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.

Each of the 99 counties in Iowa held their County Conventions yesterday and Barack Obama cleaned up the number of delegates that move on to the district and state conventions.

Here are the results from the conventions…

Barack Obama: 52.1%
Hillary Clinton: 31.5%
John Edwards: 16%

It looks like pretty much every Edwards delegate that went to a new candidate went to Obama.

The final delegate count after the conventions is Obama 23, Clinton 14, Edwards 6.

To put this into perspective, Sen. Hillary Clinton netted nine delegates out of Ohio after her big win there, while Obama netted 7 delegates in Iowa, while Clinton lost one.

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.

Measuring Size of Obama’s (Relative) Coattails on Congressional Races

This is a long diary to read so I will tell you upfront what my conclusion is after examining the recent SurveyUSA 50-state polling:  Yes, Barack Obama may indeed have huge coattails for Senate and Congressional races in the fall.  Now, to the long explanation —

The recent SurveyUSA polling indicated a relatively even match between Obama and Clinton re. who would have the most electoral votes when facing McCain.  Obama’s total came to 280 EV, while Hillary’s was 276 EV – a seemingly even match:

http://www.surveyusa.com/ECV_5…

http://www.surveyusa.com/ECV_5…

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.