Conventional wisdom says that women voters are naturally drawn to Hillary Clinton, but Barack Obama and John Edwards are in no way ceding this ground to Hillary.

Both campaigns have established “Women for Obama” and “Women for Edwards” groups, and both Michelle Obama and Elizabeth Edwards are helping their husbands target women voters. On May 15 John Edwards held an Iowa women's town hall in Des Moines, the same day that the campaign released a list of 1,500 Iowa women who have pledged to caucus for Edwards.

Tuesday's Des Moines Register included a story about Michelle Obama's event the previous day at a coffee shop in the suburb of Waukee.

This passage caught my eye:

Nancy Bobo, a Des Moines Human Rights Commission member, attended the Waukee event. She said Barack Obama has her caucus vote.

“I don't think there's any other candidate that on Inauguration Day can get up and speak to the world and immediately the world knows it's a new day in America,” Bobo said. “We're electing a president, not just for Americans, but for the world. … We need someone that will really bring people together.”

I remember Nancy Bobo from the last caucus campaign. She was one of the key organizers of Women for Kerry, which held regular breakfasts for professional women and other events. After the 2004 campaign, Bobo and other organizers continued to hold these events, renaming the group Women for a Stronger America.

Among Iowa Democrats, Nancy Bobo is not as well-known as Clinton supporter Bonnie Campbell or Edwards supporter Roxanne Conlin, but this is still a big catch for the Obama campaign, in my view. A lot of professional women in Des Moines and the suburbs know and respect Nancy Bobo. Her backing may well persuade others to give Obama their serious consideration, or to give him another look if they had been leaning toward a different candidate.

Ever since Tom Vilsack dropped out of the presidential race, I have thought there was a big opening in Iowa for Bill Richardson, the only governor and the only candidate with extensive legislative, executive and diplomatic experience. What I didn't know was whether he would make a serious play for this state.

The last few weeks have settled that question. First Richardson went up on the air with some well-received tv spots. Then he started visiting the state more frequently, holding small events that gave voters an opportunity to see him up close. He's been moving up in the Iowa polls, reaching 10 percent in the latest Iowa poll commissioned by the Des Moines Register.

Over at Iowa Independent, Douglas Burns covered Richardson's recent trip to southwest Iowa. Part of his piece reminded me of something I find intriguing about Richardson's strategy:

In Red Oak and Denison, Richardson highlighted his international experience.

Diplomacy shouldn’t be viewed as a “reward” for good behavior, he said.
“Even bad guys need something,” Richardson said. “You can hold a carrot in one hand and a big stick in the other.”

Richardson said he has the resume and track record to stare down America’s enemies, to reach accords that prevent the nation from sending troops to combat except as a last resort.

“I stood toe-to-toe with the world’s bad guys, Saddam Hussein, North Korea, the Sudan, Fidel Castro, (Omar) al-Bashir (Sudan),” Richardson said in Denison. “President Clinton used to say, ‘We have problems in our foreign policy. There are bad dictators. Bad people like Richardson so we’ll send him there.’”

Playing up his diplomatic background is not surprising, but I find it interesting that Richardson is not afraid to highlight the fact that he has negotiated with dictators.

His first tv ad, the biographical one, included a still photo of himself with Saddam Hussein. His ad about Iraq, in which he stands in front of a wall, alludes to the tough diplomatic work that will begin once we get our troops out of Iraq. In his “job interview” ad, the interviewer mentions Richardson's experience negotiating with dictators.

The Republican Party has tried for decades to make Democrats look weak on national defense, to the point that some Democrats feel continually compelled to prove they are tough enough to support war, even pre-emptive war.

Conventional wisdom has called for Democrats to show that they would not hesitate to use the armed forces to defend America. John Kerry was mocked for stating the simple fact that fighting the “war on terror” requires law enforcement and not just military force.

Yet here is Bill Richardson, not afraid to say that it's often in our national interest to negotiate with dictators, not afraid to mention that he stood “toe to toe” with Saddam Hussein.

I like it. Time to treat the voters like grown-ups who can understand that our foreign policy needs to be about more than dropping bombs and talking about an “axis of evil.”

Richardson is too conservative for me when it comes to domestic policies, and I don't see enough substance behind some of his campaign promises (e.g. providing universal health care).

But I am impressed that he is making a case for diplomacy as a foreign policy tool. Too many Democrats (Joe Lieberman is the most egregious example) play into right-wing frames that imply negotiating makes us weak.

Richardson's next trip to Iowa will be in early June, when he will speak at the Democratic Party's June 2 Hall of Fame Dinner in Cedar Rapids. I usually try to make it to that event, but this year I can't. If you are able to attend, please put up a diary afterwards with your impressions of the candidates and the feeling in the crowd. 

It's no secret to anyone who has read my diaries on how the Iowa caucuses work that I am no fan of the caucus system. Give me a primary any day.

The Iowa Republican Party's caucuses are slightly less undemocratic, in that they do not have a 15 percent threshold in each precinct. Instead, every individual's vote is counted toward the candidate of his or her choice.

That's an improvement, although it doesn't erase the other problems of the caucus system: no secret ballot, no absentee voting, shift workers get screwed, the huge time commitment involved drives down turnout, etc.

Does the GOP run the Iowa caucuses better than Democrats because Republicans are more interested in fair procedures and representative democracy? Before you jump to this conclusion, I recommend that you check out this article from the Des Moines Register's Monday edition, on the embarrassing spectacle that is the Iowa Republican Party's presidential straw poll in Ames.

This is where the candidates spend lots of time and energy and money preparing to bus supporters to Ames from all over the state (and in some cases from out of state). It's supposed to show who has the strongest organization, but mainly it shows who can afford to bribe more voters with free tickets, buses, food and drink, etc:

Dan Pero is one such critic. The campaign manager for Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander's 1996 presidential campaign also said the straw poll is a costly diversion of campaign resources that had no bearing on the nomination.

“The caucuses are real. The straw poll is a beauty contest,” Pero said. “I think they are meaningless and bad for the campaign. It takes a lot of money to organize for something that has no permanence on the outcome of the election.”

John McCain called it a “meaningless exercise” in 1999 when he bypassed campaigning for the caucuses during his first campaign for president.

Former Iowa congressman Jim Nussle, a top consultant for Giuliani, described the straw poll during a television interview last month as “kind of an 'American Idol'-style circus” and “meaningless.”

It should come as no surprise to longtime observers of McCain that Mr. Straight Talk has completely changed his tune and will aggressively compete to win the straw poll, which is scheduled for August 11.

I'll be interested to see whether Giuliani blows off this contest and risks the wrath of loyal Iowa Republicans who seem to enjoy the event.

I understand why the Des Moines Register strives for ideological balance in its letters section, but one thing I can't figure out is how some letters, which deliberately miss the point of the article they are responding to, get past the editors.

A case in point is this letter, published in the Sunday Register, in which stay-at-home mom Lori Leporte of Des Moines attempted to strike a humorous tone. The letter is written as an apology to her four-year-old son:

I'm sorry that you're stuck with me and with the choice I've made to raise and educate you myself instead of letting the state of Iowa – which, according to Rekha Basu, is becoming a better parent – do it (“Iowa Becoming a Better Parent,” May 13 column).

She goes on to apologize for her plans to home-school her four-year-old, providing him with an individualized curriculum, etc.

And now, it seems that, should you choose to go to college, you will be doomed to a life of hard work and perseverance in order to pay your own way because you are cursed with living with a set of parents who love you and have taught you that you are not entitled to one dime of the taxpayers' money just because you got a bad rap in life, thereby rendering you ineligible for a free college education, courtesy of the state.

Anyone reading this letter without knowing the context would naturally think, whah? The state is providing free education to some kids but punishing those who have good parents? The Register's liberal columnist is saying that the state of Iowa is a better parent than I am?

Let's look at the Rekha Basu column that this letter is reacting to. The headline read, “Iowa Becoming a Better Parent.” But was Basu really saying that the state of Iowa is a better parent than a child's own mother and father? Not at all. She was talking about recent improvements for kids who age out of foster care:

For some Iowa kids, mother doesn't look like a woman. She looks like a logo of sun rising over a cornfield attached to the slogan “Iowa – Fields of Opportunities.” The state of Iowa itself is both mother and father to about 1,500 children in foster care.
[…]
But last week, the state of Iowa, as parent, gave its foster children a sort of Mother's Day gift. It became the first state in the nation, according to the bill's Senate floor manager, to promise to pick up the cost of college for any foster-care kid of college age. It was one of several new laws intended to strengthen the welfare of the children to whom Iowa is parent.

In the past, foster children who turned 18 or 19 were often literally turned out onto the street with no public assistance. Is this the future that Lori Leporte think these unfortunate children deserve, just because they have not been cared for by their own parents? Apparently so, since she alludes to teaching her son that “you are not entitled to one dime of the taxpayers' money just because you got a bad rap in life.” 

Here's another excerpt from Basu's column:

While the government can never take the place of real parents, another bill passed by the Legislature appropriates money for the Preparation for Adult Living Program, helping these young adults find a job or school or pay rent.

As we can see, Basu explicitly states that real parents are better for children, but also talks about one program that may mitigate some of the disadvantages kids who have aged out of foster care face. But Lori Leporte twists this and sarcastically writes to her son,

you don't really need me anyway – the state of Iowa will be there to watch you blow out the candles on your birthday cake and make all your wishes come true.

I'm a stay-at-home mom, as are many of my friends. Although my husband and I will send our children to the fine public schools in our area, I have many friends who are home-schooling or plan to home-school their kids. It's a free country.

But I can't imagine any of my friends saying that some government program to help foster kids is somehow unfair to their own kids, or devalues their own parenting.

Maybe Lori Leporte honestly didn't understand the point of Basu's column–if this is the case, I sure hope her home-schooled son turns out to be better at reading comprehension than his mother.

Or maybe she was deliberately distorting the message in order to make herself feel self-righteous and score some rhetorical points against big government.

I'm sure that the Register receives plenty of letters from conservatives who don't like Basu. Next time they decide to print one of these, the editors should choose one that bashes her with some semblance of understanding the point she was making in her column.

 And note to Lori Leporte: next time you feel like griping because some kids who have had difficult childhoods are going to get some financial assistance with college, ask yourself, “What would Jesus do?”

In one of the least surprising stories I've seen lately, the Des Moines Register reported on Saturday that retail sales increased by 500 percent between 2004 and 2006 in the parts of West Des Moines that are in Dallas County (around the Jordan Creek mall, which opened in 2004, and the several other strip malls in the area).

“We knew this was going on, but we didn't know the magnitude of losses, especially to the city of Des Moines,” said David Swenson, a research scientist and economist at ISU, who completed the study with Liesl Eathington, an ISU economist.

It was obvious from the beginning that Jordan Creek and the explosion of big box stores were going to hurt business at existing shopping malls and strip malls in the metro area.

Mall officials had said Jordan Creek would draw shoppers from at least a 100-mile radius, but the declines in nearby cities suggest that the booming retail center in West Des Moines is adding shoppers at the expense of places like Des Moines, the portion of West Des Moines that sits in Polk County, Perry, Guthrie Center, Earlham and Adel.

The shift in shopping patterns has also siphoned away local-option sales tax revenue from Polk County school districts.

Thanks to these economists for pointing out the direct connection between the explosion of new retail in Dallas County and the funding shortfalls of school districts in Polk County. The Des Moines Public Schools have been most affected, but even the West Des Moines School District has had to cut back on some school renovation plans because of funding shortfalls.

One thing I would have liked to see in this article is some detail about how much taxpayer money has gone to subsidize the sprawl in the Jordan Creek area.

Polk County residents might have some clue that the new shopping out west is hurting the older malls and businesses in the metro area, but are they aware that they have paid for much of the infrastructure supporting these new shopping centers west of Des Moines?

The Sunday Register has a new Iowa poll.

The big news on the Republican side is that Romney leads. On the Democratic side, things look like this:

Edwards 29 percent

Obama 23 percent

Clinton 21 percent

Richardson 10 percent

Biden 3 percent

Kucinich 2 percent

Gravel 1 percent

Dodd less than 1 percent

not sure 11 percent

As with every poll, I think this understates the percentage of undecideds. My best guess is that 30 to 40 percent of the caucus-going Democrats I talk to are undecided.

I am not at all surprised to see Obama in second place, even if his lead on Clinton is within the margin of error. I have long argued that Edwards and Obama would finish ahead of Clinton in Iowa. 

Looks like spending money on tv ads was a smart move for Richardson. It helped that they were unusual and memorable tv ads. They've certainly got a lot of people talking. 

The poll claims a 4.9 percent margin of error. If you want to know more about the methodology, including the wording of the questions asked, click here.

The latest Iowa poll conducted by Research 2000 for KCCI-TV (the CBS affiliate in Des Moines) shows Clinton leading with 28 percent, Edwards within the margin of error at 26 percent, Obama with 22 percent, and Richardson with 7 percent.

It's a big change from the last Research 2000/KCCI poll, which was in December and showed Edwards and Obama tied at 22 percent, with Tom Vilsack in third place with 12 percent.

Click the link if you want to read the details.

If this poll is accurate, there has been a massive surge in support for Hillary Clinton over the past six months. I don't get that sense, but what are you hearing?

It looks like Richardson's early tv ads have raised his profile in Iowa quite a bit. He only had 1 percent support in the December poll.

In this poll, Obama does slightly better in head-to-head matchups with the Republican front-runners than Edwards, while Edwards does slightly better than Clinton.

I wonder what the likely voter screen is on this poll. In talking to Iowa Democrats who actually participated in the 2004 caucuses (as opposed to people who didn't but claim that they plan to participate in the upcoming caucuses), I have trouble finding Clinton supporters. I really do. I was just talking to a Clinton leaner yesterday, but even she said, without prompting from me, that Clinton has a lot of baggage, and she's just not sure if she could win.

I found the Bush approval numbers from this poll interesting. Approve/disapprove numbers for all respondents are 30/68.

The numbers for Democrats are 8/90.

The numbers for independents are 29/70.

Even among Republicans sampled, Bush's approval was only measured at 56 percent; disapproval was 42 percent. Those are shockingly poor numbers. 

So, the newest member of the Republican House Caucus has published her first “post-flip” column on the website of the Des Moines Register.  In it she says:

All of my columns are written like a letter to my mother, because I want her to know what I’m doing and to be proud of me. And I want you to be proud of me too.

So, in her constant search for approval she has decided to participate in fundraisers with the same Republican leadership that did this:

Iowa Democrats are decrying Republican campaign tactics after two state lawmakers were falsely accused of voting for a bill to aid illegal immigrants — before the two legislators ever took office.A flyer mailed to voters attacking Democratic Reps. Bob Kressig of Cedar Falls and Dawn Pettengill of Mount Auburn said they supported a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to be eligible for in-state tuition. But the vote was taken in the Iowa House in 2004, months before Kressig and Pettengill were elected.House Minority Leader Pat Murphy of Dubuque said the attacks by Republicans have gone beyond negative campaigning to “outright lying.”“Iowans should be upset at that. Republicans have set a new low by breaking the public trust,” Murphy said.

Yes…just over one week after announcing her switch Rep. Dawn Pettengill has held a fundraiser with House Minority Leader Christopher Rants…The same Minority Leader who started the 527 that attacked her during the 2006 election for votes she did not take…

Way back before Tom Harkin was elected to the Senate, Iowa had two Republican senators: Roger Jepsen and Chuck Grassley. We used to call them “Tweedle Dumb” and “Tweedle Dumber.”

For those of you too young to remember, Tweedle Dumb lost to Harkin despite the massive Reagan landslide of 1984. His campaign faltered when it became public knowledge that he had frequented “massage parlors.” Why did it become public knowledge? Because Tweedle Dumb used his personal credit card to pay for the massage parlor services.

But I digress.

It's easy to forget Chuck Grassley was ever known as Tweedle Dumber, but I remembered when I saw this piece in the Des Moines Register:

Grassley: Ethanol plants should use coal

Responding to worries that the ethanol boom will drive up the price of natural gas used to power the ethanol plants, Grassley had a brilliant idea:

“We’ve got to use things that we have in greater supply. We need to use more coal in place of natural gas,” Grassley said Tuesday.

Noneed4thneed comments that using coal to produce ethanol negates any environmental benefit from the renewable fuel. If you're not reducing greenhouse gases, then the only benefit of ethanol is that it helps Iowa farmers. He wonders, “Why limit the benefits?”

Well, maybe Grassley has no concern for the environment and no interest in reducing greenhouse gases. Instead, his ingenious plan would please the corporate interests that profit from coal as well as the corporate interests that stand to profit from ethanol.

Or maybe Tweedle Dumber really does care about the environment and is too dim to understand why it makes no sense to use coal in ethanol production. 

Senator Grassley, do everyone a favor and retire. Maybe you can get an ethanol-powered riding mower to demonstratively mow your own lawn with.

Update (Thurs., May 17): The Mills County event has been canceled and will be rescheduled at a later date. – Chris

Over at Iowa Independent, Chris Woods posted details about Bill Richardson's planned visit to Iowa this weekend. In keeping with his new “job interview” television ad, which calls attention to his impressive resume, Richardson is calling his campaign appearances “job interviews” instead of town-hall meetings: 

Friday, May 18th

 Keynote Address to Young Democrats of America Spring 2007 National Conference 7 P.M. @ Marriott Hotel 10220 Regency Circle, Omaha, Nebraska

Saturday, May 19th

 Montgomery County Presidential Job Interview 10:15 A.M. @ Kate & Lainie?s Coffee House 322 E. Coolbaugh, Red Oak, Iowa

 Fremont & Page Counties Presidential Job Interview 12:00 P.M. @ Depot Deli and Lounge 101 North Railroad Ave., Shenandoah, Iowa

 Mills County Presidential Job Interview 2:15 P.M. @ Log Cabin BBQ 204 Sharp Street, Glenwood, Iowa

 Pottawattamie County Presidential Job Interview 4:15 P.M. @ Residence of Kevin Burr 540 Coronado Circle, Carter Lake, Iowa

If you can attend one of these events, put up a diary afterwards. I haven't had a chance to see Richardson yet in person, and I'm interested to know how he does with a live audience.

I've been meaning to link to this page on Iowa Politics, which goes through the candidates' 1Q reports filed with the FEC and pulls out a lot of information on money being spent in Iowa. I encourage you to click the link, because there is a lot to learn there.

A couple of things jumped out at me. First, Obama has spent a huge amount of money here (over $630,000), far more than any other contender. True, some of this money seems to be for consulting related to events held in other states, but Obama also has the largest staff in Iowa so far ($152,966 in payroll for 52 Iowa staffers).

A while back I heard that Obama was planning to open 12 field offices in Iowa, which would be costly, but then again, it looks like he's not going to have to worry about penny-pinching.

Not surprisingly, Edwards spent the second-largest amount in Iowa during the first quarter, with  more than $188,000 total, including $87,850 in salary for 20 staffers.

Clinton spent over $123,000 in Iowa during the first quarter, including $68,550 in salary to 15 staffers.

The page at Iowa Politics also includes info on GOP candidate expenditures in Iowa. Click through if you're interested–Romney spent the most, followed by McCain and Tommy Thompson.

Another way to measure how hard the candidates are campaigning here is to look at the time they spend in Iowa. Jerome Armstrong put up this post at MyDD yesterday, tracking the number of events each Democratic presidential candidate held in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina during 2007 so far, as well as the number of days each candidate has spent in those states this year.

I recommend clicking the link to look at the table Jerome put together.

Some interesting tidbits: Obama's 13 events in Iowa were geographically dispersed, and he spent 10 days in the state. I think this is smart for him–he knows he can't win the caucuses by racking up huge numbers in a few counties.

Edwards has held 15 events in Iowa, spending 8 days here, mostly in central Iowa. I was a little surprised by this, because Edwards was quite strong in central Iowa in 2004. I expect him to spend more time in the medium-sized cities of eastern and western Iowa later in the year.

Clinton has held 18 events in Iowa, more than anyone else. Most of these have been in the eastern and southeastern parts of the state, which makes sense, because that's where so many votes and delegates are. Dodd has also spent a lot of time in eastern Iowa, while Biden has focused primarily on central Iowa up to now. 

To refresh everyone's memory, here are the eleven largest counties in Iowa in terms of delegates to the Democratic Party state convention. These eleven counties will account for more than half (1,336) of the 2,500 “votes” (state delegates) in Iowa next January. The population center of each county is in parentheses:

County – Delegates
Polk (Des Moines) – 357
Linn (Cedar Rapids) – 202
Scott (Davenport and Bettendorf, the Iowa side of the Quad Cities) – 142
Johnson (Iowa City, University of Iowa) – 137
Black Hawk (Waterloo) – 117
Dubuque (Dubuque) – 90
Story (Ames, Iowa State University) – 76
Woodbury (Sioux City) – 68
Pottawattamie (Council Bluffs, across the river from Omaha, Nebraska) – 55
Clinton (Clinton) – 46
Cerro Gordo (Mason City) – 46

I forgot that there was a GOP candidates' debate scheduled for tonight, so didn't tape it.

Did I miss anything interesting? Let me know in the comments.

Des Moines Register political columnist David Yepsen's take is here. He calls Romney the overall winner, thought Giuliani had some good moments but that McCain was stronger in the first debate.

Noneed4thneed posted his reaction over at Century of the Common Iowan. He wonders why Huckabee isn't getting traction (no money, little media coverage, I'd say). He also thinks Giuliani and Tancredo did well.

Polk County Republican Party chairman Ted Sporer weighs in at his blog. I'm not going to summarize–click the link if you care what he thinks.

Don at Cyclone Conservatives gives his take here. 

Polk County Democrats passed along this e-mail from the Dodd campaign:

Please join Senator Chris Dodd as he brings his campaign for president back to Iowa to hold a statewide discussion on How to End the War in Iraq and Foreign Policy.  
 
Senator Dodd will exhibit the proven, bold leadership that he would bring to the White House as he lays out the only real and responsible way to end the war to a statewide audience.
 
There is only one way to end the war and that's for Congress to fulfill its constitutional obligation and utilize the “power of the purse.”  We can no longer give the President a blank check and expect him to bring the troops home.
 
This week in Washington , D.C. , Senator Dodd is planning to join Senator Feingold in cosponsoring an amendment on the floor of the Senate to end the war by immediately beginning to redeploy troops and bring an end to the war by March 31st, 2008.  Senator Dodd’s plan is the only plan by a Democratic candidate for president that sets a concrete deadline for total troop withdraw and redeploys the troops in a safe and responsible manner.
 
The hour-long forum will take place at Pomerantz Stage on the first floor of the Olmsted Center at Drake University at 12:00 PM this Friday, May 18th.  Groups gathered around the state will also participate in the forum by listening in via conference call or a live internet feed.  Polk Democratic County Chair Tom Henderson will moderate the event in Des Moines will ask Senator Dodd questions submitted by the audiences in Des Moines and across the state.
 
This is a unique opportunity to take part in a statewide event and directly ask a presidential candidate how he would actually end the war.

I checked the Dodd campaign's website and couldn't find any other events listed for this Iowa trip, but I will update if I learn of others he is planning to hold in the state.

Also, don't forget to check out Dodd's new tv ad running in Iowa and New Hampshire. You can find it in Matt Browner-Hamlin's diary on the right side of this page.

John Edwards has a new campaign website for Iowa, and I found details about these upcoming events there:

Edwards Town Hall Meeting

May 15, 2007 – 11:15 am

Des Moines Central Library

1000 Grand Ave., Des Moines, Iowa

If you plan to attend, go to this page where you will find a link to click to RSVP.

Or, you can RSVP by phone at 515-288-0766.

Update: Polk County Democrats have just sent out an e-mail saying that Tuesday’s town hall meeting is going to focus on “issues important to women.”

Second Update: Edwards campaign press release says the candidate will make “a significant new announcement about the organization and strength of the campaign in Iowa and discuss his detailed plans for improving the lives of women at work and at home.”

In other news, David Bonior, longtime congressman from Michigan who is Edwards’ campaign manager, will be in Dubuque on Thursday:

May 17, 2007 – 5:30 pm

Congressman Bonior will speak at the Dubuque County Democratic Party Hall of Fame Dinner

Happy’s Place

Rockdale Road

Dubuque, IA

If you can attend either of these events, please feel free to put up a diary afterwards. These first-person accounts are often more informative than the media coverage of the event.

This story is a couple of days old, but it’s still bugging me. An Orthodox Jewish U.S. Navy veteran says he has been repeatedly hassled by fundamentalist Christian chaplains and staff while being treated for kidney stones at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Iowa City.

David Miller is a former petty officer third class. He made the allegations at a press conference organized by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Here’s a sample:

Miller, a divorced father with four sons, said his first two visits by chaplains involved attempts to convert him to Christianity. These visits occurred while he was suffering acute chest pains and was wired to a heart monitor, he said.

When he complained, he said a hospital official told him he simply needed to object more strenuously to terminate such proselytizing. Miller said he considered such a request to be ridiculous, considering his medical problems.

Over the past two years, Miller said, he has been asked over and over by the Iowa City VA medical center’s staff within its offices, clinics and wards, “You mean you don’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah?” and “Is it just Orthodox Jews who deny Jesus?” He said one staffer told him, “I don’t understand; how can you not believe in Jesus; he’s the Messiah of the Jews, too, you know.”

Click the link if you care to read more.

Now, as a Jew, I am generally not offended by proselytizers. I kind of wish they would spend their time and energy on something more constructive, like feeding the poor, but I figure that they are trying to do what they think is right, and they are doing me no harm.

When they approach me on the street or knock on my door, I usually politely decline their literature, saying that I am very comfortable with my faith.

In fact, the joke in my family is that my non-Jewish husband gets more offended by these people than I do. One time two missionaries showed up at our door offering me a copy of the Bible. I said thanks, but we already have our own Bible, prompting my husband to shout from another room, “And ours in is Hebrew!”

But proselytizing a patient in a VA hospital is a totally different story. This guy is ill and in pain, he can’t just walk away, and the chaplains are paid with tax dollars. If they feel their job is to convert non-Christians, then they should quit working for the VA. This guy served his country just like any Christian and deserves to be treated with some respect.

A chaplain working in the hospital who is an Assemblies of God minister declined to comment when contacted by the Des Moines Register.

A spokesman for the hospital said that administrators will look into Miller’s allegations, adding, “We will look into these concerns that Mr. Miller is talking about. The Iowa City VA respects the rights to religious beliefs for every patient. If they have a request for any kind of religious needs, we try to accommodate whatever those needs or beliefs might be.”

Here’s hoping the administrators will conduct a real investigation and make changes, if necessary.

I wasn’t a fan of Tommy Thompson as Health and Human Services secretary, and I didn’t think he stood out in the first GOP candidates’ debate. But I feel like defending him after reading Don’s post at Cyclone Conservatives about Thompson’s campaign stop in Le Mars on Thursday.

I always enjoy reading first-person accounts of campaign visits, so I appreciate Don’s efforts. However, I had to laugh when I read this:

Where I strongly disagreed with Thompson is when he talked about social security. He said that social security is not in crisis and that it isn’t headed for bankruptcy and seemed in suggest that anybody that says differently is lying. I actually was pretty unhappy by those comments and he seemed to think that just tweaking the current system would solve it. I couldn’t disagree more. This was the only downside to an otherwise steller event for Tommy.

This reminded me of a moment in Jon Tester’s debate with Senator Conrad Burns last year in Montana. Burns had what he clearly thought was a “gotcha” moment, noting that Tester agreed with his position on some policy (I think it was immigration, can’t remember).

Tester smiled and said something like, “Even a Republican can’t be wrong all the time.”

Tommy Thompson is of course correct that Social Security will be solvent for decades with only minor tweaking. Even two years ago when Bush’s big privatization push was in the news, Republicans were warning that trouble was looming for the Social Security trust fund as early as (gasp) 2037.

Notice that since Congress rejected privatization plans, you don’t hear Bush or anyone else warning about the looming Social Security “crisis.” It was primarily a PR ploy to bring about changes desired by Wall Street money managers and Republican ideologues who have never liked Social Security in the first place.

Medicare is where the real crisis awaits us, and Thompson surely understands this. In less than a decade we are going to have major problems funding Medicare, unless we make some big changes.

Bush and Congressional Republicans made matters worse by adding prescription drug benefits to Medicare while prohibiting Medicare from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug costs (as the VA has done quite successfully).

Reading Don’s post, I felt sorry for Thompson. Here is he, mouthing almost every line conservatives demand to hear from their presidential candidates. Then he goes and makes them angry by speaking the truth on Social Security.

Just look at this anonymously posted comment under Don’s post:

If he can’t be straight with people about SS then he doesn’t deserve serious consideration. If he won’t call it the unworkable socialist Ponzi scheme that it is then Tommy can take that line of politician senior citizen panedering back to Wisconsin.

Voters of my generation aren’t buying that crap anymore. We know the score and we aren’t interested in being taxed to death paying for someone else’s retirement.

Never mind that the “unworkable socialist Ponzi scheme” has been functioning for many decades and is on track to keep working for decades longer.

Don and this anonymous commenter would do better to worry about the huge deficits that Bush and several Republican Congresses created with their unsustainable “tax cut and spend” policies. But no, they’ll stick with false GOP rhetoric suggesting that Social Security is the real fiscal problem facing the U.S.

I’ll be interested to see whether Thompson can get any traction in Iowa.

Greg Sargent had a great catch today at his TPM political blog Horse’s Mouth. He spotted an amazing article in the Journal-Eureka, based in Anamosa, Iowa (Jones County).

I would link to the original article, but the newspaper’s site appears to have crashed from all the attention Sargent’s piece generated.

Click through to read Sargent’s account, but here is the short version: Deb VonSprecken, who farms with her husband, donated to Giuliani and got a call from his campaign asking if they would host an event for him at their farm. They were excited and started preparing the event.

Then they were asked to call Giuliani’s campaign office in New York, where someone asked about their assets. They own a small farm. Afterwards, Tony Delgado at Giuliani’s Des Moines office allegedly told Deb VanSprecken, “I’m sorry, you aren’t worth a million dollars and he is campaigning on the Death Tax right now.”

The event was called off.

Sargent contacted Deb VonSprecken directly, and she confirmed the details of the story.

Great way to treat a supporter, Giuliani campaign staff! I hope you get hired by whoever does get the nomination (I can’t imagine that it could possibly be Rudy).

The new Bill Richardson “job interview” tv ads are the talk of the blogosphere today. If you haven’t viewed them yet, check them out at his campaign’s website.

Richardson used humor in some of his commercials when he was running for governor, so he’s apparently comfortable trying something out of the box.

I welcome the experiment, because I’ve long thought that humor is an underutilized weapon in political advertising.

The first “job interview” ad is going up on the air in Iowa. The second one has only been released online for now, and the campaign is soliciting feedback.

The merits of the ads were discussed at length in this packed thread at Daily Kos.

Over at Political Animal, Kevin Drum is unconvinced, saying the ads don’t address the problem of people having no idea where Richardson stands on the issues, but his commenters mostly disagree, saying the publicity will benefit Richardson when these ads “go viral.”

My undecided husband who is considering Richardson liked the first ad–funny and memorable. He didn’t think the second ad was effective as a way to communicate the high points of Richardson’s record. If this is any guide, the campaign was smart to hold off on running the second ad on tv for now. It will be interesting to see if they alter it significantly before airing.

They’ve got to do some kind of follow up, because the first “job interview” commercial ends with the words “to be continued” on the screen.

What do you think? Do these ads work? Or will they just attract a lot of attention without building support for Richardson?

John Edwards has put up his first television commercial in Iowa this cycle. The ad uses the same script as an ad his campaign put up in Washington, DC, last week, but it features Iowans speaking.

Noneed4thneed posted a youtube of the ad over at Century of the Common Iowan.

Meanwhile, Essential Estrogen liveblogged a media conference call with Edwards today. Click the link to read how he answered questions about the ad and his stand on Iraq generally.

If you’ve watched the ad, what did you think? I think it’s a good use of his money. Since he has campaigned so much in Iowa before, he has the luxury of not starting his advertising campaign with a biographical spot.

I’m late to the party, but I want to add my voice to those who detested the formats used in the first televised debates involving the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. There were so many questions on so many different issues that it was hard to compare the candidates, and hard for them to answer any question in depth.

I thought most of the Democratic and Republican candidates did fairly well, given the dismal format. A particular tip of my hat goes to Ron Paul, who managed to project the most coherent ideological frame on the Republican side, despite the short amount of time he was given to speak.

How can these debates be improved? David Yepsen takes a stab at answering the question in his latest column, published in today’s Des Moines Register.

These are the points Yepsen makes that I agree with:

1. Hold fewer debates, and schedule them later in the season, when more people are paying attention.

2. Allow candidates to ask each other questions. (I think each candidate could be given one or two questions to ask any competitor.)

3. Limit the topics, so that each debate is focused on one issue area (e.g. foreign policy, economy, health care, environment).

4. Make the debates 2 hours instead of 90 minutes. With eight Democratic candidates and at least 10 Republican candidates, this makes sense.

5. Get better moderators. As Yepsen says,

Debates should be about the performance of the candidates, not the celebrity or actions of the moderator. Each candidate should be asked similar questions, and they should be kept short and simple.

Here’s where I disagree with Yepsen:

1. He wants to hold more radio debates so people will be less focused on how the candidates look. I would prefer debates to be televised and simultaneously broadcast on radio to reach the widest possible audience. Of course, if they do this it would help for the moderators not to ask questions beginning with, “Raise your hand if you think…”

2. He wants to allow opening or closing statements. He makes a valid point that candidates may be more responsive to questions if they know they will have a chance to state their top points in opening and closing statements.

However, I’m going to have to side with the majority of debate organizers who think these are a waste of time, especially with both parties’ fields as large as they are. I also think that candidates will continue to be non-responsive to some questions, because that’s a basic point of political communication: answer the question you want to answer, even if that’s not the question you were asked.

3. He wants to have separate debates for the top-tier candidates. If we had done this last cycle, Howard Dean probably never would have broken into the top tier.

Also, there may be a candidate who is top tier in some early states but not in others.

I think it’s a good thing to force the top tier candidates to make the case about why they are better than all the other alternatives. Let the viewers or listeners decide based on the full range of options.

4. Yepsen calls for using polls “to determine the issues people most want the next president to address, and then the candidates should be asked about those questions. Otherwise, moderators and candidates can easily get sidelined into the latest gaffe or news development in a campaign.”

But we don’t need to take a poll to know the important issues the next president will need to address. If the debate topic is health care, the important questions suggest themselves (covering the uninsured, reducing costs, providing prescription drug coverage, expanding preventive care, etc.). The same goes for the other big issue areas.

All we need is for moderators to show some intelligence and restraint.

Brian Williams and Chris Matthews both did poorly in selecting questions to ask, but that doesn’t mean that professional journalists couldn’t come up with better questions without relying on polls.