I am a big fan of young people.  Juice has some profiles of the 30 and under legislators in the house.  They missed my favorite, Ray Zirkelbach (D, 28 years old), because he is in Iraq through the legislative session.

Here are the links:

Mick Bailey (26)

Elesha Gayman (28)

Andrew Wenthe (29)

Tyler Olson (30)

And the Republicans:

Matt Windschitl (23)

Pat Grassley (23)

Steve Lukan (28)

Geraldine over at Iowa Progress has several posts up about Vilsack’s decision, with predictions about staff movement and a look at the money.  One thing Vilsack did mention at his press conference was that they were going to have to look at paying off debt, so I’m guessing they might be quite a ways in the hole right now.

I was on my way to Des Moines when I heard.  I am at his press conference now.  It’s in a 30 by 20 conference room with 7 video cameras and about 25 people here.

I’ve only seen one or two staffers around.  If I were them I would already be at the bar.

Matt Paul is here, along with one other person who looks familiar.  Lots of the camera people are joking around, which is making me sad.  Say what you will about bloggers, but I guarantee the room would be morose right now if it was filled with just them.

His entire field staff just came in.  I know five of them.  This is even more sad.  🙁

He just came in, and is thanking people.  “It is money and only money that is the reason we are leaving [the race] today.”

He mentions iraq as the first issue and his support for ending the war.  Energy, education.  His speech is really good.  He is tearing up a little.  I am too.  Thanks harkin, mauro, gronstal, kibbie, state senate.

1st question – will you endorse?  not thinking about it.

2nd question – yepsen – what changes to campaign finance is needed?  we need a debate about it, because it shouldn’t be a money primary.

Part of why he is dropping out now is to let his staff land on their feet.

No regrets about what he’s done.  Orphan running for president – “That’s what this country is about.”

Tom Beaumont goes back for the last question to harrass him about endorsements again.  I don’t know if I could do news, you have to be such an asshole.

The New Hampshire Union-Leader has word that Culver and Lynch will meet to discuss the very real threat that NH SOS Bill Gardner will move their primary up in front of Nevada (and almost certainly in front of Iowa in the process, since their law says they have to be a week ahead and Nevada is only three days from us).  I’ll save my post on why I hope they do for another day, but it looks like Culver is trying to defuse the situation.

Bill Gardner is an institution in New Hampshire – he pretty much has to be given that he is elected  by the state legislature, which up til recently has been fairly Republican.  His legacy will be the protection of the New Hampshire primary, and he has his hand on the trigger here.  I don’t know what Culver’s meeting with Lynch is going to accomplish given that we already sold New Hampshire up the river during the DNC debate on the primary schedule.  Maybe a new rules delegation and a new commitment to helping our free-living friends will soothe some of the hurt, but it is not going to solve the fundamental problem that we have here.

This article is by John Distaso by the way, who one of my friends in New Hampshire described as “like Yepsen, but good.”  That’s not really relevant, but I haven’t Yepsen bashed in a while.  He must be too busy eating trail mix to piss me off these days.

I changed the poll, since I’m sure most of our active membership has already voted on the last one.  Here are the results:

Marc Hansen has a great column on the whole ridiculousness of questioning Obama’s blackness.  All the commenters seem to see through the nonsense too, which makes me feel good about Iowa being first in the nation.

Vilsack’s name has been rattling around the blogs for the last twenty hours or so, hitting Atrios, MyDD, and Matthew Yglesias (twice).  It’s not for anything he’s gonna like though – it’s about comments he made about social security.  Apparently Tommy V. supports price indexing, which is wonk code for significantly cutting the rate of growth of social security.  This has the potential for all kinds of wacky side effects, but basically it screws over working men and women so that we can maintain various tax cuts for the super rich.

Not a very good or very Democratic idea, but it’s also a quick line at a forum and it might not represent the totality of his position.  I called his office to get the scoop about it, but he’s on a plane right now.  Apparently there are plenty of other people inquiring as well, so we should get a clarification soon.

UPDATE:  Vilsack has a blog post up about his views.  It basically says what I expected – that he was just throwing out possibilities and hasn’t come up with a specific plan on social security.  It doesn’t say what I think bloggy people want to hear, though – that he opposes cutting the growth rate of benefits.

Strategic Vision has a new poll out for this month, with no changes at all outside the margin of error.  Edwards is still the frontrunner, and Clinton, Obama, and Vilsack are still all tied for 2nd-4th.  Biden is still the 5th choice, with Richardson making a little bit of headway into 6th.  The most interesting thing by far in the poll is that Republican likely caucus-goers, by a 48-37 margin, support a withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq in the next 6 months.  That eleven points isn’t quite as good as the fifty-five point margin for Democrats, but it still means that basically the entire country is opposed to Bush on this thing.

It sounds like Camp Hillary has slipped into attack mode, projecting her own inabilities to offer up an apology for her vote to authorize war in Iraq.

Wherever she goes, she’s perpetually dogged by voters, calling for her to admit she made a mistake, take responsibility for her actions, and offer up an apology to the American people. In Nevada today, all her other rivals called upon her to do so, but Hillary has drawn a political line in the sand saying she won’t apologize.

So Hillary wants Obama to apologize for comments made by one of his supporters, yet she’s not willing to apologize for relinquishing her senatorial powers to declare war. Her vote surrendered her constitutional responsibility to maintain Congress’s role for declaring war, sacrificing the checks-and-balances protections in the process. As a voter in Iowa, I’m more concerned about seeing Hillary disavow her role in helping lay the groundwork for the Iraq War and all of her subsequent comments regarding this action than I am about Obama disavowing a supporter’s remarks. If Obama had to apologize for every personal attack on Hillary coming from somebody who happens to support his candidacy, he’d have no time left to campaign on what’s actually important.

P.S. I’m not sorry for any of the aforementioned comments.

T.M. Lindsey

Political Fallout

So this is a first for me – I am trying to blog from my phone.  I am at the Obama rally in Des Moines.  Leonard Boswell is here, doing his molest the presidentials thing we have all come to know and have some sort of feelings about.  Obama has picked up a few more staff since I last had heard – another Iowa City coordinated field organizer and one from CR.  It’s nice to see some more Iowa blood on a campaign that has up to this point been better suited for running the South Dakota caucus.

I am having a lot of trouble updating this post from my phone, so updates might be few and far between.  They’ve started removing seats from the back of the venue, but they still have a pretty good crowd.  Nowhere near Ames levels though!

The godawful annoying folk singer is now singing a song called, as best I can tell, “How Long Do I Have to Wait?”  We’re about 7 minutes past when they were supposed to start, and I’m wondering how long I’ll have to wait for him to stop playing.

Obama enters to “Praise You” by Fatboy Slim…  Or at least that’s what we all thought.  Turns out that there is a big miscue and he’s not going to be out for 2 more minutes.  Luckily it’s a long song.  (One of my friends wonders if it is for a smoke break.)

He’s out now – was late because he was “calling his daughters.”  Yeah, more like dropping them off at the pool.

I would say pretty close to 1500 people are here right now,  give or take a couple hundred.

The first guy to get up for an Iraq applause line was wearing an Urlacher jersey.

“Rule number one:  Only I am allowed to make speeches.”

First question is from an Iraq vet – who is actually pissed off about alimony!  I doubt he is really a vet at all.  What is up with these people?  At least he didn’t bring a balloon full of purple powder.

Second question – Obama makes a joke about him being from Chicago one second before the guy says his mom died of cancer.  Question is what will he do about cancer.

Tom Vilsack employing a new campaign strategy against Iowa frontrunner John Edwards:

(Photo by John Schultz/QUAD-CITY TIMES)

From a Rudy Giuliani email to me:

Dear Drew,

My hero Ronald Reagan once said, ââ,¬Å”The future belongs to the free.ââ,¬ï¿½

I’m guessing this is from after the Alzheimer’s had set in pretty bad.

I’m reposting a recent press release from Speaker of the Iowa House – Pat Murphy:

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

For More Information:

Dean Fiihr, 515-281-0817

FOUR REPUBLICANS REQUEST PUBLIC HEARING BUT DON’T SHOW UP

Des Moines, Iowa – Four House Republicans, who requested a rare public hearing last week in the Iowa House, did not attend their own public hearing.  The members who did not attend the public hearing they requested include: Rep. Carmine Boal, R-Ankeny; Rep. Linda Miller, R-Bettendorf; Rep. Scott Raecker, R-Urbandale; and Rep. Tami Wiencek, R-Waterloo.

Obama is skipping the Nevada AFSCME forum this month, but attending the SEIU one in March.  Could this have to do with AFSCME President Gerald McEntee’s Clinton connections?  While AFSCME is the bigger union in Iowa, SEIU is substantial too, and is much more up for grabs this time around.

Edwards also has some ins with the UFCW and UNITE-HERE – two CTW coalition unions that have a strong presence in Nevada – but he doesn’t seem to have strong labor support in Iowa.

I think what you’re likely to see this year is another one where union support splits amongst several candidates.  This hurts labor overall.  Instead of creating a clear consensus candidate, it makes it look like decisions are being made for political reasons and reduces both intra- and inter-union support for the endorsed candidates.

Today, the National Journal released their latest rankings on the Democrats seeking the presidential nomination in 2008.  Here are their rankings:

1. Hillary Clinton

2. Barack Obama

3. John Edwards

4. Bill Richardson

5. Chris Dodd

6. Tom Vilsack

7. Joe Biden

8. Wesley Clark

9. Dennis Kucinich

10. Mike Gravel

Make sure to check out what they have to say about each candidate and the fundraising predictions that they are making.

Let me add a couple of things to the questions or things they are talking about in their descriptions of each candidate.  It seems that they frame Clinton’s problem as one of responsibility or the ability to appear genuine.  Iowa Democrats, in my opinion, are looking for a genuine candidate who is able, ready, and willing to admit mistakes.  John Edwards and Barack Obama easily have that advantage over her — and I’m pretty sure some Iowa Democrats are already holding that against her.

Chuck Todd and Marc Ambinder are looking for some staff beyond Nevada to impress them some more and prove that he is everyone’s second choice.  Here’s some nice news that I have heard: former Iowa Democratic Party Field Director Brad Frevert has joined Richardson’s campaign as his go-to guy for Iowa field operations.  Frevert’s an Iowa-boy, and worked with Jesse Harris (who is Vilsack’s field guy), so we know he’s got Iowa field knowledge coming out the wazoo.

They note that Chris Dodd is basically raising lots of money because he’s got a cushy position as Chair of the Senate Banking Committee.  It is true, but he’s also taking leadership on restoring Habeas Corpus.  That’ll give him a little edge with which to hold on to some grassroots activists.

Finally, we get to Vilsack, and this is the question I have to ask: Does the endorsement of Barack Obama by Tom Miller and Mike Fitzgerald really mean anything?  Todd and Ambinder seem to think that’s bad news, as do the folks over at CityView’s Civic Skinny.  Now, maybe because I’m young I might be a bit naive about Iowa politics, but do Miller and Fitzgerald really have that big of a following in Iowa that their endorsement would swing Iowa voters to Obama?  I don’t believe that for one bit, but I guess I have to keep inserting the naive bit just in case.  Both Miller and Fitzgerald have been around in state Democratic politics forever and neither were indebted to Vilsack at all, so I don’t think there was a lot of pressure for Vilsack to lock up their endorsement.

And let’s not forget, Tom Miller endorsed Joe Lieberman in 2004 and Lieberman didn’t even make it to the caucuses.  I’m not saying Obama won’t make it to the caucuses (he will) but Miller seems to endorsed based on how well you’re doing early on in the race, not simply based on issues.

Finally, Joe Biden will be back in the state this weekend (or is supposed to be, but it looks like Sen. Reid might be scheduling a vote for Saturday), so I think we’ll officially be able to gauge Iowan reactions to his campaign after he’s been here as a serious candidate.

Anyway, what’re your thoughts on the rankings?  And if you haven’t already, make sure to vote in the poll on the left side of the page.

The DCCC Frontline program is basically all about protecting vulnerable incumbents.  Perennial member Leonard Boswell is back on this year, and is the only Rep. from Iowa listed.  Notably missing from the list are Carol Shea-Porter from New Hampshire and Nancy Boyda from Kansas.  Here’s the whole thing:

Representative Jason Altmire (PA-04)

Representative Michael Arcuri (NY-24)

Representative John Barrow (GA-12)

Representative Melissa Bean (IL-08)

Representative Leonard Boswell (IA-03)

Representative Christopher Carney (PA-10)

Representative Joe Courtney (CT-02)

Representative Joe Donnelly (IN-02)

Representative Chet Edwards (TX-17)

Representative Brad Ellsworth (IN-08)

Representative Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-08)

Representative Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-20)

Representative John Hall (NY-19)

Representative Baron Hill (IN-09)

Representative Paul Hodes (NH-02)

Representative Steve Kagen (WI-08)

Representative Ron Klein (FL-22)

Representative Nick Lampson (TX-22)

Representative Tim Mahoney (FL-16)

Representative Jim Marshall (GA-08)

Representative Jerry McNerney (CA-11)

Representative Harry Mitchell (AZ-05)

Representative Christopher Murphy (CT-05)

Representative Patrick Murphy (PA-08)

Representative Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23)

Representative Heath Shuler (NC-11)

Representative Zack Space (OH-18)

Representative Tim Walz (MN-01)

Representative John Yarmuth (KY-03)

Here is the opening statement by floor manager and Senate President Jack Kibbie (D-Emmettsburg) on SR 15, which had 28 of 30 Democrats as co-sponsors (Rob Hogg and Steve Warnstadt didn’t sign on):

You can read the full text of his statement below the fold.

I admit, I didn’t track the debate or listen to it (one of the problems with being a college student is that you have a lot of stuff to do), but on a voice vote, the resolution passed the Iowa Senate.  With a voice vote, there isn’t a total count of supporters or those in the opposition, but it would have passed anyway with at least 28 Yea votes thanks to the Democratic sponsors.  Iowa’s Senate is now the third legislative body in the country to pass an anti-escalation resolution.

I’m skipping ARG polls for my average, because they are awful.

Taking only those from the last month (just Zogby and Strategic Vision), the average is:

Edwards – 24.5

Clinton – 19.5

Obama – 17.5

Vilsack – 12.5

Biden – 4

No one else had poll results for both.  It is interesting that Biden has seemingly positioned himself at the top of the second tier.

If you go back to the Research 2000 poll (pdf) (taken before either Obama or Clinton announced) the polls don’t change that much:

Edwards – 23.7

Obama – 19

Clinton – 16.3

Vilsack – 12.3

Right now Obama and Clinton are fighting for 2nd place in Iowa.  We’ll see which one can break away from that first.  Edwards is coasting on residual support from 2004, and will need to raise some money and start getting some organization set up in Iowa if he wants to both hold those people and generate new supporters.

While neither Van Fossen was targeted by the Iowa Democratic Party in the last election, Elesha Gayman still managed to defeat Jim (with strong labor support), and Jamie held on by fewer than 600 votes.  Now lesser known Ron Van Fossen, Davenport alderman, is in hot water.  If the charges of wife beating hold up, I’m sure he won’t be sticking around for his next election in 2009.  Even if they don’t, last year’s OWI and the increasingly negative connotation with his last name ought to be enough to keep him from running.

Now we just need to get rid of Jamie and we will soon have a Van Fossen-free Iowa.  I think that’s perfectly doable.

But not in a good way.