Please share any thoughts about President Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office in this thread. Are you thrilled, satisfied, or disappointed? What have been his best and worst decisions so far, in your opinion?

Congress marked the occasion by approving the president’s $3.5 trillion budget outline in the House and in the Senate.

I will update later with highlights from the president’s press conference this evening.

UPDATE: The consensus seems to be that Obama did very well at the press conference. Over at Popular Progressive, Gark says the president hit a home run on the question about what surprised, troubled, enchanted and humbled him.

Huffington Post has the full transcript from the press conference here. I particularly liked his comments about bipartisanship, and I’ve bolded my favorite remarks:

I do think that, to my Republican friends, I want them to realize that me reaching out to them has been genuine. I can’t sort of define bipartisanship as simply being willing to accept certain theories of theirs that we tried for eight years and didn’t work and the American people voted to change.

But there are a whole host of areas where we can work together. And I’ve said this to people like Mitch McConnell . I said, look, on health care reform, you may not agree with me that I — we should have a public plan. That may be philosophically just too much for you to swallow.

On the other hand, there are some areas like reducing the costs of medical malpractice insurance where you do agree with me. If I’m taking some of your ideas and giving you credit for good ideas, the fact that you didn’t get 100 percent can’t be a reason every single time to oppose my position.

And if that is how bipartisanship is defined, a situation in which basically, wherever there are philosophical differences, I have to simply go along with ideas that have been rejected by the American people in a historic election, you know, we’re probably not going to make progress.

If, on the other hand, the definition is that we’re open to each other’s ideas, there are going to be differences, the majority will probably be determinative when it comes to resolving just hard, core differences that we can’t resolve, but there is a whole host of other areas where we can work together, then I think we can make progress.

I love it! Governor Chet Culver announced four appointments today: Shearon Elderkin for the Iowa Power Fund board; Carrie La Seur for the Environmental Protection Commission; John Mathes as the Interim Commandant of the Iowa Veterans Home; and Tomas Rodriguez as Iowa’s State Public Defender. A press release containing some biographical information about the nominees is after the jump.

Earlier this month Iowa Senate Republicans blocked Elderkin’s appointment to the EPC and La Seur’s appointment to the Power Fund board, despite both women’s strong qualifications. I appreciate the governor’s commitment to giving these women the chance to continue their volunteer public service.

Republicans also rejected Gene Gessow, Culver’s nominee to head the state Department of Health and Human Services. It will be interesting to see where Gessow lands.

UPDATE: Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement issued a press release on April 30 welcoming the appointments of Elderkin and La Seur. Excerpt:

“We are pleased Gov. Culver is appointing these two individuals who are dedicated to working towards a cleaner environment in Iowa,” said CCI board president Barb Kalbach, “We have full confidence that they have the capacity and leadership to stand up for policies that protect our air and water and serve the common good.”

Iowa Independent reports that Senator Arlen Specter’s decision to become a Democrat leaves Iowa’s own Chuck Grassley with a difficult choice. He is currently the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, but with Specter’s departure he appears to be first in line to become ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee instead. According to Iowa Independent,

GOP conference rules forbid him from serving as ranking member of both panels at the same time, a Senate aide said Tuesday. Theoretically, he could get a waiver to serve on both, but that’s unlikely, the aide said.

So very shortly, Grassley has a tough choice to make: Either he can remain the senior Republican on Finance – a powerful spot this year with comprehensive health reforms looming, but also a position he’ll have to give up at the end of 2010 because of GOP term-limit rules – or he can accept the top GOP spot on Judiciary.

Judiciary will consider many important matters this year and next, possibly including a Supreme Court nominee. However, if I were Grassley I would stay at Finance for sure.

President Barack Obama wants health care reform to happen this year and is willing to use the budget reconciliation process to make it happen. The health care reform bill may become one of the most important pieces of legislation this decade. By all accounts Grassley has a strong working relationship with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus.

I don’t think Judiciary will consider anything of comparable importance this year, and I doubt Grassley and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy would quickly develop the same kind of rapport Grassley has with Baucus.

At the end of 2010, Grassley’s term as ranking member of Finance will be up, and he can choose whether to become the ranking member of Judiciary or Budget. He has expressed a preference for Judiciary in the past.

If you were Grassley, would you take the chance to become the ranking member at Judiciary this year? If Grassley did give up his current position, it appears that Orrin Hatch would become the ranking member at Finance.

By the way, David Waldman reported yesterday at Congress Matters that Specter’s switch throws off the Judiciary Committee’s ratio of Democrats and Republicans. A new Senate organizing resolution will have to be adopted, and Democrats may use that opportunity to secure more seats on the Senate committees.

UPDATE: Grassley’s press secretary Beth Pellett Levine told me on Wednesday that the senator has not made any statement about whether he would consider becoming the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

I’ve been reading news and analysis at Iowa Independent daily for more than a year, but since they recently added an Iowa News Feed to the front page I’m checking the blog even more often. The news feed links to mainstream media reports and blog posts covering a wide range of topics.

IowaPolitics.com also provides lots of links to mainstream media stories, politicians’ press releases and blog posts, plus some original reporting.

CoveringIowaPolitics.com has original reporting on the biggest statewide political stories.

Radio Iowa also has a mixture of original reporting, including interviews, and press releases.

For stories and angles that can be off the beaten path:

Blog for Iowa publishes action alerts and press releases from various progressive organizations.

The Public News Service releases Iowa-related stories several times a week, which often have an environmental or public-health focus.

E-mail lists run by various non-profit organizations are another way to find out what’s going on in the state. I subscribe to several of these, and I often see stories or press releases that I wouldn’t have found in any newspaper or blog.

I look forward to reading about other Bleeding Heartland users’ favorite online sources for Iowa news.  

President Barack Obama’s cabinet is complete just in time for his 100th day in office, now that the Senate has confirmed Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius for Health and Human Services secretary by a vote of 65 to 31. Senator Chuck Grassley joined most of his Republican colleagues in voting no, citing her ties to George Tiller, a Kansas doctor who performs late-term abortions.

When Obama picked Sebelius I didn’t expect her confirmation to become controversial, since she is a popular Democratic governor in a conservative state. (Both of the Republican senators representing Kansas voted to confirm Sebelius.) However, anti-abortion groups have been fighting the nomination because when asked how much money Dr. Tiller had donated to her, Sebelius initially reported only his contributions to her campaign funds and not his contributions to her political action committee.

For a time Republicans threatened to filibuster Sebelius’s nomination, but they never appeared to have the votes to support a filibuster. Grassley indicated last week that although he opposed Sebelius, he would not have backed a filibuster of her nomination.

Republicans did manage to hold up her confirmation vote for a while. The silver lining behind that obstructionist cloud was that Sebelius remained governor long enough to veto a bill that would have paved the way for two huge coal-burning power plants in Kansas.

Sebelius’s 31 no votes in the Senate make her the second most-controversial Obama cabinet member. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was opposed by 34 senators, including both Grassley and Tom Harkin.

Earlier this year it seemed that Republican opposition would be strongest to Obama’s choice for attorney general, but Eric Holder drew only 21 no votes in the Senate. Grassley voted to confirm Holder despite some doubts, saying he was influenced by his (then Republican) colleague Arlen Specter.

Grassley also voted for the fourth most controversial Obama nominee, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. Seventeen Republican senators voted against her confirmation.

Something jumped out at me in Jonathan Singer’s thread on Senator Arlen Specter’s press conference announcing his party switch:

Update [2009-4-28 14:32:44 by Jonathan Singer]: Specter says that he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have agreed to respect his seniority as if he had been elected as a Democrat in 1980.

Update [2009-4-28 14:37:18 by Jonathan Singer]: On follow up, Specter indicates how this seniority issue plays out, specifically in terms of subcommittee chairmanships — though from the grin on his face you have to get the sense that he is not coming to the Democratic caucus without the possibility of retaining some power.

Update [2009-4-28 14:43:50 by Todd Beeton]:Specter: “I’d be ahead of Senator Harkin.” Implying that he would take over the chairmanship of the Health Sub-committee of Appropriations. Bullshit.

Harkin was first elected to the Senate in 1984. I have a call in to Harkin’s office to find out what assurances he has received regarding his committee and subcommittee positions. As John Deeth wrote recently,

Senority, while not as all-important as it was before the 1970s, is still a big deal, determining committee assignments. Day of swearing in rules over all […]

I find it hard to believe that Reid would strike a deal with Specter putting him ahead of Harkin, but this bears watching until we know for sure what Specter will get as a member of the Democratic caucus. I’ll update this post when I hear more on this front.

Incidentally, Reid did the heavy lifting to talk Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont into leaving the Republican caucus in 2001. He spent considerable time lobbying Jeffords,

And when no other Democrat would offer up a committee chairmanship to Jeffords should he leave the Republicans, it was Reid who gave up what would have been a job helming the Environment and Public Works Committee.

That was a more earth-shattering switch, because it shifted control of the U.S. Senate from Republicans to Democrats.

The blogosphere is full of reaction to Specter’s move today. Todd Beeton’s review of some conservative blog commentaries was entertaining.

UPDATE: Harkin interviewed by MSNBC’s David Shuster, “indicated that he’d spoken to Specter before he made the switch, said, ‘Welcome, Arlen.’”

From NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell:

NO CHAIRMANSHIP ON THE TABLE: Sources say Specter will not be given a chairmanship during this Congress, the 111th. For now, “chairmanships were not on the table” as a part of the party switch negotiations.

UPDATE: I had no idea while I was writing this post that Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania had decided to switch to the Democratic Party–yet another sign that moderates have no place in the GOP.

The day the Iowa Supreme Court announced its unanimous decision in Varnum v Brien, noneed4thneed wrote on his Twitter feed,

All chances for moderate Republicans to get elected in Iowa were dashed today. Social conservatives run Republican Party of Iowa now.

Now that the 2009 legislative session has ended with no action to overturn the Iowa Supreme Court, and same-sex marriages are a reality, I am even more convinced that noneed4thneed is right.

A few thoughts on the Republican Party’s internal conflicts are after the jump.

As of midday on Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa had not heard of any same-sex couples having problems obtaining a marriage license in Iowa. Iowa Independent reported today that “marriage applications have been received in Bremer, Butler, Cerro Gordo, Chickasaw, Dallas, Dubuque, Fayette, Floyd, Fremont, Grundy, Guthrie, Howard, Linn, Mitchell, Pottawattamie, Polk, Harrison, Johnson, Mills, Winneshiek, Woodbury and Worth counties.”

Various local media are covering the story from outside county office buildings or courthouses, and I haven’t seen any reports of disorderly conduct. Some couples have already been married, having received a judge’s permission to waive the normal three-day waiting period before marriage.

The petition drive to pressure county recorders not to do their jobs hasn’t accomplished what conservatives were hoping for. Chuck Hurley, whose Iowa Family Policy Center promoted the petition drive, spoke to reporters in Des Moines after delivering petitions to Polk County recorder Julie Haggerty. He claims one county recorder is prepared to resign rather than issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple, but he didn’t specify the county. I suppose we’ll find out if any gay or lesbian couples try to get married there. The good news for Hurley is that these petitions will help build his 501(c)3 group’s mailing list, since organizers urged Iowans to send copies of all petitions to the Iowa Family Policy Center.

Hurley still doesn’t get that the Supreme Court can invalidate laws that violate the constitution. He told reporters today, “The law, as we speak, this second says marriage in Iowa is between a man and a woman.” I’m waiting for some Republican to stand up and explain the concept of judicial review to the confused conservatives, but I’m not holding my breath.

Meanwhile, Governor Chet Culver said county recorders have a duty to comply with the Iowa Supreme Court ruling:

“The court has spoken loudly and clearly in a unanimous way. It’s time to move on and respect the court,” the governor said. […]

“This is a duty and a responsibility that these elected officials have under Iowa law and they’ll be expected to follow that and I believe they will,” Culver told reporters outside a meeting he attended at the Dallas Center-Grimes high school.

The governor also said it’s time for Iowans to aggressively focus on economic recovery and rebuilding the state’s aging and disaster-damaged infrastructure rather than getting “sidetracked by divisive, partisan politics.”

Culver mentioned that the Supreme Court ruling granted civil marriage rights but did not force churches to accept same-sex marriage. Senator Tom Harkin emphasized the same point today, and also predicted that marriage equality will one day be uncontroversial:

“Time heals all wounds,” he added. “I think in the future people will shrug their shoulders and say what was the fuss all about.

“It won’t take that long. I think things will calm down. As long as there is no drive – and this is where I draw the line – in mandating churches have to perform any kind of ceremony that is outside of their religious belief. That I’m  vehemently opposed to. But as the civil side goes, I think we’re going to abide by the Supreme Court decision and I think in a few years it’ll all be ho-hum.”

Polk County Sheriff Bill McCarthy told the Des Moines Register that Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church canceled planned protests in Des Moines today, but are likely to come to Iowa later this week.

Please share any news on this subject from your corner of Iowa, whether it’s a first-hand account or a link to a local media report on same-sex marriages.

UPDATE: The Des Moines Register has brief reports from around the state. Many rural county reporters say they’ve received the Iowa Family Policy Center’s petitions today but haven’t had any same-sex couples apply for marriage licenses yet.

Fairfield-area progressives, how about getting some people to run against your Jefferson County supervisors in the next election? From the Register:

Jefferson County Supervisors this morning unanimously passed a resolution this morning asking lawmakers to take action against same-sex marriage.

“We expect the Iowa legislature to resolve the issue,” said Stephen Burgmeier, chairman of the three-member, all Republican board. “We hope it either leads to a public vote or to a constitutional amendment.”

About 40 people attended the 7:30 a.m. meeting, a meeting that typically attracts three or four people, Burgmeier said. Almost all at the meeting were against same-sex marriage, he said. A group of residents also brought a petition that asks County Recorder Charlotte Fleig to deny the licenses.

Fleig acknowledged that she was aware of the petition but hadn’t received it as of 9 a.m. this morning. She said she will issue the licenses but, as of 9 a.m., no same-sex couples had requested a license although there was at least one same-sex couple who called to inquire about the process.

Really effective for those supervisors to pass this resolution a day after the state legislature has adjourned until next January, by the way.

Today same-sex marriages become legal in Iowa, as the Iowa Supreme Court will issue a document putting its Varnum v Brien ruling into effect.

If you are planning a same-sex marriage in Iowa, One Iowa has resources for you. You can also sign up to follow One Iowa on Twitter (@oneiowa). One Iowa is organizing volunteers to be at county recorder offices during the day and attend various events this evening. If you can help, please call them at (515) 288-4019.

Equality Iowa and I’M for Iowa will be giving wedding bouquets of flowers “to couples applying for their marriage license and getting waivers to marry immediately at courthouses in Iowa City, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Mason City and Davenport,” according to an e-mail I received from I’M for Iowa.

Groups opposing marriage equality will also make their presence known today outside courthouses and county recorder offices. My advice is to ignore these people, not argue with them. They will be looking for any opportunity to claim they are being oppressed for their religious views.

After the jump I’ve posted information about other events planned for the coming week, including the annual conference for Iowa Rivers Revival and the annual dinner for the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa.

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

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

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

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

More details and some preliminary analysis are after the jump.

While visiting a friend in Pella today, I found an orange piece of paper lying on her doorstep. I picked it up, expecting to see publicity for some local event like next month’s Tulip Time festival.

Instead, I found a flier comparing Iowa Senate Republican leader Paul McKinley to a “chicken,” because he “refuses to do what it takes to get a vote on the Iowa Marriage Amendment.” McKinley asked Senate Majority leader Mike Gronstal to co-sponsor a leadership bill with him so that the Senate could debate a constitutional amendment on marriage, but Gronstal refused.

Public Advocate of the US, a right-wing group based in Falls Church, Virginia, paid for this flier, according to text at the bottom. That group’s president, Eugene Delgaudio, has been using direct mail and “conservative political street theater” to advance anti-gay views for years. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him show up in Iowa on Monday, when same-sex marriages become legal.

The stated goal of the flier is to generate phone calls urging McKinley to take bolder action on the Iowa Marriage Amendment, but I wonder whether the real purpose is to support different leadership for the Senate Republican caucus. McKinley was elected Senate Republican leader last November on a pledge “to rebuild this party from the ground up,” but according to the Iowa Republican blog, some conservatives,

including WHO Radio talk show host Steve Deace, don’t think that the Republicans in the Senate have done all they can since they have not made a motion to suspend the Senate rules and force the Democrats’ hand.

Republican State Representative Chris Rants tried to attach a marriage amendment to unrelated legislation in the House and forced a vote on suspending House rules. Only two House Democrats, Geri Huser and Dolores Mertz, voted with Republicans on the procedural motion. Presumably Republican candidates and interest groups will attack the other 54 House Democrats next fall for not backing up Rants.

Alternatively, the flier could be nothing more than an opportunistic attempt to raise the profile (and mailing list) of Delgaudio’s group in Iowa. Does any Bleeding Heartland reader know whether Public Advocate of the US has ties to any rival of McKinley’s within the Republican Party of Iowa?

I don’t know whether this piece is being circulated in conservative neighborhoods across Iowa, or mainly in heavily Republican Pella. If you’ve seen it in your town or county, please post a comment in this thread or send an e-mail to desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.

The full text of the one-sided, 8 1/2 by 11-inch flier is after the jump.

UPDATE: McKinley criticized the Iowa Senate’s failure to take up the marriage amendment in his closing remarks on the final day of the 2009 session.

Last week Jane Hamsher wrote a good piece at FireDogLake about Newt Gingrich’s big spending on private planes. She noted that Gingrich’s organization American Solutions paid $3,360,346 to Moby Dick Airways, which charters private planes, during 2008 alone. American Solutions raised a total of $25,489,668 last year, and donations below $200 made up $7,343,986 of that amount.

Hamsher asked a good question:

On their contributions page, it says “American Solutions is here to serve as your voice in the political process.” Did the people who gave this money think they were donating so Newt and Company could jet around on private planes?

I’m pretty sure they didn’t, because last night I received a fundraising call from American Solutions. As I always do when I am a respondent for any political survey, I grabbed a pen and took notes, which you’ll find after the jump.

March 14, 2005 – The New Yorker publishes an article, NUKE ‘EM in which Senator Chuck Grassley is quoted, discussing the purpose of the filibuster:

“Filibusters are designed so that the minority can bring about compromise on legislation,” Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, told Toobin. “But you can’t compromise a Presidential nomination. It’s yes or no. So filibusters on nominations are an abuse of our function under the Constitution to advise and consent.”

My husband called Grassley's office today – he read this quote to the aide and asked, “Does Senator Grassley stand by this statement?”

Ed and Lynn Fallon filed a formal ethics complaint today against Senator Merlin Bartz, according to an e-mail I received today from I’M for Iowa. Excerpt:

On a Senate Republican website, Senator Bartz posts a link to a petition appealing to county recorders to “refuse to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples on April 27th.” Senator Bartz has also spoken publicly in support of county recorders taking this action.

In their complaint, Ed and Lynn assert, “Senator Bartz’s actions appear to violate Article III, Section 32 of the Constitution of the State of Iowa and Chapter 63.10 of the Code of Iowa. Both state that duly elected officials must solemnly swear to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Iowa. Furthermore, the Senate Code of Ethics states that every legislator must ‘encourage respect for the law,’ and the Senator’s actions appear to violate this provision.”

The complaint further states: “We have not been able to ascertain whether taxpayer money was used in the development and maintenance of the website that Senator Bartz used to promote the petition (http://www.iowasenaterepublicans.org/Bartz/Bartz.htm), but if such is the case, this suggests a misuse of taxpayer money by an elected official to promote breaking the law. We call attention to the fact that the website in question also lists Republican Caucus staff members, who are entirely funded at taxpayer expense.”

“Let me be clear that this is not personal,” said Ed Fallon. “When we served in the Legislature, Senator Bartz and I worked on several issues together. I continue to have great respect for him and find him to be intelligent and a man of integrity. This complaint is in no way intended to cast dispersions, merely to state that, in this instance, Senator Bartz’s actions appear to constitute a breach of the Senate’s ethical standards.”

I posted about this disgraceful petition drive on Tuesday. Radio Iowa posted Bartz’s response:

“I have read the formal complaint filed by Ed Fallon and find it without merit.  According to procedures set forth by Senate Rules I will submit a formal response to the Senate Ethics Committee within the next ten days.  I fully expect the Committee to dismiss this complaint, thus continuing the tradition of free speech on the floor of the Iowa Senate.  It is important that the voices of Iowans are not silenced and a vote is held to determine what constitutes marriage.”

What do you think, Bleeding Heartland readers? Will the Senate Ethics Committee dismiss this complaint against a member of the club, or will they call Bartz out for encouraging county recorders to disregard the law? The Attorney General’s Office has made clear that recorders must comply with the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling.

One Iowa is airing this television commercial in five markets around Iowa:

The full transcript of the ad is after the jump. I like the way the commercial places marriage equality and the Supreme Court’s decision within the long tradition of diverse people finding freedom in Iowa under our state’s Constitution. (Democratic legislative leaders cited Iowa’s tradition of leadership in civil rights in their statement welcoming the Varnum v Brien decision. The historical landmarks they cited prompted Lambda Legal attorney Camilla Taylor to start building a case for marriage equality in Iowa in 2002.)

One Iowa’s commercial also reminds viewers that the Supreme Court unanimously struck down discrimination and that the ruling “will not change religious marriage or how each religion defines that.”

Visually, the ad mostly contains photos of Iowa landscapes, buildings and families (gay and straight), with a few words shown against a blank screen for emphasis. When the voice-over says, “some things remain the same,” the word “hope” appears on the screen. When the voice-over says the Supreme Court “justices were not divided,” the word “courage” appears on the screen. When the voice-over admonishes “those outsiders who want to put discrimination into our constitution,” the word “respect” appears on the screen.

According to Iowa Politics, One Iowa is spending $75,000 to run this commercial for a week “in the Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs, Quad Cities and Sioux City media markets; on cable stations like CNN, MSNBC, HLN, Lifetime, and HGTV; and on Des Moines broadcast stations as well.”

Donating to One Iowa will help keep this ad on the air. It’s a welcome contrast to the absurd scare-mongering of the National Organization for Marriage’s television ad attacking gay marriage. That commercial has already been debunked by Human Rights Campaign and brutally parodied on the Colbert Report.

I received an action alert from 1000 Friends of Iowa about six important public meetings next week:

The Iowa DOT is presenting Iowans with a golden opportunity to encourage sustainable transportation and land-use before April ends. Whether you feel we need more bike-to-work lanes, passenger rail options, or goals to address climate change – this is your chance to be heard. Six meetings are being held across the state to seek the public’s input on transportation needs.  […] The Statewide Passenger Transportation Funding Study is seeking your input to identify gaps between current public transit, carpool/vanpool programs, intercity bus and rail services, and what you and your neighbors believe are transportation needs.  Using the information from these meetings and through other sources, plans will be made to address Iowa’s future transportation plans.

Event details for the meetings in Ames, Atlantic, Ottumwa, Mason City, Cedar Rapids and Cherokee are after the jump.

Please spread the word among Iowans who would like to see more investment in public transportation and alternatives to driving. You don’t have to be an expert to speak or submit written comments at one of these meetings. Just say a few words about where Iowa’s passenger transportation is lacking and why you’d like to see it improved.

Remember, public transit is not just for big city residents. An express bus or vanpool that takes people from a smaller town to work in a nearby larger city saves riders money while reducing oil usage and greenhouse gas emissions. Last year the weekly Cityview profiled Winterset resident Ann Pashek, who uses the Des Moines Area Transit Authority’s Rideshare program. Taking the van to and from Pashek job in Des Moines saves her thousands of dollars a year, and she can use the commute to “complete work or pay bills that would normally detract from valuable family time.”

I won’t be able to watch President Barack Obama’s Earth Day appearance in Newton live, but I’m putting up this thread so that others can talk about it.

Iowa Global Warming will be twittering the event here and will upload video at these sites:

http://www.youtube.com/user/io…

http://www.mogulus.com/igwc

I’m all for green jobs and boosting renewable energy production. Let’s make sure the jobs in this industry pay well with good benefits, though.

I’ll update with thread later with more details from and reaction to Obama’s speech in Newton.

UPDATE: The text of Obama’s remarks (as prepared) is after the jump. Lots of good stuff in there, such as:

“Today I am announcing that my administration is taking another historic step. Through the Department of Interior, we are establishing a program to authorize ­ for the first time ­ the leasing of federal waters for projects to generate electricity from wind as well as from ocean currents and other renewable sources,” Obama said to about 200 in at Trinity Structural Towers in Newton.

“It’s a win-win. It’s good for the environment. It’s great for the economy,”

he said.

Obama continued to advocate for a cap and trade policy to limit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Iowa Democrats twittered that the president called for connecting Des Moines to Chicago via high-speed rail, but I didn’t find that in the prepared remarks (just a general statement about investing in high-speed rail).

The Des Moines Register found it noteworthy that the president

didn’t mention ethanol by name.

In particular, ethanol interests might have hoped that Obama would at least put in a good word for the expansion of the allowable blend of ethanol with unleaded gasoline for conventional automobile engines from the current 10 percent to 15 percent.

But Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, said he wasn’t upset.

“Frankly, the Environmental Protection Agency (which will make the E-15 decision) gets sued all the time and one of the things they’re hit with is that their decisions might be based on politics rather than technology or science,” said Shaw.

“So it is probably better for us that the President not mention E-15 today,” Shaw continued. “The science is on our side. But we don’t need people challenging the EPA later, after they make a favorable decision on E-15, saying that it was based on politics and using the President’s remarks as evidence.”

Maybe the Register meant that Obama didn’t mention E-15 by name, or maybe the president deviated from his prepared remarks, which included this paragraph:

My budget also makes unprecedented investments in mass transit, high-speed rail, and in our highway system to reduce the congestion that wastes money, time, and energy. And it invests in advanced biofuels and ethanol, which, as I’ve said, is an important transitional fuel to help us end our dependence on foreign oil while moving toward clean, homegrown sources of energy.

If you watched the video, please tell us what you thought.

Last October, Representative Michele “Crazy as Steve King” Bachmann (MN-06) disgraced herself on “Hardball” and sparked a ridiculously successful fundraising drive for her Democratic opponent, El Tinklenberg. I was impressed by the enthusiasm and kicked in a few bucks for Tinklenberg myself, but I was dismayed to see bloggers continue to help him raise money even after he’d raised more than $750,000 and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had promised to spend an additional $1 million in his district. Within a few days of Bachmann’s notorious comments, Tinklenberg had more money than he needed to run a solid media and GOTV campaign during the final two weeks before the election.

Since most Congressional races against incumbents are longshots, I wanted to see the netroots expand the field by raising $50,000 or more for a large number of unheralded challengers.

A fellow Iowa blogger sent me this piece from CQ Politics about how Tinklenberg’s campaign committee was the largest donor to the DCCC in March, giving a total of $250,000:

You may recall that his Republican opponent was Rep. Michele Bachmann, whose mid-October comment that Obama “may have anti-American views” angered Democrats nationwide and spawned an avalanche of contributions to Tinklenberg in the waning days of a campaign that Bachmann won by 46 percent to 43 percent, with a third-party candidate taking 10 percent.

Apparently the money was coming in too fast for Tinklenberg to spend completely: he raised $3 million for his campaign, of which $1.9 million came in after October 15, and had $453,000 in leftover campaign funds at the end of 2008 and $184,000 at the end of March.

I’m not saying it wasn’t worth getting behind Tinklenberg. Bachmann is among the worst Republicans in Congress, and this district rightly seemed winnable. However, the netroots clearly funneled way more money to Tinklenberg than he could spend effectively.

What if a million of the dollars we sent to the MN-06 race had been spread around 10 or 20 other districts? A bunch of the candidates I wanted to support as part of an expanded field got blown out by large margins, but an extra $50,000 could have made the difference for Josh Segall in AL-03, or for several candidates who weren’t on my radar, such as Bill Hedrick in CA-44.

The netroots rally for Tinklenberg started out as a good cause but took on a momentum of its own. It didn’t help that Tinklenberg sent fundraising e-mails to his new donors every day or two during the home stretch, even after he had more than enough money to close out the campaign.

Maybe the majority of blog readers who gave $10 or $20 or $50 to Tinklenberg wouldn’t have given to some other longshot Congressional challenger. Maybe people need an emotional trigger before they are willing to open their wallets. But in future election cycles, we need to be smarter about how we focus our energy and our fundraising efforts during the final weeks of a campaign. There’s no shortage of wingnuts worth targeting. Also, a fair number of good incumbent Democrats will probably need our help in 2010, depending on how the economy looks 18 months from now.

Any ideas or suggestions on how to raise money effectively during the next cycle would be welcome in this thread.

Iowa Senate Republicans are using their official website to push a petition drive to pressure county recorders not to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

We already knew that prominent Iowa Republicans have trouble with the concept of judicial review, but Senator Merlin Bartz, who tried last week to give county recorders the right to ignore the law, has taken it to a new level.

Senator Bartz’s page on the Iowa Senate Republicans website is promoting a petition being circulated by Chuck Hurley’s Iowa Family Policy Center.

The disgraceful details are after the jump.

In January I went over some of Governor Chet Culver’s strengths and weaknesses looking ahead to the 2010 campaign. Click the link for the analysis, but to make a long story short, I saw three big pluses for the governor:

1. He’s an incumbent.

2. Iowa Democrats have opened up a large registration edge since Culver won the first time.

3. He has at least $1.5 million in the bank.

I saw his problem points as:

1. The economy is lousy and could get worse before 2010.

2. The first midterm election is often tough for the president’s party.

3. Turnout will be lower in 2010 than it was in the 2008 presidential election.

4. Culver’s campaign had a high burn rate in 2008, so may not have a commanding war chest going into the next campaign.

A lot has happened since then, so let’s review after the jump.