Ed. Note: Partially cross-posted at Political Forecast.

So, I’ve been absent a lot lately from the blogging scene, but not the entire political scene.  Basically, my life interrupted my blogging with student government stuff, fraternity stuff, and the usual excuses I spew when I disappear from the blogging scene.  Anywho, this time instead of saying I’m alive or I’m back, let’s just say I’ll be posting again with some frequency.  Maybe not the 5-6 post/day ratio that I’ve been on in the past, but hopefully the 2-3 substantive posts and maybe a reminder post or two.

Moreover, since Drew’s gone, I’ll likely be the main front-pager for a while, but I’m going to seek to promote stuff to the front page from the diary section whenever I can.  You guys are the ones who make the Iowa blogosphere go round with your on the ground reporting and common sense questions and approaches to politics in Iowa.  So, keep up the good work.

And now that I’m back and glad to be emerging myself back into all of the political news, leave me some comments and tell me what I should catch up on.

Legis.News

Inside the Iowa Legislature, March 16, 2007

By Speaker of the House Pat Murphy

CIGARETTE TAX = SAVED LIVES

Two days after the House provided bipartisan support to stop kids from smoking and save lives, Governor Culver signed Senate File 128 in the rotunda at the Iowa Capitol. The bill increases the tax on a pack of cigarettes from 36¢ to $1.36 per pack, and from 22 to 50 percent of wholesale price for other tobacco products, up to an extra 50¢ per cigar.  The bill changes the tax on snuff from a percent of price to $1.19 per ounce. 

The legislation, managed in the House by Rep. Pam Jochum (D-Dubuque), was vigorously promoted by the American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, Iowa Medical Society and other health advocacy groups.  The benefits of the bill are widespread and had overwhelming support from Iowans. Most importantly, the bill will keep 42,000 kids from picking up the smoking habit in the first place, which is critical since 90% of smokers started before the age of 18.

Yesterday, I attended the Community Meeting John Edwards held in Newton. The event was held at the UAW Hall and close to 200 people were there. Check out Iowa for Edwards for video of the event and links to news stories.

Edwards opened by saying that our next president needs real ideas and vision, but more importantly needs to be someone with honesty, openess, decency, and someone we can trust. Edwards showed that he is going to be open about his ideas throughout this campaign saying…

When you to caucus in January of 2008, which I hope is for me, you will know where I stand. Not just on health care, but also Iraq, energy, jobs, and global warming. You will know where I stand.

I’ve taken a job with the Iowa Democratic Party, so I can’t blog independently anymore.  I’m going to try to recruit a few more front-page writers to take over for me.  If you’re interested, shoot me an email or just leave a comment.

Here’s the audio, once again!

There is a new map at Verified Voting.  It shows Iowa in red.

Red states have fallen behind in the open elections department.  Verified Voting’s map used to concern itself with whether states had paper trails for their balloting.  Now they have moved on to asking whether states with paper trails are conducting audits to see if the machine count actually reflects the real count on the paper ballots.

States in red (danger!) on the new map have neither an audit nor even a paper trail. 

Woe is Iowa.

I teach 2nd grade and occasionally have to settle arguments that take place on the playground. The incidents usually begin with 2 students disagreeing with each other over little things. Then the students will say they don’t want to be friends with each other and one says the other can’t play with them anymore.

This is basically what happened in the Iowa House last week when Minority Leader Christopher Rants (R-Sioux City) kicked out Walt Tomenga (R-Johnston) from the Republican Caucus debate on raising the cigarette tax. Tomenga favors a $1 per pack increase in the cigarette tax, a move that Rants has been working hard to stop.

I skipped the blogger meeting in Des Moines that idiosyncratic was able to make it to, but I did get the opportunity to interview him on his drive time from Ames to Boone for two house parties.  Richardson’s campaign has been by far the most accommodating in terms of one-on-one contact with the candidate, and I think that’s something that will generate a lot of good will for him.  Kos likes him, he is continually moving up in the Daily Kos and MyDD straw polls, and he is raising at a fairly brisk clip on actblue. 

I’ll have more impressions in one or more posts tonight or tomorrow, but I wanted to post the first half of my interview with the Governor.  A (probably pretty bad) transcript is included in the extended text.  You should see an mp3 player for audio of the interview – let me know if you don’t.  This is my first interview ever, so go easy on me.  🙂

The IDP has released its draft version of the delegate selection process (pdf) for the caucuses and beyond.  It seems pretty similar to how things worked last time, although it is long and boring so there might be some bombshells in there that my glazed-over eyes didn’t catch.

In section VI, subsection L, it says:

All steps in the delegate selection process, including the filing of presidential candidates, must take place within the calendar year of the Democratic National Convention…

As far as I can tell though the actual timeline starts in October, so I think they must mean a twelve month period rather than a January 1st-December 31st timeline.  There is definitely nothing here that precludes the possibility of the caucuses being moved up to January 7th, and there isn’t much to stop an even earlier date.

Mike Milligan, Executive Director of the IDP, has been named to Business Record’s 40 under 40 in Des Moines.  And while they have apparently missed out on a synergistic advertising opportunity with Olde English (union made!), Mike managed to get a plug in for his new restaurant.  Shane’s Rib Shack is opening on Thursday, at 12695 University Ave. in Clive.  They have both ribs AND wings, so I am pretty sure I will be living there when I’m not at work.

As annoying as I find Iowans for Sensible Priorities and their goddamn pie chart mobiles, they have put together a useful little site on Presidential candidate appearances for both parties.  I just wish I could stop hearing the same question at every freaking event.

The Press-Citizen is for it.  It will be interesting to see how the Ames Trib weighs in, since we’ve got one Regent school paper for and one against now.

The Register does a real disservice to its readers by putting up what is essentially a point/counterpoint article between the Cato Institute and The Heritage Foundation.  Both are conservative think tanks, with Cato also having a libertarian twist.  They argue about mandating health insurance, with Cato against it and Heritage nominally for it.

As one of the major universal health care plans to come out of the states (Massachusetts in this case), it is certainly an idea to be debated.  But is it too much to ask that a liberal viewpoint be heard as well?  At the very least, most liberals can agree that such a system should allow people to buy into a government-sponsored program, such as Medicare or maybe some sort of state or federal employee benefits program.  Also, the Heritage foundation plan completely skirts over issues such as mandating community rating or other things that would help people with preexisting conditions or other impediments to quality private health care.  I’m sure we’ll hear a lot about these ideas in the primary, but our biggest paper shouldn’t be cutting out an entire half of the political spectrum on such an important issue.

I’ve been down at the Capitol a couple of days this week, lobbying for Election Day Registration.  On Monday the bill passed out of its House State Government subcommittee, where my own Rep. Wessel-Kroeschell headed up the effort.  It passed out of the full House committee on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday I was there to see it pass party-line out of the Senate State Government full committee.  The Republicans were vociferous in their opposition, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them try to make a big issue out of it.

Today the Register came out in support of same day registration, while a few days ago the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier recycled Republican talking points against it.

The Republicans have basically two arguments they are using against it – We shouldn’t pander to uninformed voters, and it will increase the possibility of fraud.  Both of these reasons are stupid.

The idea that voters unregistered in their current precinct are uninformed voters is obnoxious and insulting.  It assumes a perfect correlation between understanding election law minutia and important decisions, when people who feel very strongly about issues might not know that moving across the state requires them to reregister.  Students, who tend to move almost every year, are especially affected by this.  So are young people in general.  You don’t have to take my word for it though – compare voter turnout in same-day registration state Minnesota vs. Iowa.  Anyone who makes the effort to go to the polls on election day ought to be able to vote – any argument against that is really an argument against American democracy.

The Republican argument of fraud is getting kind of stale, seeing as how they have trotted out for every attempt they make to restrict voting, from cutting poll hours, reducing access to absentee ballots, to forcing every voter to bring a photo ID to the polls.  We haven’t done any of those things, and we haven’t had any voter fraud in Iowa.  Minnesota has had same day registration since 1973, and they haven’t had any fraud.  (There was one case of a developmentally disabled man trying to vote twice – hardly what I would call fraud.)

The fact is, if someone really wanted to commit fraud in Iowa, they could already.  They could vote under the name of someone who has moved out of state, they could register under the name of anyone whose social security number they know and vote for them either absentee or at the polls, and any number of other ways to cheat the system.  The benefit for doing this is so low though (one extra vote) and the penalty so high ($7500 fine and five years in prison per offense) that no one would do it.  While you would only probably be caught using those methods of fraud, you would be GUARANTEED to be caught if you tried to game same-day registration.  You have to show a Photo ID, proof of residence, sign an oath, and fill out a registration form to vote.  If you did this at more than one location, you WILL be caught.  In the event that someone did decide to commit election fraud, there is NO CHANCE that they would try to do it under this system.

Election Day Registration is basically badass, and I believe it will pass on party line votes.  I just wish Republican legislators weren’t all either idiots or liars, and they would either be honest about their reasoning (they hate voting) or they could pass the bill in a bipartisan fashion.

If you are represented by any Republicans, I strongly encourage you to contact them and give them some shit on their talking points.

Tim Gannon (who some might remember from the Blouin campaign) is heading up the state effort to get the major investors in Iowa government – IPERS, 411, the Regents, and maybe a few others.  I was at the Senate state government committee meeting on Wednesday, where the bill was passed onto the floor by a unanimous voice vote.  The house subcommittee hasn’t acted yet, but this is a good amount of progress for this early in the session, and the bipartisan support certainly doesn’t hurt.

The bill would instruct these investors to divest of any direct investments in a small number of offending companies (25 or so), as well as encourage them to move away from mutual funds and other indirect investments that support these companies.

Things are looking pretty positive for the bill, but I encourage you to write or call your Senator or Representative and let them know your feelings on the bill.

All this presidential stuff is okay, I guess.  But really people, even as a hard-core politics geek there is no way in heck I’m going to maintain interest and enthusiasm for 330-odd days until the caucuses, let alone the more than 20 months until the general.  We need something else to focus on as well or we will all go starkers, our friends and family will shun us.

Lately, my gaze has drifted lower towards local governance, especially local governement finance and economic development issues.  When we talk about economic development and growth in Iowa (as in most states now) the word, TIF enters the conversation pretty quickly.  More on TIFs and their uses and overuses on the flip.

Caucus math is hard.  So I made a spreadsheet to deal with it.  This is based on the 2004 rules, and can’t deal with every situation.  At some point I will probably make a web form to do it.

Interesting thing about caucus math:

There are situations where it will be in your group’s interest to send people to someone else.  If you can make a minor candidate viable in your precinct, there is about a good chance that your making them viable will rob your opponent of a delegate instead of you.

I realize this is not exactly Democratic, but it is exactly the kind of crap that I love.  🙂

(Sorry about the delay in blogging – I lost power last night in the middle of a big post.  I called 911 a bunch of times like Governor Culver said, but for some reason they kept saying that I was blocking the lines for actual emergencies.)

A few days ago BH reader desmoinesdem had a great post on MyDD explaining the caucus system to people who don’t understand it.  The numbers from Iowa Progress are off by a little bit though – the central committee this year decided on a total of 2500 for the state convention, rather than 3000.  I’ve posted the projected county-by-county numbers in the extended text.  Note that these are actually state convention delegates, and on caucus night it is actually county convention delegates that are being elected.  That means that each delegate actually elected in a precinct is worth the total number of delegates elected in the county divided by the number of delegates alloted at the state level to the county for the state convention.  If that makes any sense.  🙂

Who knows?  These are hits we recently received on sitemeter:

After a pretty reasonable blog post on Vilsack’s exit from the race, Yepsen’s column today on the same subject is back to his classic form.

Geraldine points out some problems with it over at Iowa Progress, and I’ve got a little more:

Why didn’t he take off? The answer may be that in 2008, voters are not be looking for the skills in domestic policy a governor brings to a presidential campaign. It’s the first election since 9/11 in which the country must select a new president, and Americans seem to be be looking for a president with experience in national security or on a broader world stage – not a state capitol.

So Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani has a lot of national security experience?  Other than standing on some rubble on 9/11, the guy has no more (and probably much less) experience than any Governor.  And Yepsen can dismiss Mitt Romney, but most Republicans consider him to be a serious contender.

While Bill Richardson is not in the top tier of Presidential candidates (yet), it’s not like the combined fourteen years total of the three frontrunners shows some dominant foreign policy experience.  Joe Biden and Wesley Clark aren’t getting any traction, and they (along with Richardson) are indisputably the most knowledgeable about foreign affairs.

Beyond that, when have partisans ever favored nominating Governors?  Since 1960, partisan nominations have been won by five Senators (Kennedy, Goldwater, McGovern, Dole, Kerry) and five Governors (Carter, Reagan, Dukakis, Clinton, Bush).  We’ve also seen six elected Presidents renominated, six Vice Presidents nominated, and both unelected Presidents nominated.  Of those VPs and unelected Presidents, five were Senators and none were Governors.

So basically Yepsen is talking out of his ass.  And with an ass that big, you gotta think that ain’t easy.

Last Wednesday, Hillary Clinton kicked off an effort to get one million dollars through smallish online donations.  The first solicitation email came from Bill Clinton on the 21st, followed by James Carville on the 22nd, Madeleine Albright on the 26th, and Bill Clinton again today.  Despite all this, as of this post she is still $100k short.  Now I wouldn’t be surprised if all of a sudden they mysteriously came up with the margin tonight, but I suspect that if Obama tried the same thing he would easily surpass one million.  That is if his basically run-of-the-mill campaign is even willing to take the risk.

(The text of all four emails are on the flip.)

UPDATE:  Their last update was at 11pm EST, and they were still more than 40k short.  I think they made one big mistake that would have definitely meant the difference between hitting their goal and not – they should have had real time updates for the fundraising total.  There is something so much more compelling about clicking refresh and watching something grow; people who donated early might be encouraged to contribute again, and people who have just been refreshing might want to get involved at the very end.  That’s a rookie mistake, Clinton campaign.

UPDATE 2:  Here are some screen captures of the fundraising progress throughout the last couple of days.  It’s a 0.6 meg image, FYI.

Clinton Campaign Response:  I heard from a couple of people from the Clinton campaign, who said that the deadline they had set for themselves was noon Wednesday, and that they reached $1,000,000 earlier than the 11:47 EST time they had marked on their website (11:47 merely being the specific time of their last update).  I got the first solicitation email at 11:21 EST, which is the benchmark I used for this post (although I’m sure they had been sending out emails for a while).  I’m not going to try to dispute their claim, but it would not have been an issue at all if they had updated the total in real time.