members in Iowa live in the third district. There used to be a sizable number in Jasper County, but that was before Maytag closed.

So far Boswell has swept the union endorsements, including the Service Employees International Union, despite Ed Fallon’s rock-solid voting record on labor. It’s extremely rare for unions to back a challenger in a primary.

How many foot soldiers will these unions provide for Boswell this spring? I think he will need the help to match the volunteers organized by the Fallon campaign.

What do you know? Under John McCain’s health care reform plan, insurance companies could exclude pre-existing conditions such as his own recurrent melanoma. Of course, McCain doesn’t need to worry about this, because he has the Cadillac care provided to all members of Congress.

Elizabeth Edwards, who could likewise be excluded under McCain’s plan because of her history of breast cancer, has called McCain on his hypocrisy. Click the link above to read nyceve’s important diary on the subject.

On a related note, Dr.SteveB, who like nyceve advocates a single-payer health care system (that is, like Medicare, but covering every American), reports on a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Internal Medicine. A nationwide survey of 2,193 physicians

showed 59% “support government legislation to establish national health insurance,” while 32% oppose and 9% are neutral. That’s a solid majority of American doctors, and up 10% from 49% in 2002 when a similar study was last done.

This is an excerpt from the article in Annals of Internal Medicine:

Support among doctors for NHI has increased across almost all medical specialties, said Dr. Ronald T. Ackermann, associate director of the Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research at Indiana University’s School of Medicine and co-author of the study.

“Across the board, more physicians feel that our fragmented and for-profit insurance system is obstructing good patient care, and a majority now support national insurance as the remedy,” he said.

Dr.SteveB has more on the story if you click the link.

I am continually amazed by the pretzel logic displayed by some bloggers who support Obama. No, these people are not crackpots; their work is enthusiastically recommended and praised by their fellow travelers.

A few days ago Hillary Clinton unambiguously confirmed that she will be 100 percent behind Obama if he wins the nomination:

Clinton was asked by a questioner in the audience here what she would tell frustrated Democrats who might consider voting for McCain in the general election out of spite.

“Please think through this decision,” Clinton said, laughing and emphasizing the word “please.”

“It is not a wise decision for yourself or your country.”

The crowd applauded loudly.[…]

Clinton stressed that there are “significant” differences between her and Obama, but said “those differences pale to the differences between us and Sen. McCain.”

“I intend to do everything I can to make sure we have a unified Democratic party,” she said. “When this contest is over and we have a nominee, we’re going to close ranks, we’re going to be united.”

If you only read blogs that take their cue from the Obama campaign’s talking points of the day, you missed this story.

I didn’t see jubilant front-page posts and recommended diaries about it at Daily Kos either.

On the other hand, every offensive statement made by some supporter of Clinton becomes a federal offense, one that must be denounced by all who back Hillary.

I’ll continue this discussion after the jump.

Typically, a challenger needs to run a somewhat negative campaign in order to convince voters to reject the incumbent. The incumbent normally is content to ignore the challenger and run on his or her record of service.

In Iowa’s third Congressional district, a strange role reversal is underway, in which Ed Fallon is calling on Leonard Boswell’s campaign to “stop the negative attacks.”

Last week I posted the text of an e-mail from Boswell, which charged that Fallon is “no Democrat” and “has never acted in the best interest of our party.”

On March 24, Fallon issued a press release and a letter to his supporters responding to the attacks from the Boswell camp. It once again addresses Fallon’s support for Ralph Nader in 2000, and also responds to claims that Fallon’s work for I’M for Iowa has run afoul of ethical or campaign finance rules.

I am working on another post about the financing of the Boswell and Fallon campaigns, and will write more about allegations surrounding Fallon and I’M for Iowa in the near future.

For now, I will note that the Boswell campaign probably would not have stepped up the attacks on Fallon in March if their internal polling and voter contacts were encouraging. (I got a call from a field organizer for Boswell during the first week of March, and my husband got a call from an organizer for Boswell this past week.)

An incumbent who is not worried doesn’t go after a challenger this way two months before the primary.

When the first public poll of this race is released, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Fallon within striking distance of Boswell.

The full text of Fallon’s press release of March 24 is after the jump.

When I was in college nearly 20 years ago, I remember reading an article in the Des Moines Register about the rising rate of births by cesarian-sections in Iowa. At some rural hospitals, the rate was approaching 25 percent, and that was alarming to some doctors.

Now almost a third of all births in Iowa are by c-section, and in some counties that figure is above 40 percent.

During the past week, the Des Moines Register, Cedar Rapids Gazette and several other newspapers  published this piece from the Associated Press about the rising rate of cesarean births, which quotes several women in Linn County and Johnson County.

Unfortunately, the article does a poor job of assessing the causes of the this trend and ignores the most significant problems associated with unnecessary c-sections. I explain why after the jump.

John McCain somehow manages to maintain an image as a moderate, even as he panders to the right wing of the Republican Party.

Watch him try to evade the question of whether using condoms can prevent the spread of AIDS:

Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?”

  Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.”

  Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

  Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

  Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”

  Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

  Q: “But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?”

  Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) “Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before.”

Make sure your Republican and independent friends know that McCain supports George Bush’s policies on contraception.

By the way, “Coburn” refers to Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, one of the most nutty and mean-spirited Republican members of Congress. Also, he’s not above citing junk science to back up his political views.

Take the poll after the jump, and if you like, explain your vote in the comments section.

Take the poll after the jump, and if you like, explain your vote in the comments section.

It’s been many months since we posted these regularly, and I want to restart the tradition.

Take the poll after the jump, and if you like, explain your vote in the comments section.

This schedule of legislative forums went out over the Sierra Club e-mail list. After the jump, I put the whole list of forusm scheduled for Friday and Saturday. Chances are, one will be going on near you.

Campaign finance law, that is.

Yes, the big campaign finance reformer is flouting the law that governs public matching funds for presidential campaigns.

A group of bloggers including Markos of Daily Kos and Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake have filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission. The complaint accuses McCain of

violations of campaign finance law for spending beyond limits imposed by his decision to take public financing.

McCain has claimed he is backing off that decision, and justifies it with the fact that he never received any of that public money. However, the law clearly states that he is bound by those limits if he uses the promise of those funds in order to secure campaign loans — something he absolutely did.

Legal expert Adam B explains more about this issue today.

Also, MoveOn.org Political Action sent out an e-mail about this issue, and I’ve put the full text after the jump.

The e-mail includes a link you can click if you want to sign on to the FEC complaint as well.

Incidentally, I have read that McCain also used the certificate saying he had qualified for matching funds in order to avoid the onerous signature requirements to get on the ballot for the Ohio primary. So he didn’t just use the commitment to take matching funds to secure a loan, he also used it to get on the ballot.

Now, worried that he won’t be able to compete with the Democratic nominee financially, he is trying to back out. What a weasel.

We’ve already got a small airport in Ankeny as well as the Des Moines International Airport, so why on earth do we need a regional airport in Dallas County?

This proposal would not benefit the community as a whole and would be a poor use of taxpayer dollars:

The first phase of the project is expected to cost about $25 million. Subsequent phases will add a crosswind runway. Airport authority members have said the first aircraft would take off no earlier than 2011.

The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to pay for about 75 percent of the airport’s construction.

The runway layout approved on Tuesday differs from those in several previous proposals. The main runway would lie on a north-south line to minimize the impact on neighbors, Hefner said.

Regardless, property owners and representatives from Dallas Center and Waukee reiterated their disdain for the project. Both cities have passed resolutions opposing it. West Des Moines has also decided not to contribute financially.

Adel is the only city in the immediate area to support the airport plan.

Waukee City Administrator Jeff Kooistra said an airport would provide little help to the area economy.

A few businesses would benefit from the Metro West Airport’s construction, but it’s not worth the cost.

For background information, check out this website created by Dallas County citizens who oppose the airport. The site could use updating, but the basic information is there.

It sounds like there is not enough support in the Iowa House to pass a bill expanding the 5-cent deposit to juice, water and sports drink containers. Instead, a commission will study recycling issues, including the bottle bill, and report back to legislators for next year’s session.

I hope legislators will pass comprehensive reform of the bottle bill next year, and not just toss this commission’s report on recycling in the recycling bin. Action on this front is several years overdue.

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.

I laugh when I hear conservatives try to scare people with their talk of “socialized medicine” leading to “rationing” of health care. As almost anyone who has dealt with a private insurance company can tell you, health care is routinely rationed in the U.S. already.

I mentioned a particularly outrageous case recently, in which Pacificare was denying treatment to a 17-year-old cancer patient.

Well, after the story spread all over the internet and the phones started ringing, Pacificare reversed itself and authorized the treatment.

Let’s hope it’s not too late for this kid, like it was for Nataline Sarkisyan.

This action alert went out on the Sierra Club’s Iowa list. Apparently the Iowa Senate approved this constitutional amendment on a strong bipartisan vote. House members need to hear from you about this effort to secure sustainable funding for natural resources and outdoor recreation.

The amendment does not raise the sales tax, but it stipulates that the next time the legislature raises the state sales tax, 3/8 of a cent of the increase must be dedicated to natural resources and outdoor recreation programs.

The full action alert, with background on the amendment and a sample letter to a legislator, is after the jump.

A few posts down I mentioned a report from Families USA about how many Americans die prematurely because they lacked health insurance. Someone from that organization was kind enough to send me the link to the full report referenced by the Des Moines Register (pdf file).

The press release that accompanied the report is after the jump. Here is a particularly depressing excerpt:

* Families USA estimates that nearly three working-age Iowans die each week due to lack of health insurance (approximately 140 people in 2006).

* Between 2000 and 2006, the estimated number of adults between the ages of 25 and 64 in Iowa who died because they did not have health insurance was more than 800.

* Across the United States, in 2006, twice as many people in that same age category died from a lack of health insurance as died from homicide.

Of course, the media coverage devoted to homicides far exceeds the coverage devoted to people who die because they lack health insurance.

Here’s hoping that when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have their next debate, journalists allow them to talk about health care and other issues.

I was going to write another post chiding certain Obama supporters for their overheated rhetoric about the evil Clintons (who apparently are now even worse than Joe McCarthy).

Instead, I will attempt to spark a more constructive discussion of the best way to make the case against John McCain in the general election.

Daily Kos star diarist clammyc is absolutely right: “We don’t need a nominee to focus on our opponent”:

But while way too much energy, time, money and focus is spent on the back-and-forth and the less-than really important issues that are facing this country, or the enormous hypocrisy of just about everything that John W. McCain has been saying or doing is getting either ignored or fluffed over, precious time is being wasted to frame McCain and “rebrand him” as the man he is and has become as opposed to the man he once was and represented.

The question is, what is the best way to “rebrand” McCain? There are some good ideas in that clammyc diary.

Jason Rosenbaum wrote a great piece for Open Left, How to Attack John McCain: A Search Study,” which evaluates various frames:

   * John McCain as old and unstable

   * John McCain as angry, with a temper, a hothead

   * John McCain as a war hawk who’ll keep us in Iraq forever

   * John McCain as confused and unprepared (can’t tell the difference between Iran and Al-Qaeda for instance)

   * John McCain as weak and unprepared on economic issues

   * John McCain and his association with radical fundamentalist pastors like John Hagee

   * John McCain as a flip-flopper or sellout

If quantitative analysis isn’t your thing, you might enjoy kid oakland’s half-joking “twenty thoughts about John McCain.”

Finally, for a laugh read Moody Loner’s Dr. Seuss-style poem, “I Will Not Vote for John McCain.”

Consider this an open thread on the best way to run against McCain.

Cross-posted around the blogosphere yesterday. I am posting here because a few of the links have not appeared in previous posts at Bleeding Heartland. -desmoinesdem

Welcome to the latest diary in my series on the Democratic primary in Iowa’s third Congressional district. Ed Fallon is challenging Leonard Boswell, who was first elected to this seat in 1996.

Today, I consider who would represent this district more effectively in Congress.

Here are links to my previous diaries on this campaign:

the introductory diary, with biographical information on Boswell and Fallon

The cases for Fallon and Boswell

Boswell and Fallon pick up the pace

Will Democrats vote on the issues?

Please let me know about other events this week in the comments, or by e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com).

Tuesday, March 25:

One Iowa is holding a Des Moines Area March CORE Team Meeting at 7:00 PM (details after the jump)

Thursday, March 27:

Iowa Interfaith Power and Light candlelight vigil a Nollen Plaza in Des Moines at 7:30 pm (more details after the jump)

Friday, March 28:

Ed Fallon is holding a town hall meeting to talk about immigration reform: 10:00 AM at Fallon for Congress, 2715 Cottage Grove Ave., Des Moines.

Time TBA

Screening of the film “Renewal” about the faith-based movement concerned about the environment, food and drink, and discussion

Dowling Catholic High School, Des Moines

Check out www.renewalproject.net for more information about this great film.

Saturday, March 29th:

9:00 AM to 2:00 PM (Times flexible and subject to change depending on attendees – please RSVP!)

Dowling Catholic High School, Des Moines

As Iowa Interfaith Power & Light moves forward, we’re planning to train new volunteers in giving presentations about faith, the environment, global warming, and creation care, in helping support Iowa Interfaith Power & Light’s efforts, in doing Cool Congregations trainings, and many other ways you can work with IIP&L. (more details and RSVP number after the jump)

Over at Open Left, fladem wrote this diary about the relationship between economic inequality and life expectancy in the U.S. Poor people don’t live as long as wealthier people for a lot of reasons, one of which is that they are less likely to have health insurance.

I totally agree with fladem’s take on the situation:

a more damning indictment of our health system I could not imagine.

The right always argues that socialized medicine will lead us to “ration health care.”  Of course, what they don’t tell you, and what this article makes clear, is that markets are rationing health care just fine on their own. No, I have never thought that conservatives mind health care rationing so long as they get their health care.

The Des Moines Register published this editorial a few days ago citing a report by Families USA about the number of Americans who die because they lacked health insurance. An estimated three Iowans die every week for this reason, though that cause is not listed in their obituaries.

This doesn’t surprise me a bit, as my scary run-in with an infection last month could have turned out much worse if I had delayed seeking treatment, as many uninsured people do. But as the Register noted, the cause of death in such a situation would never be listed as “lacked health insurance.”

The latest issue of Mothering magazine (no link, article not available online yet) had a harrowing story about the high rates of infant mortality and maternal mortality in the U.S., compared to other industrialized countries.

If you have the stomach to read them, nyceve’s series of diaries on “murder by spreadsheet” are essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the shameful inequities in our health care system.

Her latest piece is about how the for-profit insurance industry has denied limbs to many amputees. Absolutely horrendous stories in that diary.

Someday we will have a presidential nominee, and I hope that person will focus some attention on economic inequality and inadequate access to health care.

UPDATE: nyceve posted a diary today: Pacificare denies 17-year-old cancer patient lifesaving treatment. Read it and weep.

John Deeth wrote a great piece for Iowa Independent about “The Battleground Districts” that will decide who controls the Iowa legislature.

You might want to bookmark this analysis of five House races and 10 Senate races for future reference.

The Center for Responsive Politics has ranked the U.S. House and Senate members in terms of their net worth, based on disclosure documents filed in 2007. Jane Norman has the highlights in the Des Moines Register.

Tom Harkin, Chuck Grassley, and Tom Latham are the only members of Congress from Iowa who disclosed a net worth greater than $1 million. Click the link for more details.

Freshman representative Bruce Braley (IA-01) has already gotten a bill out of committee in the U.S. House of Representatives:

Braley’s bill mandating “plain language” in government documents was approved by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee just before the House adjourned for its spring recess.

Braley wants the government to write documents in “plain language” rather than bureaucratese. Next, there will be consideration on the House floor.

It sounds like a good idea. I don’t know how a law like this would be enforced, but maybe there are precedents at the state level I haven’t heard about. Anyone know the answer?

I received an e-mail from Kurt Meyer’s campaign in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district, and it mentioned that incumbent Tom Latham is one of the Republicans being targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

I hadn’t realized that the DCCC planned to put resources into flipping that seat. It will be an uphill battle, but if the climate is right for Democratic candidates nationwide and in Iowa, it should be within reach.

I am staying out of the primary battle in IA-04, but I plan to donate $100 to the campaign of the winner of that primary. I would love to see that district turn blue.

While digging around on the DCCC’s website for more information, I noticed that they have also named Leonard Boswell as one of 29 “frontline Democrats.” I do not know whether that means the DCCC will put resources into the primary race in IA-03.

Here is the ActBlue page the DCCC set up for all of its “frontline Democrats”:

http://www.actblue.com/page/fr…

Here is a map you can use to find all of the districts the DCCC is targeting this year, either for pickups or defense:

http://dccc.org/page/content/r…

UPDATE: brownsox analyzes the list at Daily Kos and says the DCCC is targeting 59 Republican-held seats for pickups and 31 Democratic seats for defense:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

I just got an e-mail from Leonard Boswell’s campaign. It confirms my belief that they are very worried about Ed Fallon’s primary challenge.

Most of the e-mail contains negative information about Fallon, including a lead paragraph citing Fallon’s support for Ralph Nader in 2000 and a closing paragraph stating flatly, “Ed Fallon is no Democrat.”

Positive information about Boswell makes up a small portion of the message, mostly near the bottom. It mentions that Knowlegis has ranked him the 135th most powerful member of the U.S. House, making him “more powerful than nearly 70 percent of other Members of Congress.”

It also cites Boswell’s endorsements from AFSCME, SEIU, the Des Moines Police Association, Des Moines Association of Professional Fire Fighters, and UAW, as well as his support from Senator Tom Harkin, Governor Chet Culver, Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge, Congressman Bruce Braley and Congressman Dave Loebsack.

The message mentions Boswell’s loyalty to the Democratic Party twice.

I would like the incumbent to address his tendency of voting with the majority of House Republicans, and contrary to the majority of House Democrats, on issues such as:

the 2005 bankruptcy bill

the 2005 energy bill

permanent repeal of the estate tax

the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping

weakening the right of habeas corpus

I would also like to know why I continually get action alerts from environmental groups asking me to contact Boswell about this or that bill, when Braley and Loebsack seem to know instinctively what position to take on these bills without getting a barrage of phone calls from constituents.

Boswell’s e-mail also features an article by Chase Martyn for Iowa Independent: Fallon Faces Campaign Finance Questions (that link works, although the link in Boswell’s e-mail was broken). I will write more about that piece in a forthcoming post about the financing of the Boswell and Fallon campaigns.

The full text of the Boswell campaign’s e-mail is after the jump.

Thanks, as always, to Betsy Muse of BlueNC for this roundup. -desmoinesdem

It’s Spring Break here in our neck of North Carolina. We’re Tar Heel fans, so are glued to the tube during March Madness. Unfortunately, North Carolina is in for a different type of March Madness as the Clinton and Obama campaigns descend on the state. We have a short roundup this week while many of our state bloggers take a much needed break. Enjoy!

The roundup is after the jump.

How disappointing–Drake lost in overtime when a guy for Western Kentucky made a desperation three-pointer with no time on the clock:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…

Even more frustrating, UConn lost in an upset today as well, meaning that Drake would have been able to play a lower-seeded team if they had advanced to the second round.

The Bulldogs had such a great season, and I’m sorry it ended this way.

Probably you knew that already, but techfidel provides this great analysis of the demographics in Ohio and Pennsylvania, going down to the county level.

The bottom line is that if the various demographic groups vote the same way in PA as they did in OH, techfidel projects a 57-43 victory for Hillary.

Click the link to see the maps and read the detailed explanation. There is also a spreadsheet you can download if you’re interested.

I missed the Leno show last night, but NCDemAmy came through with the YouTube, as usual. Here it is, for those who are curious to hear what John Edwards has been up to:

No big news in the interview–he wisely is not endorsing either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama and says both would be excellent candidates, far better than the alternative.

Parents may appreciate his story about his son Jack!

Lots going on in the state legislature this week, so here are some quick hits:

The ban on smoking in public places has gone to a conference committee after the House approved a version that would fail to protect many bar and restaurant employees. The version passed by the Senate bans smoking in all bars and restaurants, along with most other public places. Senator Staci Appel chairs the conference committee.

On a party-line vote of 52-47, the House approved a measure backed by unions that

greatly expands the issues that unions can negotiate. Under the proposal, unions could negotiate such issues as insurance carriers, class sizes and overtime compensation.

Advocates say the proposal would better protect public employees. Opponents said it would strip power away from locally elected officials, placing more decision-making power in the hands of unions.

Republicans say that bill would lead to tax increases, and brought Senate business to a halt on Thursday in an effort to block debate on the proposal.

Watch for some fireworks in the Senate over this issue, starting next Monday:

But about 24 hours after Republican senators first holed up in a back room Thursday morning, refusing to debate the labor-backed bill, lawmakers agreed to end the stand-off today.

Democrats agreed to wait until Monday to debate the controversial bill, and Republicans agreed to limit debate to no longer than six hours.

[…]

The stalemate idled and irritated Democratic lawmakers, who were eager to go home to their families for the Easter holidays. At least two Democratic lawmakers stayed awake at their desks the entire night, while most left to get some sleep.

This morning, the Republican leader, Ron Wieck of Sioux City, offered what his staff called “an olive branch.”

“We will allow the bill to be read in, have a subcommittee and full committee hearing in an effort to move it to the Senate floor,” Wieck said in a statement. “This would then make the bill funnel proof and eligible for debate for the rest of the session.”

[…]

“Senate Republicans, however, refuse to allow a radical expansion of union power, at the expense of the taxpayer, move forward without more public comment,” the e-mailed statement says.

Meanwhile, attorneys are warning that the proposed worker-ID law which has not been approved yet “likely will face multiple constitutional challenges.”

The Interfaith Alliance Action Fund issued a statement last month detailing many problems with the worker-ID proposal.

Global warming is making spring come earlier in much of the United States:

And sneezes are coming earlier in Philadelphia. On March 9, when allergist Dr. Donald Dvorin set up his monitor, maple pollen was already heavy in the air. Less than two decades ago, that pollen couldn’t be measured until late April.

Pollen is bursting. Critters are stirring. Buds are swelling. Biologists are worrying.

“The alarm clock that all the plants and animals are listening to is running too fast,” Stanford University biologist Terry Root said.

Blame global warming.

The fingerprints of man-made climate change are evident in seasonal timing changes for thousands of species on Earth, according to dozens of studies and last year’s authoritative report by the Nobel Prize-winning international climate scientists. More than 30 scientists told The Associated Press how global warming is affecting plants and animals at springtime across the country, in nearly every state.

But look on the bright side: Iowa legislator Dwayne Alons (Republican, of course) says we don’t need to worry about global warming in this age of air conditioning and refrigeration technology.

By the way, James Van Bruggen is running against Alons in House District 4, which is in the northwest corner of the state.

I am no fan of Chuck Grassley, but I agree with these comments by the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee:

Grassley said today that he has told his staff members to look into the details of a sweeping arrangement in which the Federal Reserve will help guarantee the obligations of Bear Stearns with a $30 billion credit line.

Bear Stearns will be bought by J.P. Morgan Chase at a price considered by some analysts to be far less than its market value. The company has 14,000 employees.

“I want to understand what the downside risk for the taxpayer is and any upside potential,” Grassley said in a statement issued through his Senate office.

He said he also wants to know more about how insiders such as senior executives fare when such deals are made.

“Corporate bigwigs shouldn’t be able to profit from a deal while employees, shareholders and creditors have to carry the burden of a company’s demise,” Grassley said.

Here’s hoping the Democrats who control that Senate committee will make sure a thorough review is conducted.

I am not a regular on any of the economist blogs, but check out bonddad’s diary history for background on the Bear Stearns debacle.

What else is new?

It’s not just that women hold different, lower-paying jobs. There is still a lot of gender inequality in some fields:

The report showed little pay inequality in fields such at architectural and engineering, business and finance, and computer and mathematical science careers.

However, in other professions such as education, healthcare, management and sales careers, the gap is between gender pay is wider.

Iowa was one of 38 states to get an “F” on its open records law, according to this front-page article in Thursday’s Des Moines Register.

“The question posed was: Do states have a good apparatus built to … make it easier to further a complaint short of litigating?” said Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. The group helped sponsor the study, which was conducted by the Better Government Association last year.

Sponsors of the study stressed the research attempted to measure how easy it was for citizens to obtain access to records, not the strength of state open records laws themselves.

There are a lot of interesting details in the article, so if freedom of information is a big issue for you, click the link.

The Register’s editorial board writes a lot about open-records law, and I give them credit for that. Unfortunately, under Gannett’s ownership, the Register hasn’t devoted nearly enough resources to solid investigative reporting.

I wish the editors were assigning more reporters to dig into the information that’s already publicly available.

This came through on the Sierra Club’s e-mail list:

Please call Representative Leonard Boswell’s office and ask him to cosponsor HR 39, a bill that would permanently protect the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  His Des Moines office number is 515-282-1909 and D.C. number is 202-225-3806.  All other Iowa Democratic members of Congress have already cosponsored HR 39.

Some facts:  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls the Refuge’s Coastal Plain “the center for wildlife activity” for the entire Refuge.  The Refuge provides vital habitat for some of America ‘s most spectacular wildlife. Polar bears, grizzly bears, caribou, wolves, and muskoxen are a few of more than 250 species that rely on the Coastal Plain for their survival.  Millions of birds, representing some 180 species, migrate to the Coastal Plain to nest, rear young, molt, and feed.  Birds from all 50 states and six of the seven continents migrate to the Refuge for summer.

The native people living near the Refuge are the Gwich’in (meaning “caribou people” in their language) and their livelihood and culture have been dependant on the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which gives birth on the Coastal Plain, for centuries. They refer to the Coastal Plain as the “Sacred Place Where Life Begins” and oppose drilling in the area and strongly support permanent protection. Impact to the caribou herd could mean a loss of their way of life.

Global warming is already threatening life in the Arctic and drilling for gas and oil will only accelerate the warming trend.

I can’t resist adding that if Ed Fallon were representing Iowa’s third Congressional district, this kind of action alert would be unnecessary. He would sign on to a bill like this in a heartbeat without needing to be nudged by constituents.

The answer depends on what state you’re looking at.

Recent polling suggests that Barack Obama has been running much better than Hillary Clinton against John McCain in states such as Iowa and Colorado.

However, that appears not to be the case in some other important swing states. Survey USA released three new state polls:

http://www.talkleft.com/story/…

In Ohio, Clinton beats McCain 50-44, but McCain beats Obama 50-43.

In Missouri, McCain leads Clinton 48-46 (within margin of error), and McCain leads Obama 53-39.

In Kentucky, McCain leads Clinton 53-43 and leads Obama 64-28. Obviously, Democrats are not going to carry Kentucky in the presidential race, but there may be some close Congressional races in that state. Who is going to be better for our down-ticket candidates?

For the record, I think both Clinton and Obama could beat McCain or lose to McCain. I have no idea who has a better chance of getting 270 electoral votes. I do think Obama runs a greater risk of losing in a Dukakis-style blowout than Clinton does.

Right now I’m pessimistic about either of them being able to win the general, in part because of the way our primary is now all about identity politics rather than issues.

On the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Stop the Arms Race Political Action Committee (STAR*PAC) endorsed Ed Fallon in the Democratic primary in Iowa’s third Congressional district.

From a Fallon campaign press release:

“STAR*PAC believes that Ed Fallon understands the challenges we face in the 21st century and is the best-equipped candidate to represent the Third District in the difficult times ahead.”

Additionally, they stated, “we remain concerned that Rep. Boswell has too often supported the Administration’s war policy by voting to authorize the war, and voting to continue funding without timelines for troop withdrawal.”

Fallon’s campaign will not receive any monetary donation from STAR*PAC, in keeping with his policy of not accepting funds from PACs.

The full release is after the jump.

As I’ve written before, I believe that some compromise must be found to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida at the Democratic National Convention.

By “compromise,” I don’t mean the Obama campaign’s proposal to give both Clinton and Obama 50 percent of the delegates from each state, which would disregard the will of the people. I mean a compromise that would reflect how Democrats in those states voted.

I was open to a re-vote, but that idea has been killed in Florida and appears less and less likely in Michigan.

Obama supporter Gordon Fischer celebrates the way they Obama campaign ran out the clock on re-votes.

Obama supporter noneed4thneed doesn’t see why Obama should back a re-vote in Michigan.

Obama supporter Chris Bowers made a much stronger case that Obama should want a re-vote in Michigan, since it would very likely allow him to wrap up the nomination in June rather than having things drag out to a floor fight at the convention.

To my mind, the key question should be not what is best for Obama, but the principle of counting people’s votes and the pragmatic need for Democrats not to alienate voters in two large states.

We cannot afford to go into the general election having angered Democrats in Michigan and Florida, particularly since both Obama and Clinton currently trail John McCain in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

New polls suggest that an overwhelming majority of Florida Democrats want their votes to be counted, and one-fourth of them may leave the Democratic Party if that does not happen.

Look, Obama fans, if you are so confident that your guy will hold on to his lead in pledged delegates and the popular vote, you should have been lobbying for re-votes. Now that a re-vote is off the table for Florida and possibly Michigan, you should be open to some compromise that reflects the way Democrats voted (such as cutting the number of delegates from each state in half).

This situation is screwed up, and many parties are to blame, but the rank-and-file Democrats in those states did not create this problem.

It will be suicide for Obama to go into the general telling Michigan and Florida voters, “I’m sorry, you broke the rules, I don’t care about letting you have a say in the primaries.”

On Wednesday, March 19, Ed Fallon is holding a town-hall meeting on Iraq and veterans’ issues from 8:30 to 9:30 am at the Old Fire Station #4, 1041 8th St., Des Moines.

I can’t go to this event, but if any Bleeding Heartland readers are able to attend, please put up a comment to let us know how it went.

Whether or not you can go to this meeting, how important do you think the Iraq war will be in the IA-03 primary?

Although it’s not the comprehensive overhaul of the bottle bill that I’d like to see, the draft bill that would expand the nickel deposit to bottled water, juice and sports drinks is still a step in the right direction.

I was encouraged to read Continue Reading...

Even I know that Al Qaeda is a Sunni extremist group, and Iran is governed by a Shiite regime.

According to the Washington Post, Republican presidential candidate John McCain hasn’t grasped that fact:

He said several times that Iran, a predominately Shiite country, was supplying the mostly Sunni militant group, al-Qaeda. In fact, officials have said they believe Iran is helping Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives “taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.”

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.” A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate’s ear. McCain then said: “I’m sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda.”

It was a big mistake for Hillary Clinton to say a couple of weeks ago that McCain had passed the commander-in-chief threshold. Anyone who doesn’t even know the most basic information about our enemies in the Middle East is unqualified to be president. What have his staff and advisers been briefing him on in the Senate and on the campaign trail?

Over at MyDD, Jonathan Singer summarizes the reaction from around the blogosphere and points out that this was no slip of the tongue. McCain has been making the same erroneous statement for some time, demonstrating that he has no clue about the differences between Sunni and Shiite extremists.

MyDD user Steve M’s take on the situation is amusing.

UPDATE: Mark Kleiman was apparently reading my mind:

http://www.samefacts.com/archi…

Given McCain’s buffoonish performance in Jordan, wouldn’t this be a good time for Hillary Clinton to say, “Gee, I thought he was ready to be Commander-in-Chief, but it sure doesn’t sound like it. The least we should expect from the President is some basic knowledge about who our enemies are.”

I didn’t have a chance to watch it, but if you did, what did you think of Barack Obama’s major speech on race this morning?

The transcript is after the jump.

Which statehouse races are you watching especially closely this year?

As I’ve written before, I will be helping Jerry Sullivan, who is running for the open seat in House district 59.

I learned a few days ago that Ro Foege is retiring from House district 29. Nate Willems is running in the Democratic primary for that seat. You may remember his front-page posts last year at MyDD. I don’t know anything about the other Democratic candidate in that district.

Consider this an open thread for talking about interesting races and candidates for the Iowa House or Senate.

I encourage any and all Democrats running for the legislature to drop by and put up a diary here from time to time.

I missed this last week, but Daily Kos user mcfly brought it to my attention: a Republican has filed to run for Congress in Iowa’s third Congressional district.

Today, Clive Republican Kim Schmett announced his run for United States Congress in the 3rd Congressional District.

Schmett, 55, says the district needs a representative who will fight for lower taxes, fiscal responsibility and more quality jobs for Iowa workers.

“My goal in Congress is to rein in spending, so people can keep the money they have worked so hard to earn,” said Schmett. “They should be able to spend it on their families, not support a bloated government. For far too long, government has failed to weed out inefficiencies and waste. Congress just passed a Democrat budget bill that will cut the earned income credit in half and increase an average family’s taxes by $3,000 dollars. Too often, politicians forget that it’s the people’s money first, not theirs.”

Schmett, a veteran of the U.S. Army, is the executive director of the state association for children’s homes and shelters. He is the former director of the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals, and served as the chief of staff for former Congressman Greg Ganske.

Bleeding Heartland readers, I would be interested in your views on how the Iowa caucuses might have turned out differently.

Let’s assume that Barack Obama runs the exact campaign he ran last year in terms of strategy and execution, and has the same monetary resources he had available.

What, if anything, could other candidates have done to beat Obama in Iowa? Keep in mind that both Clinton and Edwards executed their strategies pretty well in Iowa (in my opinion), with

both of them getting more than 70,000 people to stand in their corners on January 3. That “should” have been enough to win, even if turnout had been “only” 50 percent greater than the previous record for Iowa Democrats.

Given the Obama campaign’s excellent strategy and execution, as well as their virtually unlimited monetary resources in Iowa, what could other candidates have done to win the Iowa caucuses?

These are examples of the kinds of questions I’m interested in:

Should Hillary have used Bill more, or used him less?

Would it have helped Clinton or Edwards to go negative on Obama?

Were there better methods Clinton could have used to identify and turn out supporters?

Was there anything Richardson could have done in the summer to build on the bump he got from his television commercials in May?

Would Edwards have done better if his stump speech and advertising had focused on different issues?

Should Edwards have spent some money on advertising in the summer, when he slipped behind Clinton in the Iowa polls, rather than keeping his powder dry?

Feel free to post your insights about these and similar questions on this thread.

Alternatively, if you have thoughts you’d rather keep off the record, please e-mail them to me at desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com, or e-mail me your phone number and I will call you to chat. I will keep your views confidential.

click on this diary by Daily Kos user PocketNines on “Delegate Math: Where We Stand After Iowa Redux.”

By the way, if you wade through the more than 200 comments on that thread, you’ll see that PocketNines agrees with me–it would not be “cheating” or “stealing” for superdelegates to support Clinton even if Obama fininshes the primaries with more pledged delegates.

I agree with Obama supporters, however, that right now Obama can make the stronger argument to the superdelegates.

In a rare post not related to Barack Obama, Gordon Fischer put up a press release from Leonard Boswell’s campaign over at Iowa True Blue. (Note to the Boswell campaign: please start sending your press releases to desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.)

The release notes that the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy recently gave Boswell a 100 percent 90 percent “A” grade for his work on behalf of the middle class. Boswell’s campaign also mentioned that a different group recently named him the most powerful U.S. representative from Iowa, and was ranked the 135th most powerful person among the 435 members of the U.S. House.

You can find more details about how the Drum Major Institute compiled its Congressional scorecard on middle class issues, as well as ratings for all 535 members of Congress, by clicking here.

The full text of Boswell’s press release is after the jump.

The national organization eQualityGiving, “The Online Donor Community for LGBT Equality,” has endorsed Ed Fallon in the Democratic primary in Iowa’s third Congressional district. A press release from Fallon’s campaign notes that eQualityGiving has endorsed only nine federal candidates this year, and that Fallon is the “only candidate in the nation to earn this endorsement twice.”

The full text of the release from Fallon’s campaign is after the jump.

Noneed4thneed is posting about the Marshall County Democratic convention over at Century of the Common Iowan.

If you've got a story to share about your county convention, I encourage you to comment on this thread or put up a diary here.

UPDATE: John Deeth has the story from Johnson County here (not many changes, as Edwards delegates did not realign):

http://jdeeth.blogspot.com/200…

Noneed4thneed says the Edwards delegates realigned in Marshall County, and 90 percent of them went to Obama:

http://commoniowan.blogspot.co…

There’s more info in this Iowa County Convention results thread at Daily Kos:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Ronald Brownstein wrote an interesting piece for the National Journal called “Wider Net, Leakier Boat.” His argument is that Barack Obama potentially could put together a broader coalition than Hillary Clinton, but he also runs the risk of losing a lot more Democrats to McCain than Clinton would. Key excerpt:

In a recent Pew Research Center survey, for instance, Obama carried independents against McCain by 6 percentage points, while McCain carried them against Clinton by the same amount; the difference mostly reflected Obama’s stronger showing among independents earning at least $50,000 annually. Other surveys, such as a Quinnipiac University poll in the key battleground of Pennsylvania, have found that Obama also swipes more Republicans from McCain than Clinton does.

This all tracks Obama strengths familiar from the primaries. But primary-season trends more troubling for Obama are also persisting. In the national Pew survey, and in Quinnipiac polls of Ohio and Pennsylvania, Obama lost more Democrats to McCain than Clinton did. In the Pew survey, Obama struggled particularly among the same blue-collar white Democrats resisting him in the primaries: Fully 30 percent of white Democrats earning less than $30,000 a year preferred McCain over Obama. Clinton would lose only half as many of them to McCain, the polls indicate. In the Quinnipiac surveys, Clinton likewise outpolled Obama against McCain among white women without college degrees, a key general election swing group that has overwhelmingly preferred her in the primaries.

Findings like these help explain why many Democrats think Obama offers greater potential rewards as a nominee, but also presents greater risks. If Obama runs well, he seems more likely than Clinton to assemble a big majority and trigger a Democratic sweep — not only by attracting independents and crossover Republicans but also by increasing turnout among African-Americans and young people.

But if Obama stumbles, he could face a greater danger of fracturing the traditional Democratic coalition by losing seniors and blue-collar whites to McCain, principally on security issues. Clinton’s reach across the electorate may not be as long, but her grip on her voters could be firmer.

I don’t seem able to get this argument across to some of the Obama supporters I know. Yes, he does better among independents and Republicans than Hillary, but he could lose a lot more seniors, women and working-class whites (and Latinos, though Brownstein doesn’t mention them) to McCain.

Obama has eight months to figure out how to improve his standing among the demographic groups that have favored Hillary in the primaries.

I was pleased to read in the Des Moines Register that Governor Culver is behind a more balanced, flexible and farsighted federal transportation policy:

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver joined Democratic members of Congress and business leaders Wednesday to announce the launch of a long-term push to improve the nation’s roads, bridges, water systems and transit.

Culver, representing the nation’s 28 Democratic governors, and the members of Congress said states, the federal government and private business must work together to improve the infrastructure.

“We need a national game plan,” he said after a two-hour meeting behind closed doors. “I believe it’s time for a bold, new, 21st-century national infrastructure plan of action.”

[…]

In remarks to the group, Culver said any plan must take into account not just roads and bridges but also public transit, passenger and freight rail, information technology, grids, trails and waterways. States must have as much flexibility as possible, given their varying needs.

Culver is smart to call for a comprehensive game plan on transportation, rather than just securing road-building funds for our state.

Investing more in alternatives to driving is good for the environment and will be essential if we are serious about reducing our carbon-dioxide emissions.

As the U.S. population ages, having better rail and public transit options will also improve the quality of life for seniors who do not drive.

There will be economic benefits too, especially if we are headed for $4 and $5 a gallon gasoline.

I hope that the governor will show similar leadership on improving our transportation planning at the state level.

As I have written before, the Iowa Department of Transportation’s TIME-21 plan takes a narrow and short-sighted approach, calling for extra investment solely in road-building. We should take a “fix-it first” approach to the road funds, devoting a greater share of funding to repairing our existing roads and bridges. We also need to invest in alternatives to driving, because reducing the vehicle miles traveled per capita needs to be part of our state’s response to global warming.

UPDATE: Just saw this interesting diary by Daily Kos user futurebird:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

key excerpt:

This graph shows how our government policies about parking, public roads, and tolls make driving a more attractive option for many people in US cities. This is why changing planning policy, eliminating parking lot requirements, increasing the gas tax so that fully covers the costs of highway construction and the other social and environmental costs of driving is so important for creating sustainable, inter-modal transportation systems in our cities.

Notice that, in an urban area, the total cost of both bus and rail systems is lower than the total costs of using a car. But when people make the choice to drive each day they tend to think about the out-of-pocket costs of driving (gas) rather than considering the indirect costs of car ownership, auto insurance and car maintenance. People are even less aware of the fact that the gas tax, at its current level, is not high enough to cover all of the costs of road maintenance. The environmental and social impacts of driving (such as the impact it has on public heath, and the cost of policing the roadways, recovering stolen cars, and dealing with accidents) are even harder to see.

Click the link if you want to see the graph.

Thanks, as usual, to Betsy Muse of BlueNC for the roundup. -desmoinesdem

After an unexpected absence last week, I’m back and so is the 50 State Blog Roundup.

How’s the tension at your favorite national blog community?  Take a break from all the nastiness and drop by your favorite state blog for a change.  Look in on our statewide and local races…..just stay away from the presidential primary threads.  They bring a whole new meaning to March madness!

After the jump are a few posts from last week and the roundup for March 14, 2008.

The U.S. House has been debating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The invaluable Kagro X, one of the very best analysts ever to post at Daily Kos, explained some of the complicated legislative maneuvers in this post yesterday. Kagro X gave the short version of what’s going on in this post earlier today.

Click that first link if you’ve been disappointed in Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, because he did a very clever thing on this bill.

You will recall that Leonard Boswell was one of 21 House Democrats to work with Republicans to try to secure retroactive immunity for telecom companies in this bill. Some background information is here.

Well, today Boswell has joined with the majority of House Democrats. mcjoan has more at Daily Kos, including a statement from Boswell.

Raise your hand if you think Boswell would have changed his position on this issue if he were not facing a primary challenge from Ed Fallon.

UPDATE: mcjoan explains what happened here:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Boswell and 12 other blue dogs stuck with the Democrats today. Good for them.

SECOND UPDATE: Call Boswell’s office and thank him for this vote:

Rep. Leonard L. Boswell, D-Iowa — Phone: (202) 225-3806, Fax: (202) 225-5608

According to Daily Kos user Los Diablo,

#

* [new] I just got off the phone with his D.C. office (9+ / 0-)

Recommended by:

   Rolfyboy6, Miss Blue, oldjohnbrown, 3goldens, Ma Joad, mffarrow, robroser, eco d, llamaRCA

and they thanked me for thanking him because they are getting a hammered with negative calls because he supported this.

Senator Tom Harkin: Bush has vetoed him more than any senator.

by Los Diablo on Fri Mar 14, 2008 at 12:18:30 PM PDT

By the way, I love Los Diablo’s signature line about Harkin!

Having used cloth diapers on my kids for the past five years, I had mixed feelings about this piece in Thursday’s Des Moines Register. Reporter Erin Crawford agreed to try cloth diapers for a short time.

While it’s great that she let readers know there are better options today than pins and rubber pants, I wish she had talked more about the health and environmental benefits of using cloth diapers.

Her husband complained that the cloth diapers seemed “unhygienic.”

Apparently he doesn’t realize that disposable diapers are full of chemicals that may be absorbed through baby’s wet skin, or that disposable diapers send more untreated sewage to our landfills (click the link to see the references in the footnotes):

Of more serious concern are the toxic chemicals present in disposable diapers. Dioxin, which in various forms has been shown to cause cancer, birth defects, liver damage, and skin diseases, is a by-product of the paper-bleaching process used in manufacturing disposable diapers, and trace quantities may exist in the diapers themselves.6

And what about the material that makes “superabsorbent” diapers so absorbent? If you’ve ever used disposable diapers, you’ve probably noticed beads of clear gel on your baby’s genitals after a diaper change. Superabsorbent diapers contain sodium polyacrylate, which absorbs up to 100 times its weight in water. Sodium polyacrylate is the same substance that was removed from tampons in 1985 because of its link to toxic shock syndrome.7 No studies have been done on the long-term effects of this chemical being in contact with a baby’s reproductive organs 24 hours a day for upwards of two years.

Neither type of diaper can claim to be more sanitary. In the early 1990s, right around the time many states were considering offering incentives to hospitals and daycare centers to switch to cloth diapers, disposable diaper manufacturers attempted to prove that cloth diapers contribute more to the spread of bacteria. In fact, it is the caregiver’s hand-washing habits, and not the type of diapers, that is the deciding factor. “The research in this area was funded by special interests,” points out Janet Primomo, RN, PhD, associate professor of nursing at the University of Washington, Tacoma. “It’s not a question of whether cloth or disposables are more sanitary–it all depends on practices and procedures, such as hand washing habits and what kind of storage containers are used.”

There is, however, a more serious threat of contamination from disposable diapers, because of human sewage going into landfills. The disposal of human waste in residential garbage is technically prohibited, and instructions on disposable diaper packaging recommend that you shake out any fecal matter into the toilet before disposing of it; but in practice this is almost never done. Live viruses in the feces, such as the polio vaccine, can live in landfills for a long period, and if there were ever any leakage, could potentially contaminate a community’s drinking water. So far, there has been no evidence of contamination–this is more of a concern in Third World countries, where landfills aren’t as well constructed, and disposable diapers are being marketed aggressively.

Here is more troubling information about the potential effects of chemicals in disposable diapers:

1999 A study, “Acute Respiratory Effects of Diaper Emissions,” in the October issue of Archives of Environmental Health, finds that laboratory mice exposed to various brands of disposable diapers suffered eye, nose, and throat irritation, including bronchoconstriction similar to that of an asthma attack. Chemicals released from the diapers included toluene, xylene, ethylbenzene, styrene, and isopropylbenzene, among others. The lead author of the study, Dr. Rosalind C. Anderson, advises asthmatic mothers to avoid exposure to these chemicals. Asthma rates are on a sharp incline in the US and worldwide, particularly among poor and inner-city children. Six leading brands of cotton and disposable diapers are tested. Of these, three are found not to affect the breathing of mice: American Fiber and Finishing Co., Gladrags organic cotton diapers, and Tender Care disposable diapers. Cloth diapers are not found to cause respiratory problems among mice.

I’ll never understand why many people have such a hangup about cloth diapers, which also save parents money on top of the health and environmental benefits. It’s just another load of laundry.  

I just got this e-mail from the co-chairs of John Edwards’ campaign in Iowa and wanted to post it for the benefit of you Edwards delegates who read Bleeding Heartland:

Dear Friend,

Many of you have called and written seeking guidance about what those of us who were elected as Edwards’ delegates in the precinct caucuses should do in the county conventions this weekend.  We are writing to you today to ask you to stand up for John this weekend.

Senator Edwards has been talking with both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama on a regular basis.  But he has not endorsed anyone and will not endorse anyone before this weekend.

John is spending most of his time working on the issues that were at the center of his campaign.  In fact, on Wednesday, John had an extended meeting with a group people from across the country about a national effort to keep the poverty issue in the public dialogue and to find real solutions to deal with this fundamentally moral issue.  On Thursday, he participated in a MOVE ON conference call to keep the political pressure on candidates on the need to end the war.  

We all know that John was the leader on every issue during the campaign, from health care to climate change to poverty to economic inequality to the need to reduce the influence of money and lobbyists to reducing college costs to restoring America’s moral authority in the world and on and on.  

In that spirit, this weekend we will be standing up for John Edwards, and we hope you will, too.  

With the economy slipping more and more every day, the need to build One America is more important than ever.   We think it is vital that those of us who were elected as delegates for John Edwards support his candidacy and the issues he raised.  He was fearless in speaking about the underlying truth of where we are as a nation and we think it is incumbent on us to keep that spirit alive at this next stage of the process in Iowa.

Thank you,

Roxanne Conlin & Rob Tully

I am not a delegate, but if I were, I would also be sticking with Edwards this weekend.

Who, besides smokers themselves, is most harmed by smoking in public places?

People who work in very smoky rooms in restaurants, bars and casinos. If you work a 40-hour week in one of those places, you might as well be a pack-a-day smoker yourself.

So it’s disappointing to see that the Iowa House substantially changed the proposed ban on smoking in most public places, according to the Des Moines Register:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

Smoking opponents called the new version of the bill a devastating blow to an earlier proposal that would have prohibited smoking at an estimated 99 percent of Iowa’s public places. They said the exemption approved by the House would weaken current law because, in some cases, special nonsmoking sections of restaurants would be unnecessary.

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“It’s not very much good at all,” said Dan Ramsey, director of advocacy for the American Lung Association of Iowa. “It’s pretty much useless at this point.”

It sets up a showdown with the Iowa Senate, which has approved a widespread smoking ban that would include casinos, as well as nearly all bars and restaurants.

Some laws address problems, and some are intended to give the appearance of addressing a problem. The House version of the smoking ban is clearly the latter. It would do little to help the Iowans who are most at risk of falling ill because of exposure to second-hand smoke.

I sometimes take my kids to the Waveland, a classic old-fashioned diner in Des Moines. Last year I was stunned when the owner made that restaurant smoke-free. He said he had noticed over time that families were less likely to come because they didn’t want their kids around the smoke.

I would have thought the Waveland regulars would have rioted over a smoking ban, but the waitresses there told me everything went great with the transition. It’s a much more pleasant place to eat now, and the employees are not exposed to second-hand smoke all day long.

Since Barack Obama’s supporters claim he is running a people-powered campaign, I’m surprised they are not more upset that he is working behind the scenes to derail any plan for Michigan and Florida to redo their primaries.

As you know, the DNC stripped both states of their delegates for moving their primaries up to January. No one campaigned in either state, and Hillary Clinton won both primaries, although in Michigan hers was the only name on the ballot, with supporters of Obama and other candidates voting “uncommitted.”

Given how close this primary campaign is, and how important Michigan and Florida are in the general election, it seems only logical to find some compromise that would allow delegates from those states to be seated at the Democratic National Convention this summer. I understand why Obama doesn’t want to accept the delegate allocations from the January primaries, because he didn’t campaign in either state.

However, I don’t see the rationale for his campaign ruling out re-votes in both states. Why does Obama fear taking a few weeks after Pennsylvania to campaign in Michigan and Florida so that Democrats can express their preferences? Money is not a problem for him–he has more cash on hand than Clinton.

One compromise that seems sensible to me is a mail-in election in both states, which would be much less costly than restaging an ordinary primary. But Obama’s co-chair in Michigan has ruled that out, claiming that

“It disenfranchises people who need to participate and there are many questions with regard to security.”

Hunter said the Obama campaign will accept nothing but a 50-50 split of Michigan delegates between Clinton and Obama, who removed his name from the January ballot here in protest of the early date.

I don’t understand how a mail-in ballot disenfranchises anyone. If anything, the experience of Oregon shows that it would lead to much greater participation.

And what justification is there for a 50-50 delegate split out of Michigan? That is essentially the same thing as not counting Michigan voters at all.

But wait, it gets better: Obama is a co-sponsor of a bill in the U.S. Senate called

“The Universal Right To Vote By Mail Act”, which declares that NOT ALLOWING mail in voting in every state (28 do through absentee balloting) disenfranchises voters […]

That’s right, Barack Obama, who thinks all states should allow mail-in voting, has suddenly decided in the middle of a tough primary that it would not be fair to let Michigan and Florida Democrats mail in ballots.

He appears to be afraid of losing high-turnout elections in those states. And no wonder: he seems to do a lot better in lower-turnout caucuses (in some states getting two, three or four times as many delegates as Clinton) than in large-state primaries.

In addition, the demographics of Florida (lots of seniors, Latinos and Jews) and Michigan (lots of working-class whites and Catholics) seem to favor Clinton.

Talk Left commenter Steve M (a Clinton supporter) linked to these comments at the Michigan Liberal blog, in which Obama supporters in Michigan criticize the stance his campaign is taking against a re-vote.

Does Obama want to go into a general-election campaign having demanded that Florida and Michigan residents not have their votes counted in the primary?

We don’t watch Keith Olbermann’s Countdown show on MSNBC, but I wanted to note that according to Blog for Iowa, Congressman Steve King was Olbermann’s “worst person in the world” on Monday, thanks to his embarrassing and bigoted comments about Barack Obama from a few days earlier.

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that

The Senate voted 47-1 on Senate File 2347, which calls for the state to pay for new machines so that every county has machines with paper ballots that could be recounted after an election.

The plan calls for the state to buy one machine for each precinct that needs an equipment update.

This bill, which would cost the state about $8.6 million, is adapted from Secretary of State Mike Mauro’s sensible plan to make sure that every Iowan casts a vote on a paper ballot.

The bad news is that county officials are objecting to the bill’s provision that

County taxpayers would pick up the tab for shipping, software, testing of the machines, and all licensing fees. And some counties would need to buy special tables for certain machines.

Dubuque County, for example, would have to spend almost $100,000 of its own money up front, plus an extra $10,000 or so per year for storage, license fees and additional staff that would be needed to deliver the equipment in time for elections, said Tom O’Neill, Dubuque County’s deputy commissioner of elections.

Dubuque County bought 43 touch-screen machines two years ago to meet federal requirements for helping voters with disabilities. It wasn’t easy or cheap to train more than 300 pollworkers, many of whom are in their 60s and 70s, O’Neill said.

I have limited sympathy for these county officials. They never should have spent money on machines that lacked paper ballots. Touchscreen machines are at the very least an accident waiting to happen–who knows when a close race will need to be recounted? And in the worst-case scenario, touchscreen machines could be tampered with, possibly leading to the wrong candidate being declared the winner of an election.

Meanwhile, the Register noted that

Lawmakers today adopted an amendment that stemmed from Gov. Chet Culver’s demand for more oversight of Secretary of State Michael Mauro’s purchase of the equipment.

The amendment would require Mauro’s office to work in consultation with the Department of Administrative Services on the purchase. The department director, Mollie Anderson, reports directly to Culver. Mauro, as an elected official, doesn’t.

I trust Mike Mauro to handle this matter, but at the same time, I have no problem with this amendment, if that’s what was necessary to get Governor Culver on board with Mauro’s plan for replacing voting machines.

With any luck, the presidential race is not going to be as close this year as in 2000 and 2004, but we are likely to have some state legislative races decided by very small margins. I feel more confident knowing that in the event of a close race, there will be paper ballots to recount.

Saw this piece in the Des Moines Register and thought it was worth a mention:

Iowa would eliminate school open enrollment desegregation plans based entirely upon race under a proposal that lawmakers moved ahead with today.

House File 2164 would eliminate minority pupil ratios used in voluntary desegregation plans or with the state’s open enrollment law. Instead, it allows the Iowa Board of Education to adopt rules that establishes guidelines based on criteria other than race to set up diversity plans.

The proposal is linked to a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that condemned a Seattle school’s desegregation plan as illegitimate because its objective was only to set racial balance without “any pedagogic concept of the level of diversity needed to attain the asserted educational benefits.”

At least five Iowa districts with desegregation plans have used race within the past year when deciding whether to allow students to transfer in or out of their districts. District officials in Des Moines, Davenport, Waterloo, Postville and West Liberty have already decided to use other factors to determine whether schools are integrated. Those factors include disability, language and income.

This seems like a sensible bill.

This came to me over e-mail. I appreciate the heads-up about events that progressive groups are planning.

The Iowa Global Warming campaign is back for 2008!

After a short hiatus, Iowa Global Warming is back to work and starting our 2008 campaign. After a successful 2007, in which most of the presidential candidates took increasingly strong positions on global warming, we are expanding our work to include state and local policies as well. Our goals are:

– To get people involved as effectively and easily as possible, even if you only have a minute to give.

– To create a ‘buzz’ for global warming solutions through public events, word of mouth and media attention.

– To provide opportunities to get together, meet new people and have fun.

– And most importantly to make sure that our elected officials make global warming solutions a priority!

In that spirit, you are invited to  Iowa Global Warming’s official campaign kickoff on St. Patrick’s Day – ‘You don’t have to be Irish to go Green’. Free admission to see ‘Leonardo DiCaprio’s The 11th Hour’. For more info on the film go to the website: www.11thHourFilm.com

Details: ‘The 11th Hour’ global warming documentary produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio. Monday, March 17 from 6:30 – 9:00 pm @ Billy Joe’s Picture Show, 1701 25th St., West Des Moines. Free Admission, Free Appetizers, Free Popcorn and Beverages. Food and Drink Specials.

Iowa Global Warming is here to help; so if you have a question or want to get involved, please give us a call or send us an email. We will always try to get back to you as soon as possible. And of course, you can visit our website: www.iowaglobalwarming.org

Thank you for your support of our campaign. We’re looking forward to a great year of making Global Warming Solutions a priority!

Andrew Snow

Iowa Global Warming

521 E. Locust St, suite 220

Des Moines, IA 50311

515.244.1194 x209

asnow@iowaglobalwarming.org

Mike Carberry

Iowa Global Warming

2029 Friendship St.

Iowa City, IA 52245

319.338.8820

mcarberry@iowaglobalwarming.org

Please add other events I may not know about in the comments.

Tuesday, March 11:

You are invited to One Iowa ‘s “Happy Hour” at Ritual Cafe, a time to meet like-minded friends and relax in a welcoming atmosphere. If you have never attended, you will be put right at ease by the Happy Hour crowd. If you are a regular or have attended in the past, we want you to come see how we have grown!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008 – 5:00-6:45pm

Ritual Cafe – 13th Street in Des Moines

At One Iowa , we believe all families should have equal protections and responsibilities; the best way to achieve this is through marriage.  As we continue our work toward Marriage Equality, one of our outreach goals, is our story telling project, this project is at the forefront and to kick off this effort, we have invited these women to share their stories, in hopes that others will find their voice and share their stories with us.

This month One Iowa has the honor to host Laura Fefchak and her partner Nancy Robinson at Ritual, these women have agreed to come and “share their story.”  Please come and hear their experiences of raising two children, having married in Canada and the everyday life experiences of being a lesbian couple in 2008 in Iowa .  Their presentation will start at 5:30pm.  After the main presentation we will have laptops available so others can start sharing their stories.

Ritual Cafe, located on 13th Street between Grand and Locust in downtown Des Moines, is an LGBT-operated coffee shop and cafe offering “really great coffee and food” in an open and affirming place.

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

Wednesday, March 12:

ISENHART CAMPAIGN FOR THE COMMON GOOD

Democratic Candidate for Iowa House District 27

MEET AND GREET

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

5:00 to 6:30 p.m.

Suite 106

Econolodge at the Fairgrounds

410 E. 30th Street, Des Moines

Join us afterwards for DUBUQUE NIGHT in DES MOINES

6:00 to 10:00 p.m.

Diamond Jack’s at the Fairgrounds / No admission charge

Charles Isenhart

CAMPAIGN for the COMMON GOOD

P.O. Box 3353

Dubuque, IA  52004-3353

www.commongoodcampaign.com

563-599-8839

Chad Cox, treasurer

2742 Tiffany Court

Dubuque, IA  52001

Also on Wednesday, March 12, Ed Fallon will hold the following events:

Des Moines Town Hall Meeting

9:00 to 10:00 am

Fair World Market

116 5th St.

West Des Moines

Newton Town Hall Meeting

11:30 to 12:30 pm

Uncle Nancy’s Coffeehouse and Eatery

114 N. 2nd Ave West,

Newton

Knoxville Town Hall Meeting

2:00 to 3:00 pm

The Swampbox Pub and Grill

116 N. 2nd St.

Knoxville

Friday, March 14:

ICSW Policy Lunch & Learn #3

Friday, March 14

12 noon – 1 p.m.

Legislative Dining Room * State Capitol

Free and open to the public * Bring your lunch and join us!

Protecting Iowa’s Families: Child Support and Domestic Violence

Join experts to discuss what legislation is moving forward to keep Iowa families safe and economically stable.

March 14th speakers:

·        Jerry McKim, Division of Community Action Agencies

·        Kristi Lohmeier , Iowa Policy Project

·        Jeanne Nesbit, Department of Human Services

·        Nancy Robertson , Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence

Panel moderated by Lori SchraderBachar, Iowa Commission on the Status of Women

In the Sunday opinion section, the Des Moines Register editorial board gave Leonard Boswell a “thistle” for using his franking privilege to send out a brochure that “crashes across” the line between “legitimate constituent communication and overt political campaigning.”

Ed Fallon has already complained about Boswell sending out campaign communications at the taxpayers’ expense.

Rich Dana, who posted this diary on energy policy here not long ago, had a great editorial on the front page of the opinion section of the Sunday Des Moines Register: Big utilities take wind out of locals’ future.

I hesitate to post any excerpt, because you really should go read the whole thing. But here is a particularly important passage:

Minnesota recently passed a “C-BED” law (Community-Based Economic Development) which levels the playing field for locally owned renewable-energy projects by establishing a tariff based on the utility industry’s own discount rates. For residential and small-business customers, Minnesota and a number of states across the nation offer rebate programs for individuals willing to invest in small-scale solar-power systems or home- and farm-scale wind turbines.

Meanwhile, at the Iowa Statehouse, the ever-present utility lobbyists exert an iron grip on legislators with a campaign of disinformation, making claims that they are working to protect ratepayers from increased energy bills, and that they can do a better job in a market environment free of government mandates.

As a believer in the power of the free market, I find this claim humorous – the day that I have a choice of which power company to buy from is the day we can have that discussion. Until then, utility companies remain state-sanctioned monopolies, with only as much concern for their customers as the government requires.

Despite the fact that several forward-looking Iowa rural electric co-ops and municipal utilities have proven that supporting their members and local residents who invest in renewable energy is good for local business, ratepayers and the environment, the REC lobby continues to be one of the most vehement opponents of local renewable-energy ownership. It argues that if it is required to buy locally produced renewable electricity, it would be too costly, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

MidAmerican Energy, one of the most powerful and influential forces at the Statehouse, has led the effort to shut out small business and local ownership through the company’s close ties to leadership.

Like I said, go read the whole thing. Our Democratic-controlled legislature should be able to do better on energy policy.

From time to time I’m posting about the IA-03 primary at Daily Kos, MyDD and Open Left. If you’d like to join the conversation there, please leave a comment on the threads below my latest installment:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008…

http://www.openleft.com/showDi…

Democrat Bill Foster won today’s special election to serve out the remainder of this term representing Illinois’ 14th Congressional district:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert resigned from the seat, forcing the special election.

The NRCC spent more than $1 million, about 20 percent of its cash on hand, to defend this red district, and still lost the seat.

Keep in mind that more than two dozen Republicans in the U.S. House are retiring this year, forcing the GOP to defend a lot of open seats. The DCCC’s fundraising is strong, putting Democrats in a good position to expand their majority in the House.

Anyone still worried that Republicans will be able to mount an effective challenge for Iowa’s third district in case Ed Fallon defeats Leonard Boswell in the primary?

What Big Tent Democrat (an Obama supporter) said:

So we are celebrating “democracy” in Wyoming today. The “will of the people?” Not hardly. Another travesty of the Democratic Party.

Do you know that if 8,000 voters come out in Wyoming today to select their 13 delegates that means that 615 Wyomingians will be selecting a delegate to our national convention (8000 divided by 13.) By contrast, when 4.4 million Californians voted in their primary, they selected 370 delegates, which is to say 1 delegate for every 11,892 Californian who voted.

The will of the people? Please never mention that phrase again when discussing the pledged delegate count.

So, one participant in the Wyoming caucuses today has as much say over our nomination as 19 Californians who voted in the primary (or 8.6 Iowans who came to the caucuses in January).

But Obama supporters, you keep chanting about how the lead in pledged delegates is the only factor superdelegates should keep in mind when it’s time to vote for our nominee.

I have been critical of the Iowa caucus system, even though some elements of the system favored my candidate. I don’t like the electoral college, even though it is possible that someday a Democrat may win 270 electoral votes despite losing the nationwide popular vote.

Big Tent Democrat is one of very few Obama supporters who acknowledges that certain elements of our nominating system are undemocratic, even though those elements favor his candidate.

UPDATE: In the comments below that thread on TalkLeft, user waldenpond wrote:

I have a spreadsheet with votes/dels etc. I have dels for red state/blue state. For the GE Clinton would has 78 to Obama’s 100 red.  Clinton 815 to Obama’s 83 for blue.  I have by state the number of votes it took to get the dels.  I do it because I find it interesting, but I don’t think any of it means anything.  Raw vote against dels.. Clinton 9289 votes per del.  Obama 8553 votes per del.

Interesting. So Clinton has won more than 700 more popular votes per delegate than Obama has. If he does very poorly in PA and in any FL re-vote, he could well end up losing the popular vote despite retaining his lead in pledged delegates.

with these pathetic comments picked up by the AP.

As Talking Points Memo notes, the full quotation from the Spencer Daily Reporter is even worse.

Here’s hoping King will get tired of serving in the House minority and leave Congress before too long.

The Des Moines Register published a fairly long list of bills that made it through the funnel and therefore may still be passed this session. Click the link to read short summaries of these bills.

The Register also listed some of the high-profile bills that did not make it through the funnel, such as a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and a proposal to ban the use of cell phones while driving.

About a month ago, Ed Fallon’s campaign issued a press release criticizing Leonard Boswell for sending out a mass mailer on environmental issues. Key excerpt:

“Boswell is trying to paint himself as an environmentalist,” Fallon said, “but his voting record says otherwise. And for him to mail campaign literature on the public’s tab is flat out wrong.”

The mailing focuses on Boswell’s vote in December for the Energy Independence and Security Act that raises fuel efficiency standards to 35 mpg by 2020. However, in 2001 when House Democrats tried to raise these same CAFE standards to 27.5 mpg by 2007, Boswell joined Republicans to defeat the proposal (08/01/01). “Boswell’s reversal of position, Fallon said, “came only after he learned I might be running against him.” He said the same was true of Boswell’s support for the Safe Climate Act, which was introduced in March 2007. “It took until December – nine months – for Boswell to decide to support the legislation,” Fallon said.

It’s probably good politics for Fallon to complain about Boswell sending out campaign-style fliers at taxpayer expense, but let’s face it–the franking privilege is one of the advantages of incumbency. It’s not realistic to expect Boswell not to use this advantage during the primary campaign.

I never saw that Boswell mailer on the environment–presumably it got tossed in the recycling bin. However, this week I got a piece from Boswell about economic issues. It has the look and feel of a campaign mailing, but the small print says, “This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense.”

After the jump I have transcribed this week’s mailer for the benefit of readers who are following this race closely but don’t live in the third Congressional district.