Krusty Konservative launched a haiku contest today, and I figured, why should Republicans have all the fun?

A haiku consists of “three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables.”

I look forward to reading your entries. Here’s my first shot:

Ignoring record

the MasterCard governor

throws stones from glass house.

I’ll update this post later if inspiration strikes.

UPDATE: Wow, things got nasty over in Krusty’s thread. Meanwhile, I thought of another:

For lack of ideas

or a fresh campaign message,

“Nancy Pelosi.”

MarketWatch reported Monday that investors “embraced the health-care sector” on news of the Senate Democrats’ compromise on health care reform.

Oh no! Representative Leonard Boswell must be quaking in his boots now that the National Republican Campaign Committee is running this robocall against him in Iowa’s third district:

“Leonard Boswell spent 2009 helping liberal Speaker Nancy Pelosi push a massive government takeover of health care, a cap-and-trade energy bill that will increase costs for Iowa workers, and a massive $787 billion pork-laden spending bill that he called a stimulus but that has not helped the Iowa economy. Tell him your New Year’s resolution is to watch his votes in 2010 to make sure he is voting for Iowa families, not the liberal agenda of the Democrat party leaders in Washington.”

For years, Republicans have trotted out versions of this script against Boswell: blah blah blah Nancy Pelosi blah blah blah liberal agenda blah blah blah Democrat Party. It hasn’t resonated before, so why would it work now?

Specifically, I don’t think they will get far running against the stimulus package. Even in a weak economy, Boswell will be able to point to dozens of programs from the stimulus bill that benefited Iowa families. He has brought money to the district through several other bills passed this year as well. The Republican alternative, passing no stimulus and freezing federal spending, would have made the recession far worse.

The health care bill doesn’t even contain a weak public insurance option, let alone a “government takeover.” I don’t dispute that there will be plenty for the Republicans to attack in that bill, but Boswell will be able to point to items that benefit Iowans, such as new Medicare reimbursement rates to benefit low-volume hospitals (including Grinnell Regional Medical Center and Skiff Medical Center in Newton).

Boswell fought for concessions in the climate change bill that weakened the bill from my perspective but will be touted by his campaign as protecting sectors of the Iowa economy. Anyway, many people’s utility bills are lower this winter because the recession has brought down natural gas prices.

It’s fine with me if the NRCC wants to drain its coffers by funding robocalls like this around the country. I doubt they will scare Boswell into retirement or succeed in branding him as a Washington liberal.

In the least surprising news of the month, State Senator Jerry Behn has dropped out of the Republican gubernatorial primary and endorsed Terry Branstad. Behn never looked like a serious contender, and my only question is what took him so long? Credit for the scoop on this story should go to Christian Ucles, who noticed ten days ago that Behn’s campaign website had been taken down.

Behn’s exit leaves four Republican candidates for governor. Branstad and Bob Vander Plaats have the funding and large base of support to go the distance in the primary. State Representatives Chris Rants and Rod Roberts will be cash-poor and without an obvious base. It seems logical that one or both would drop out of the governor’s race in time to run for the Iowa House again. The filing deadline is in March.

Last week Rants told Bret Hayworth of the Sioux City Journal that he is in the gubernatorial campaign to stay and will not run for House district 54 in Sioux City again. He can’t have much money in his campaign account, but if he mainly needs to drive himself around the state and doesn’t plan to run ads, he won’t need much money.

I’ve haven’t heard Roberts rule out running for Iowa House district 51 again, and that district in the Carroll area might be more ripe for a Democratic takeover if Roberts left it open. When the campaigns release their fundraising numbers in January we’ll get a better sense of how broke Rants and Roberts are. My best guess is that Roberts will be the next to fold.

What do you think, Bleeding Heartland readers?

UPDATE: A few days ago Roberts told the Marshalltown Times-Republican, “I have discovered there is a place for me in this field. I have no intentions of backing out.”

Des Moines Rotary voted down an applicant for the first time in the chapter’s history, Rekha Basu reported in her Des Moines Register column on Friday. Susy Robinette is well-known in the community as a former news anchor for Des Moines’ NBC affiliate and a former reporter, anchor and news director at the Fox affiliate here. Apparently 11 members of the club rejected her application because she is now the chief development officer at Planned Parenthood of the Heartland (previously Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa).

Therese Wielage is club president and a personal friend of Robinette’s. “I think Susy would be a good member for any club, but I respect that she’s representing an organization that some people in the club have issues with,” Wielage said. […]

It only takes 11 “no” votes out of 334 members to torpedo a nominee, and that’s just what Robinette got. That disturbs member Joy Corning, the former Republican lieutenant governor. While calling the Rotary a wonderful organization that does good work in the community and world, she said, “It is very unfortunate that a very small minority has inserted their own personal convictions into the process and has done a hurtful thing to a notable woman who works for one of the outstanding non-profits in our community.”

Member Janet Phipps Burkhead, a lawyer and general in the Iowa National Guard, who sponsored Robinette, says she’s embarrassed for the club. “I don’t think that what took place is in the spirit of Rotary,” she said.

[…]The immediate past president of another Des Moines Rotary club, the Rotary Club of Des Moines, A.M., said though its members are conservative, they’re “very open.” In fact, said Dennis Linderbaum, president of the Iowa Health Foundation, he’d happily sponsor Robinette for membership there. He calls Planned Parenthood “a very important organization in regard to women’s health and to the strength of families.”

KCCI-TV reported on the story here. Officials would not release the names of the members who voted against Robinette, but Wielege said they are reviewing by-laws that allow 11 out of 334 members to block an application.

If you know anyone in Des Moines Rotary, you might want to mention that you were disappointed to learn that a small minority of people who dislike Planned Parenthood’s mission took it out on Robinette.

If you know anyone in the Rotary Club of Des Moines, A.M., you might want to mention that it would reflect well on them to welcome Robinette as a member.

Alternatively, please consider donating to Planned Parenthood in Robinette’s honor.

Last night the U.S. Senate voted 60 to 40 to move forward with debate on the health insurance reform bill. All senators who caucus with Democrats voted for cloture, and all Republicans voted against. The breakthrough came on Saturday, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid secured Senator Ben Nelson’s support with extra money for Medicaid in Nebraska and new language on abortion.

At Daily Kos mcjoan published a good summary of what’s in the latest version of the bill.

Reid reportedly promised Nelson a “limited conference” on this bill, meaning that very few changes will be made to the Senate version. However, it’s far from clear that the House of Representatives will approve the Senate’s compromise. About two dozen House Democrats plan to vote against health care reform no matter what, meaning that it will only take 15-20 more no votes to prevent supporters from reaching 218 in the House.

Bart Stupak, lead sponsor of the amendment restricting abortion coverage in the House bill, has been working with Republicans against the Senate’s abortion language. Meanwhile, the leaders of the House pro-choice caucus have suggested the Senate language may be unconstitutional.

Even before Reid struck the final deal with Nelson, Representative Bruce Braley told the Des Moines Register, “I think the real test is going to be at the conference committee and if it doesn’t improve significantly, I think health care reform is very remote based on what I’m hearing in the House.”

Senator Tom Harkin has done several media appearances in recent days defending the Senate compromise. He seems especially pleased with the Medicaid deal for Nebraska:

The federal government is paying for the entire Medicaid expansion through 2017 for every state.

“In 2017, as you know, when we have to start phasing back from 100 percent, and going down to 98 percent, they are going to say, ‘Wait, there is one state that stays at 100?’ And every governor in the country is going to say, ‘Why doesn’t our state stay there?’” Harkin said. “When you look at it, I thought well, god, good, it is going to be the impetus for all the states to stay at 100 percent. So he might have done all of us a favor.”

Ezra Klein has posted some amazing spin this morning about how the Senate bill is “not very close to the health-care bill most liberals want. But it is very close to the health-care bill that Barack Obama promised.” Sorry, no. Obama campaigned on a health care plan that would control costs and include a public insurance option, drug re-importation, and letting Medicare negotiate for lower drug prices. Obama campaigned against an individual mandate to purchase insurance and an excise tax on insurance benefits.

Those of you still making excuses for Obama should listen to what Senator Russ Feingold said yesterday:

“I’ve been fighting all year for a strong public option to compete with the insurance industry and bring health care spending down,” Feingold said Sunday in a statement. “Unfortunately, the lack of support from the administration made keeping the public option in the bill an uphill struggle.”

Republican Senator Olympia Snowe was about as unprincipled and two-faced during this process as White House officials were. She voted for the Senate Finance Committee’s bill in October and had suggested her main objection to Reid’s compromise was the inclusion of a public health insurance option. Yet Snowe remained opposed to the bill even after the public option was removed last week. Because of her stance, Reid cut the deal with Nelson. The supposedly pro-choice Snowe could have prevented the restrictions on abortion coverage from getting into the bill if she had signed on instead.

Speaking of Republicans, the Iowa Republican posted this rant by TEApublican: “Nebraska And Huckabee Respond To Ben ‘Benedict’ Nelson’s Christmas Senate Sellout.” If you click over, be prepared to encounter mixed metaphors and misunderstandings about what this “reform” does. Still, the rant is a good reminder of how Republicans will still scream about government takeovers even though corporate interests got everything they wanted out of the bill.

Josh Kraushaar reported for the Politico on Friday that the “National Republican Congressional Committee is getting clobbered by their Democratic counterparts on the fundraising front”:

The DCCC raised $3.65 million for the month, and ended November with $15.35 million cash-on-hand. It still holds $2.66 million in debt from last election cycle.

The NRCC only raised $2.34 million in November, and spent $2.16 million, hardly adding to their overall cash total. The committee now has $4.35 million in its account, while still owing $2 million in debt.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Democrats lose 20 to 30 House seats nationally next year. That said, if the NRCC can’t build up a decent war chest now, with unemployment high and support for health care reform sinking, they may not be able to convert favorable conditions into a huge wave. NRCC officials have talked about targeting dozens of seats, but they’re a long way from having the money to fund that many challengers.

The five Republicans competing in a primary to face seven-term incumbent Leonard Boswell should assume that they won’t get much help from the NRCC during the general election campaign. Iowa’s third Congressional district is not among the most vulnerable Democratic-held House seats. That’s not to say Boswell couldn’t lose, especially if Iowa’s employment market remains weak throughout next year. But I agree with David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, who told the Des Moines Register, “I think it’s fair to say if Democrats are losing any of their seats in Iowa next year, they’ll be suffering large losses across the country.”

If Boswell looks like he is in trouble next year, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will certainly spend money on his behalf. Boswell is in the DCCC’s Frontline program.

Speaking of the GOP primary in IA-03, I got a kick out of Dave Funk criticizing Boswell for securing $750,000 in federal funds for the renovation of the former Des Moines Public Library building (which is now owned by the World Food Prize Foundation). Somehow I doubt third district voters will be outraged that Boswell obtained some federal help for this $30 million project in downtown Des Moines.

Chanukah’s over, but there’s still time to shop for Christmas presents.

Blog for Iowa highlighted 12 great locally-owned places to shop in Iowa. Many of them feature locally-produced foods and hand-made crafts. For those heading to Prairieland Herbs and Picket Fence Creamery near Woodward, I would recommend driving 10 minutes up the road to Northern Prairie Chevre. Their little store carries items from many other local businesses.

If you want toys, clothes or accessories for babies or small children, try out one of these Des Moines-area businesses:

Simply for Giggles

The Stork Wearhouse

Little Padded Seats

VannyBean Baby Organics

The toy store on the lower level of Valley West mall

After the jump I’m re-posting a diary I wrote last December on no-clutter holiday gift ideas. Another way to support locally-owned businesses is to buy your friends or relatives services or entertainment that they might not treat themselves to or can’t afford.

Also consider donating to a local non-profit that means a lot to your loved one.

Please post your own ideas in the comments.

For a guy who claims to be proud of his record, former governor Terry Branstad sure has a funny way of showing it.

On one issue after another, Branstad takes credit for things he didn’t do and evades responsibility for things he did. So, the governor who kept two sets of books boasts about enacting budget reforms that that other people pushed in response to his fiscal mismanagement.

The governor who used state bonding more than once says that politicians who create debt should be voted out of office.

Pressed on his record of expanding gambling in Iowa, Branstad has suggested he had little choice in the matter: “What was I supposed to do? Over 70% of the people wanted it even though I was personally opposed to it.”

Now Branstad is playing the same game on the Road Use Tax Fund and the idea of eliminating federal deductibility from Iowa’s tax system.

David Barton, a self-styled constitutional expert who founded the socially conservative WallBuilders organization, has endorsed Bob Vander Plaats for governor:

“Bob Vander Plaats epitomizes the leadership our Founding Fathers envisioned when they stood up for our individual liberties,” Barton said in a prepared statement. “He knows that it’s the hard work and unfettered creative spirit of individuals made this country and states like Iowa great. He knows that more bureaucracies, more government employees, higher taxes and increased government spending will crush Iowa. And, he’ll articulate that message in winning fashion.”

Here’s some background on Barton’s vision for America, chock full of Biblical interpretations supporting right-wing public policies. Barton spoke to the Iowa Christian Alliance this fall (click that link to watch videos). His organization hosts a large annual “ProFamily Legislators Conference.”

Barton’s endorsement may help Vander Plaats raise money from around the country as well as recruit volunteers in Iowa. Vander Plaats will particularly need financial support from out of state in order to compete with Terry Branstad, who built relationships with many major donors and local activists during his four terms as governor.

I’ll be curious to see whether conservative activists looking to “take back the Republican Party” through primaries will focus on Iowa’s gubernatorial race in the winter and spring. Vander Plaats already has the backing of former presidential candidate and current Fox TV host Mike Huckabee as well as pop culture icon Chuck Norris. Vander Plaats also was featured on the cover of Focus on the Family’s national magazine in November.

The House of Representatives approved the Jobs for Main Street Act yesterday by a vote of 217 to 212. No Republicans supported the bill; the nay votes included 38 Democrats and 174 Republicans (roll call here). Iowa Democrats Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack and Leonard Boswell all voted for the bill, while Republicans Tom Latham and Steve King voted with the rest of their caucus. (This year has been a refreshing change from 2005-2007, when Boswell was often among 30-some House Democrats voting with Republicans on the issue of the day.)

More details are after the jump.

I’m likely to ignore future e-mails from MoveOn.org Political Action after reading the last two appeals they’ve sent me. They are raising money off the health care reform battle while absolving President Obama from blame for the pitiful state of the Senate bill.

Excerpts from the MoveOn.Org appeals and some commentary are after the jump.

A lot of major Republican donors co-hosted a fundraiser last night for Jim Gibbons’ Congressional campaign in Iowa’s third district. The big names included Bruce Rastetter, Gary Kirke, Denny Elwell and John Ruan, as well as Greg Ganske, who represented Iowa’s fourth Congressional district (including Polk County) from 1995 to 2003.

Apparently none of these people were put off by the ludicrous tax holiday proposal Gibbons floated last week. Geraldine had a great post on that at the Iowa Progress blog, by the way.

If any Bleeding Heartland readers know which major GOP donors are on board with Brad Zaun in this primary, please post a comment or shoot me an e-mail: desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com. I wonder how long it will be before Zaun and Gibbons start attacking each other as well as incumbent Leonard Boswell.

Rival Republican candidate Dave Funk’s been passed over by the GOP bigwigs. I’m curious to see how much he can raise from smaller donors who buy into his ill-informed comments on energy policy and other matters. Will the “Tea Party” crowd get involved on his behalf?

UPDATE: The Iowa Republican published the host list for Zaun’s upcoming fundraiser.

Democratic strategists who are counting on a bounce from passing fake health care “reform” won’t be comforted by the latest poll numbers. Highlights are after the jump.

Environment Iowa posted an important statement here today, and I encourage you to click over and read the whole thing. I want to highlight a few passages:

   *       To avoid the most catastrophic impacts of global warming, the U.S. needs to cut power plant emissions roughly in half over the next 10 years.

   *       Nuclear power is too slow to contribute to this effort. No new reactors are now under construction and building a single reactor could take 10 years or longer, while costing billions of dollars.

   *       Even if the nuclear industry somehow managed to build 100 new nuclear reactors by 2030, nuclear power could reduce total U.S. emissions over the next 20 years by only 12 percent. […]

In contrast to building new nuclear plants, efficiency and renewable energy can immediately and significantly reduce electricity consumption and carbon emissions. The report found that:

   *       Efficiency programs are already cutting electricity consumption by 1-2 percent annually in leading states, and the wind industry is already building the equivalent of three nuclear reactors per year in wind farms, many of which are in Iowa.

   *       Building 100 new reactors would require an up-front investment on the order of $600 billion dollars – money which could cut at least twice as much carbon pollution by 2030 if invested in clean energy. Taking into account the ongoing costs of running the nuclear plants, clean energy could deliver 5 times more pollution-cutting progress per dollar.

   *       Nuclear power is not necessary to provide carbon-free electricity for the long haul. The need for base-load power is exaggerated and small-scale, local energy solutions can actually enhance the reliability of the electric grid.

Click here to download “Generating Failure: How Building Nuclear Power Plants Would Set America Back in the Race Against Global Warming.” Other excerpts from the executive summary:

Nuclear power is expensive and will divert resources from more cost-effective energy strategies.

   * Building 100 new nuclear reactors would require an up-front capital investment on the order of $600 billion (with a possible range of $250 billion to $1 trillion), diverting money away from cleaner and cheaper solutions. Any up-front investment in nuclear power would lock in additional expenditures over time.

   * Over the life of a new reactor, the electricity it produces could cost in the range of 12 to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour, or more. In contrast, a capital investment in energy efficiency actually pays us back several times over with ongoing savings on electricity bills, and an investment in renewable power can deliver electricity for much less cost.

   * Per dollar spent over the lifetime of the technology, energy efficiency and biomass co-firing are five times more effective at preventing carbon dioxide pollution, and combined heat and power (in which a power plant generates both electricity and heat for a building or industrial application) is greater than three times more effective. In 2018, biomass and land-based wind energy will be more than twice as effective, and offshore wind power will be on the order of 30 percent more effective per dollar of investment, even without the benefit of the renewable energy production tax credit. (See Figure ES-2.)

   * By 2018, and possibly sooner, solar photovoltaic power should be comparable to a new nuclear reactor in terms of its per-dollar ability to prevent global warming pollution. Some analyses imply that thin film solar photovoltaic power is already more cost-effective than a new reactor. And solar power is rapidly growing cheaper, while nuclear costs are not likely to decline.

Please send this link to friends who believe we must expand nuclear power in order to meet our electricity needs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has also concluded that “the U.S. does not need to significantly expand its reliance on nuclear power to make dramatic cuts in power plant carbon emissions through 2030-and that doing so would be uneconomical.”

Bleeding Heartland user American007 noted not long ago that Time Magazine often gives its “Person of the Year” award to people attempting to deal with a weak economy. So it was this year, when Time’s editors laughably chose Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke:

The story of the year was a weak economy that could have been much, much weaker. Thank the man who runs the Federal Reserve, our mild-mannered economic overlord

I wish I were joking, but here’s more from Time:

The overriding story of 2009 was the economy – the lousiness of it, and the fact that it wasn’t far lousier. It was a year of escalating layoffs, bankruptcies and foreclosures, the “new frugality” and the “new normal.” It was also a year of green shoots, a rebounding Dow and a fragile sense that the worst is over. Even the big political stories of 2009 – the struggles of the Democrats; the tea-party takeover of the Republicans; the stimulus; the deficit; GM and Chrysler; the backlash over bailouts and bonuses; the furious debates over health care, energy and financial regulation; the constant drumbeat of jobs, jobs, jobs – were, at heart, stories about the economy. And it’s Bernanke’s economy.

In 2009, Bernanke hurled unprecedented amounts of money into the banking system in unprecedented ways, while starting to lay the groundwork for the Fed’s eventual return to normality. He helped oversee the financial stress tests that finally calmed the markets, while launching a groundbreaking public relations campaign to demystify the Fed. Now that Obama has decided to keep him in his job, he has become a lightning rod in an intense national debate over the Fed as it approaches its second century.

But the main reason Ben Shalom Bernanke is TIME’s Person of the Year for 2009 is that he is the most important player guiding the world’s most important economy. His creative leadership helped ensure that 2009 was a period of weak recovery rather than catastrophic depression, and he still wields unrivaled power over our money, our jobs, our savings and our national future. The decisions he has made, and those he has yet to make, will shape the path of our prosperity, the direction of our politics and our relationship to the world.

Reality check: Bernanke has no plan to deal with unemployment, even though the “Federal Reserve Act dictates that one of the founding directives of the Federal Reserve is to ‘promote effectively the goals of maximum employment.’”

But Bernanke is wild about cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Hooray for our “mild-mannered economic overlord”!

The Senate Banking Committee votes on Bernanke’s renomination tomorrow, and he is expected to pass. However, three senators have said they will put a hold on his renomination when it reaches the floor.

I agree that the current recession could have deepened without the federal stimulus bill, especially if we had imposed the federal spending freeze Republicans wanted. But the stimulus should have been larger and better targeted toward job creation. Bernanke doesn’t favor any additional federal stimulus to create jobs. He shouldn’t even get another term at the Fed, let alone “Person of the Year.”

I have had it with e-mail blasts like the one I got over the weekend from J.B. Poersch of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee:

Republicans tried every trick in the book to block us, but Senate Democrats scored important health care reform wins in the past two weeks. We passed the Mikulski Amendment, to make sure every woman gets crucial cancer screenings. And we defeated the Senate’s version of the Stupak Amendment – one of the biggest attacks on choice in a generation.

But these wins didn’t faze the Republicans. A lot of what they are doing to kill the Senate’s bill isn’t making the headlines – but that doesn’t make it any less insidious. We’ve pulled together facts on their latest heinous tactics in our new Obstruction Report.

Bill Maske announced yesterday that he will resign as the superintendent of the I-35 school district in Truro to seek the Democratic nomination in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district. He is the first delared opponent for eight-term incumbent Tom Latham.

Maske’s website is here, and his campaign blog is here.

After the jump I’ve posted event details for Maske’s announcement tour this week, with stops in Waukee, Fort Dodge, Estherville, Algona, Mason City, Decorah, Waukon, Postville, Charles City, Ames, Indianola, Winterset and Marshalltown.

Nate Silver thinks that thinks any Democrat who opposes it is “batflippin’ crazy.” He posts a chart showing how a family of four earning $54,000 a year would get much more in subsidies if the bill goes through than if no bill passes.

I discuss a few problems with the bill and Silver’s analysis after the jump.

Talking Points Memo reports,

On Tuesday, the administration will announce that the president has directed that the federal government proceed with the acquisition of the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Illinois to house federal inmates and a limited number of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Ed Tibbetts of the Quad-City Times has more details:

In addition to the detainees, several hundred federal prisoners will be moved to the Thomson facility, which was built in 2001 to house state prisoners but has instead stood nearly empty as local officials have vainly tried to fill it. […]

The prison, if the deal goes through, will be run by the federal Bureau of Prisons, according to the administration’s plan. The agency is expected to bring 1,600 to 2,000 prisoners to the Thomson facility.

Authorities will also spend some time bulking up security.

The federal Bureau of Prisons will add razor wire between the existing double fences and beef up the existing fence detection system. The Defense Department, which would lease a portion of the facility, would also erect another perimeter fence around the 146-acre complex, according to plans.

The administration has said it would exceed security at the country’s only “Supermax” prison in Colorado.

It’s not clear precisely how many foreign detainees would be brought to Thomson, though [Senator Dick] Durbin [of Illinois] has put the number at less than 100.

Get ready for more Republican scare tactics aimed at undermining Representative Bruce Braley, who represents the Clinton area, just across the Mississippi River from Thomson. I doubt the Iowa GOP will get much traction from this issue, though. The Des Moines Register’s conservative columnist, John Carlson, recently found broad support in Clinton for the plan to expand the Thomson facility.

Braley said last month that his constituents “have told me with a resounding voice they want these jobs to come to their area.”