Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa journalist. He is the co-founder of the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation and a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, where this article first appeared on The Iowa Mercury newsletter. His family operated the Carroll Times Herald for 93 years in Carroll, Iowa where Burns resides.

A Capitol Police officer who stood the ground between hundreds of members of Congress and insurrectionists during the January 6 attack is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at a Council Bluffs, Iowa political event Sunday, July 27.

Harry Dunn, a now-departed United States Capitol Police officer who testified before Congress about the attack on the capitol, became a high-profile representative of the experience for other peace officers — many who were injured, some who died.

Dunn said the prospect of a full-scale slaughter of elected officials, some of the nation’s top leaders in both parties, was within literal feet, an instant here or there, in the run of events, from happening.

“Members of Congress were being told to take their pins off because they didn’t know if people would recognize that,” Dunn said in a phone interview with The Iowa Mercury. “We were a couple of right turns, and wrong turns by the insurrectionists, away from it being a bloodbath.”

John Deeth has volunteered for the Johnson County Democrats and been involved in caucus planning since 2004. He was the lead organizer for the Johnson County caucuses in 2016 and 2020 and is doing the same work for 2024. Deeth has also worked in the Johnson County Auditor’s Office since 1997.

It’s been two and a half years now since the Democratic National Committee upended the traditional presidential nomination calendar and removed Iowa from its long time place as the first contest. As an advocate for an Iowa presidential primary, I was overjoyed when the sitting Democratic president of the United States wrote, “Our party should no longer allow caucuses as part of our nominating process.”

I had hoped that October 2023 would mark the acceptance stage of the grieving process. That month the Iowa Democratic Party announced a two-stage plan for 2024: an early caucus for party business only, to meet the letter of state law (which does not require a presidential vote at the caucus), and a later, mail-in party run primary to comply with the DNC’s delegate selection calendar. I may or may not have been the first to come up with that plan, but no matter. It was the only way to legally check both of those boxes.

Unfortunately, some of Iowa’s Democratic leaders just don’t know how to say goodbye.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

Given the turmoil of today’s politics and environmental concerns, it’s time to revisit Okefenokee Swamp and attend to the wisdom of Pogo Possum. He sagely advised more than 50 years ago, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Cartoonist Walt Kelly wrote that line for the Pogo comic strip in 1971, as Pogo Possum and one of his cartoon companions, Porky Pine, surveyed the human despoliation of their wetlands home. The swamp covers almost half a million acres straddling the Georgia-Florida border; the cartoon depicted it as awash in discarded furniture, a bath tub, a car half sunk in the swamp and other tons of trash.

Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

It was a hot mid-August day in 1979. School hadn’t started, but football had. Sweat trickled down my back as I struggled to make a no window, tiny, drab space come alive. The room remained dead, and I was dead tired.

Just as I was going out, I almost collided with the superintendent coming in. I’d met him once, and I had no desire in a sweat soaked shirt to meet him again.

“I’m glad I caught you. I was wondering if you’d run the scoreboard for the game on Friday.”

Jesse Parker is a concerned Iowan and military veteran from Dallas County.

After Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in August 2021, nearly 900 Afghan refugees immigrated to Iowa.  Some of them recently received notices from the federal Department of Homeland Security, instructing them to self-deport out of the United States.

According to the director of Afghan Partners in Iowa, these people are experiencing tremendous fear given the wording of these emails:

“It is time for you to leave the United States […] Do not attempt to remain in the United States — The federal government will find you.”

Nicholas Cocozzelli is an economic analyst and founder of the Inequality Focus Substack newsletter, where this piece originally appeared.

John Deere, a major employer for Iowans, has faced severe criticism for its recent series of layoffs in the Hawkeye State. The agricultural equipment company announced in February it would be laying off 119 workers at its plant in Ankeny, Iowa. The Ankeny plant employs roughly 1,500 workers total. Over the past year, Deere has made roughly 2,000 job cuts at its plants across the state.

Deere has blamed a struggling farm economy for these cuts, but has been criticized as seeking a cheaper labor market in Mexico. Last year, when the company announced layoffs in Dubuque, Deere confirmed that it was “…shifting some production from its Dubuque Works facility in Iowa to a new facility it is building in Ramos, Mexico.”

According to Industrial Equipment News, production of mid-frame skid steer loaders and compact track loaders will be relocated from the Dubuque facility to Ramos. The Des Moines Register also noted that Deere faced scrutiny for outsourcing some lines of production from other plants across Iowa, specifically in Waterloo and Ottumwa, to Mexico.

The only Iowa Republican in Congress who did not receive Donald Trump’s “Complete and Total Endorsement!” in 2022 has been working hard to demonstrate her loyalty to him.

U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks has stuck close to Trump—literally and figuratively—as she prepares for what could be a tough 2026 primary campaign in Iowa’s first Congressional district.

Matt Russell is a farmer, political writer, progressive ag and rural leader. He has published work in the New York Times, TIME, AgInsider, Civil Eats, and many state or local publications. He co-owns Coyote Run Farm with his husband Patrick Standley in rural Lacona, Iowa. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, Growing New Leaders: Perspectives from Coyote Run Farm

Democrats have an organizing problem. They think voters need to be educated and convinced. And they think convincing voters that they need to be saved is the path to victory. I’m hearing talk about the need for those who voted for Donald Trump to feel the pain before Democrats make a move. This doubles down on the strategies of the paid consultant class, who failed to win the election, rather than looking at new ways to organize.

We need to stop trying to convince voters that Democrats will save Americans, and instead invest in Americans to do the work of saving our nation.

Jason Benell lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, former city council candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers. A version of this essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, The Odd Man Out.

Recently we have seen an onslaught of awful behavior and policy from the Republican majority, not only at the Iowa statehouse but nationally. In each case the Republicans have acted deplorably, while Democrats seem to think that the proper way to respond to deplorable behavior is to adjust their monocle, straighten their suit jackets, and have a respectable and demure silent protest before tut tutting on the drive home. 

Now, I am not one for immediately going from zero to pissed in a counterproductive way, but I am also not one to say, “When they go low, we tuck our tails and do nothing.” The way you deal with bullies isn’t to immediately cave and cede the entire ground to them, but to stand up and make them do the bad things they threaten to do. You don’t comply in advance. If you stand up, you have a chance to stop them.

Anne Kinzel is a former attorney and Californian now living in central Iowa. Anne speaks three languages: English, French, and Policy, which allows her to take arcane policy concepts and translate them into language that consumers, voters, and policy makers can appreciate and use.

How many consultants has the Democratic establishment hired over the years to help them understand why they aren’t connecting with voters and non-voters? It’s likely more than the $250 million Elon Musk spent to buy the election.

Why don’t the Democrats connect well enough with Americans? It’s all about who has your back and who your true friends are—those who stand by you in a crisis.

I am certain that we are in a serious crisis. Every day, my Washington Democratic acquaintances bombard me with messages and spammy emails declaring that our country, our democracy, all of us are facing an existential crisis brought on by the authoritarian criminal Donald Trump and his twisted accomplice, Elon Musk. The essence of my Dem friends’ messages is this: send money to help us get re-elected, and everything will be fine.

Dean Lerner served Iowa as an Assistant Attorney General for sixteen years, Chief Deputy Secretary of State for four years, and about ten years as Deputy Director, then Director of the Department of Inspections & Appeals. He then worked for the CMS Director of the Division of Nursing Homes, and the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa. He is a graduate of Grinnell College and Drake University Law School.

These days, Iowans may wonder how our elected officials, who should prioritize protecting and caring for the most vulnerable, can live with themselves or even look at themselves in the mirror. More than 50,000 Iowans live in the state’s more than 400 nursing homes. Most of those facilities are for-profit enterprises, funded by tens of billions of taxpayer dollars. These residents, their families, those of us approaching our own long-term care needs—and frankly, all Iowans—should be able to count on responsible individuals of both political parties to fulfill their oaths. 

Not in Iowa.

Republicans have had full control of state government (the Iowa House, Senate, and governor’s office) since 2017. In her recent Condition of the State address, Governor Kim Reynolds made it sound as if we were now living in the State of Nirvana, thanks to her and her party.

A year-end review from U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley’s office boasted that the senator’s oversight “touched on 97% of all taxpayer-funded agencies” during 2024. “Nearly every corner of government received Grassley’s thorough inspection – it’s all part of Grassley’s constant efforts to ensure the government is a service to the American people,” the report added.

One area that escaped Grassley’s “thorough inspection” was the collapse of bribery allegations against President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. For months in 2023, Grassley publicized an FBI informant’s explosive claims about the Bidens.

But he’s had nothing to say since Alexander Smirnov, the original source of those allegations, pleaded guilty in December to making up the whole story.

One of President-elect Donald Trump’s top advisers on judicial and legal matters stepped away from a University of Iowa alumni advisory board late last year. Mike Davis has long been an aggressive Trump ally, known for his “combative presence on right-wing media.” Some of his posts on the X/Twitter platform prompted calls in November for the university to remove him from the political science department’s alumni advisory board. But in a statement provided last month, Davis said, “With President Trump’s victory on November 5th, I will not have the necessary bandwidth to serve on this important volunteer board, so I decided on my own to step down.”

The Article III Project, which Davis leads as founding president, told Bleeding Heartland that no one from the university asked Davis to resign from the advisory board or take down any of his social media posts.

Communications staff for the University of Iowa declined to comment on the situation. Professor Brian Lai, the interim department chair listed as the point of contact for the alumni advisory board, did not respond to inquiries.

Bleeding Heartland set yet another record for guest contributions in 2024, with 416 posts involving 146 authors. (The previous record was 358 posts that more than 125 people wrote for this site in 2023.) I don’t know of any state-based political website that provides more quality coverage and commentary by guest contributors.

This year’s guest authors covered a wide range of topics, from public schools to local government, major employers, CO2 pipelines, notable events in Iowa history, and of course wildflowers.

They wrote about President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, Governor Kim Reynolds and her administration, Attorney General Brenna Bird, and of course former and future President Donald Trump.

During the legislative session, guest authors highlighted flaws in the governor’s plan to overhaul Area Education Agencies and the report that sought to justify it. They shared their own personal or professional experiences with AEAs. They covered other education proposals and explained why the state’s official school voucher numbers were misleading. They also covered bills that received less attention but could change many Iowans’ lives for better or worse.

During the 2024 campaign and its aftermath, guest authors wrote about presidential polling in Iowa and nationally, profiled candidates, and analyzed the election results from several angles.

Guest authors sounded the alarm about Iowa’s near-total abortion ban, unlawful drug testing at hospitals, and climate change impacts. They suggested ways to protect water and air quality, and flagged transparency problems in state and local government. They reviewed books that would interest many Bleeding Heartland readers.

They reflected on the lives of those who passed away this year, including Iowans Marcia Nichols, Bobby Washington, and Jim Leach, as well as Tim Kraft, who played an important role on some Iowa campaigns.

While many guest authors criticized Republican policies and politicians, some offered advice or constructive criticism to Democrats following the Iowa caucuses and another disappointing general election.

As noted below, some contributions by guest authors were among the most-viewed Bleeding Heartland posts of the year.

A years-long effort to expand the federal judiciary faltered this week when President Joe Biden vetoed the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved Act of 2024. The JUDGES Act would have increased the federal district court bench by about 10 percent over the next twelve years, adding 63 new permanent federal judgeships in thirteen states, along with three temporary judgeships in Oklahoma. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa was slated to receive one of the first eleven positions to be created in 2025.

The veto leaves Iowa’s Northern District with two District Court judges (Chief Judge C.J. Williams and Judge Leonard T. Strand), along with Senior Judge Linda R. Reade and two magistrate judges. That number hasn’t changed since 1990, when the last major expansion of the federal bench allocated a third judgeship to Iowa’s Southern District. The 1990 law also assigned a judge who had previously divided his time between the state’s two districts to the Northern District on a permanent basis.

Biden may not have the last word on this subject, given the Republican Party’s commitment to putting more conservatives on the bench.

They were so close.

After weeks of negotiations, U.S. House and Senate leaders had agreed on a year-end spending bill that would fund the federal government through March 14, extend the 2018 Farm Bill through next September, and provide more than $100 billion in disaster aid. The legislation included numerous other policies, including at least two that had been priorities for Iowa’s members of Congress. The bill would have legalized year-round sales of higher ethanol blends known as E-15 in all states. It also contained new regulations for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which could have saved consumers billions while helping small pharmacies.

All of the Iowans in Congress have talked up E-15 as a path to U.S. energy independence. (In reality, only about 3,400 of some 198,000 gas stations across the country dispense higher ethanol blends.) Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) and Senator Chuck Grassley have been among the most vocal proponents of PBM reform, calling for action on prescription drug middlemen in draft bills, press releases, news conferences, House and Senate hearings, floor speeches, and taxpayer-funded radio ads.

Little did they know that President-elect Donald Trump and his billionaire buddy Elon Musk were about to blow up the deal.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

President Joe Biden’s recent pardon of his son Hunter Biden has reignited the debate over the presidential pardoning power. And argument over this constitutionally protected prerogative of the president will not go away with Donald Trump’s return to power next month. Trump already has used the pardoning power for the benefit of his political cronies during his first term (2017-2021).

Biden is reportedly mulling whether he should go further in light of Trump’s threats to bring charges against some of his political enemies after he returns to office in 2025. In light of those threats, Biden is reportedly considering preemptive pardons for former U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, former Representative and now Senator Adam Schiff, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, and General Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Channing Dutton is a lawyer in Urbandale. His duty is climate action for all children.

When it comes to the biggest political blunder of the 21st century, no mistake by the Republicans compares to the colossal fumble the Democrats have made on climate change. We saw it on Black Friday during the Hawks football game with my beloved Huskers: a tied score, the clock ticking down, and the ball bouncing on the turf. Do you remember? That was a fumble of opportunity. 

The same has been true during the past several election cycles where the Democrats seem unable to make the play that wins the game. I think of it as the Climate Change fumble.

Bernie Scolaro is a retired school counselor, a past president of the Sioux City Education Association, and former Sioux City school board member.

We do not always have all the information when we first make a decision. After further review and consideration, the ability to change your mind is not always easy, maybe even embarrassing. But changing your mind does not mean you lied.

Eighth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

Iowans could reasonably view the 2016 general election as an anomaly. Diverging sharply from the national mood, this state voted for Donald Trump by more than a 9-point margin, even as Hillary Clinton won the nationwide popular vote by a little more than 2 points. But maybe that was a one-off; Iowa had been a swing state for the previous six presidential elections.

When Joe Biden failed to flip a single Iowa county in 2020—even heavily Catholic counties where he should have done substantially better than Clinton—I concluded that Iowa was no longer a swing state. That post got some pushback from Democrats who thought I was reading too much into the results.

Trump’s third win in Iowa, by his largest margin yet, underscores how far this state has moved from the center of the national electorate. As Democrats search for a way back to winning more statewide and down-ballot races, they need to recognize that reality.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for key positions in government suggest that he envisions his cabinet playing a very different role from past administrations.

Most of Trump’s nominees have relatively little administrative experience or familiarity with the duties and obligations of the departments they will lead, if confirmed. Instead, their chief and uniting characteristic appears to be unshakeable loyalty to Mr. Trump.

As misinformation about the federal response to natural disasters hampers relief efforts in the southeast U.S., several Iowa Republicans have seized the opportunity to spread lies about the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Echoing “pants on fire” claims from former President Donald Trump, U.S. Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) and Ashley Hinson (IA-02) have repeatedly asserted that FEMA lacks the resources needed to help those harmed by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, because it has spent too much supporting undocumented immigrants. Representative Zach Nunn (IA-03) and U.S. Senator Joni Ernst have likewise claimed Americans are being shortchanged due to FEMA’s allegedly excessive spending on migrants.

Those lies are part of a national effort by Trump supporters and the leading pro-Republican cable news network to assist Trump’s campaign. For Iowa Republicans as well, the false talking points direct voters’ attention toward immigration and border security, topics perceived to boost GOP candidates up and down the ballot.

Nunn, Miller-Meeks, and Hinson all invested in election-year messaging about immigration long before the hurricanes made landfall.

Blake Iverson is a member of Central Iowa Democratic Socialists of America.

A crusading fervor has caught hold of many liberal news outlets following the recent Democratic National Convention in Chicago. They marvel at the raw star power on display: the Clintons, the Obamas, the Emhoffs, and even Lil’ John graced the stage to celebrate Joe Biden’s exit from the presidential race. They offer something of a benediction to the thousands gathered–elite operatives and rank-and-file activists alike–and readying them to go out and retake the shining city on the hill. 

But there is a striking absence from the convention itself and from the ebullient media coverage: the United States’s actual crusade in the holy land, the genocide in Gaza. While the Democratic National Committee allowed Palestine solidarity activists to hold a panel during the convention, and Vice President Kamala Harris uttered the word “Palestine” during her acceptance speech, the party made it clear, throughout the festivities and at every level, that the policy will not change. The genocide will continue until Israel and the United States finish the job.

Genocide apologists and the cynical within the party claim this is an unfortunate but necessary tradeoff between ending the genocide and electing Donald Trump. They are wrong. The choice is between not ending the genocide and electing Donald Trump.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

Sorry to rain on the parade, but here’s a metaphor about the news media excitement and anticipation generated by the forecast of a September 10 presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump: Looking forward to that debate (and its possible sequel) is like going to the busiest intersection in town or camping out along a freeway looking forward to a traffic accident—maybe, if you’re lucky, even one in which someone is seriously injured.

Inherent in the presidential debates is a sense of suspense, and it’s not whether worthwhile information will be offered to viewer. The suspense has been whether one of the two, or both, may suffer a self-inflicted injury by blundering into a campaign-damaging statement or behavior. 

Trump, however, seems to escape being accountable despite his frequent lies. It is a real-life application of what he said in Sioux Center in January 2016: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?…It’s, like, incredible.”

Matthew T. Lee is a lifelong Iowa resident and University of Dubuque graduate who follows local and national politics.

The American media encountered a strange new challenge in the summer of 2015: how to keep up with and hold accountable a public figure who lies at a breathtaking rate? How to fact check, how to cover, how to pierce through the disinformation? 

Most political reporters never figured that out. As time went on, their problem was compounded. That disingenuous public figure took over one of the two major U.S. political parties and became president—and he did so on the back of discrediting the the “fake news media.”

Fast forward to 2024. This man is once again running for president. The political party he usurped is even more under his sway (his daughter-in-law now co-chairs the Republican National Committee). And the media has apparently learned nothing in the ensuing nine years.

Gerald Ott of Ankeny was a high school English teacher and for 30 years a school improvement consultant for the Iowa State Education Association.

I’ve been waiting for the 2024 election in Venezuela. In my head, I was planning an essay. A turnaround in the fortunes of Venezuela is critical to abating of out-of-control migration in the Western Hemisphere.

Between 2014 and 2023, an estimated 7.7 million left Venezuela as migrants. That’s 20 percent of the country’s population, or about 2,000 per day on average. Of these, 6.5 million have found temporary relocation in Latin America and the Caribbean, mainly Columbia and Peru.

The root causes of this unprecedented flow of migrants and refugees include democratic breakdown, repression, and a lack of basic human rights. These remain unchanged in Venezuela. There is also a deep economic crisis driven by devastating policies and a kleptocracy that has characterized the political landscape during the last 20 years. Nineteen million Venezuelan citizens are experiencing food and medical insecurity. It’s a boiling pot ready to explode.

Sue Dinsdale is the executive director of Iowa Citizen Action Network and leads the Health Care For America and Lower Drug Prices NOW campaigns in Iowa.

The most popular health care program in America turns 59 this year. Over 65 million seniors and people with disabilities depend on Medicare for their health coverage. That number will only increase over the next decade as a record number of people turn 65, qualify for the program, and enroll in a health plan that provides everything from routine prevention to acute care for serious illnesses like cancer. 

Prescription drug coverage is a vital part of Medicare coverage: nearly nine in ten (89 percent) of adults 65 and older report they are currently taking any prescription medicine. That is the highest utilization rate of any age group.

Top Iowa Republicans complained this week that Democratic voters were “disenfranchised” by President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside as his party’s nominee.

Days earlier, they had celebrated the nomination of Donald Trump, who tried to nullify millions of Americans’ votes after losing the 2020 presidential election.

“Running as a Democrat in Rural Iowa just got so much more hopeful,” Iowa House candidate Tommy Hexter posted on X/Twitter on July 22, shortly after Vice President Kamala Harris secured enough support from delegates to win the Democratic nomination for president. “I am so grateful to Joe Biden for capping off his service to our Country by passing the torch to someone who can truly energize voters here in the Heartland.”

Many Iowa Democrats shared Hexter’s sense of relief and excitement after Biden announced he would stand down as the party’s candidate.

Iowa’s no longer the swing state it was for every presidential election from 1992 through 2012. Few doubt that Donald Trump will have little trouble winning Iowa’s six electoral votes.

Even so, the Harris campaign could help Democrats competing for other offices.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

For the past couple of years, Republicans often accused President Joe Biden of dodging the media—refusing to sit for extended interviews, declining to be questioned in regular White House press conferences, depriving the public of the opportunity to see how he thinks on his feet and articulates his views.

Critics accused Biden and his staff of avoiding unscripted events because they knew he was not mentally agile enough to keep up with the demands pointed questions bring. The president’s supporters brushed aside those assertions—although Biden’s performance during the recent debate against Donald Trump confirmed their worst anxieties.

I am not here to re-plow that political ground. Instead, I wonder why other political leaders much younger than the 81-year-old president are so reluctant to stand in front of their constituents, and journalists, and answer questions on a variety of topics.

Rick Morain is the former publisher and owner of the Jefferson Herald, for which he writes a regular column.

You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em,
Know when to fold ‘em,
Know when to walk away,
And know when to run.
Kenny Rogers, “The Gambler”

“The Gambler” should be the current theme song of President Joe Biden’s campaign. “Know when to walk away, and know when to run”: that’s it in a nutshell, after Biden’s halting debate performance with Donald Trump three weeks ago and a few word gaffes at his public press conference on July 11.

Kurt Meyer writes a weekly column for the Nora Springs – Rockford Register and the Substack newsletter Showing Up, where this essay first appeared. He served as chair of the executive committee (the equivalent of board chair) of Americans for Democratic Action, America’s most experienced liberal organization.

By the time you read this, I will have been in Washington D.C. to participate in the annual awards gathering of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). I’ve attended these events for the last dozen years although, as for most organizations, the ADA get-together went “virtual” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, it’s a hybrid, virtual/in-person event.

Americans for Democratic Action was founded in the aftermath of World War II by a distinguished group of progressives, led by Eleanor Roosevelt, Reinhold Niebuhr, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Walter Reuther, and Hubert Humphrey, then Minneapolis mayor. This gathering is special for me, for although I’ve introduced numerous honorees before, this year I received ADA’s “Timeless Liberal” award. 

What should have been an ordinary presidential campaign rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania turned into a horrifying scene on July 13. A man shot at Donald Trump from a nearby rooftop, killing one person and wounding several others, including the former president.

Iowa political leaders reacted quickly to the assassination attempt, and their comments reflected several distinct themes.

Declaring that “This election is bigger than any one person” and “the stakes are just too high,” first Congressional district nominee Christina Bohannan on July 11 called for President Joe Biden “to withdraw from this campaign and pass the torch to a new generation of leadership.”

The same day, the Democratic nominee in Iowa’s second Congressional district, Sarah Corkery, said the president should “pass the baton” to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Bohannan and Corkery were the first Iowa Democratic candidates to publicly endorse replacing the party’s presumptive presidential nominee. It’s a risky move that could appeal to independents who overwhelmingly disapprove of Biden’s job performance, but could also alienate the party faithful the challengers need to volunteer for and donate to their campaigns.

Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council and can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

Do you remember that phrase our nation’s founders wrote in the preamble to the Constitution 237 years ago? The one about forming a more perfect union?

We have hit some speed bumps in that quest, a couple that would rattle your teeth. I wonder when, and how, or if, we are going to get back on the road.

Consider these potholes our nation has banged into recently:

Bernie Scolaro is a retired school counselor, a past president of the Sioux City Education Association, and former Sioux City school board member.

My father is 95 years old, but you would never guess his age by watching him or talking to him. Unlike President Joe Biden. He shows his age, and like all presidents, has been aged by the job.

In the president’s recent CNN debate against Donald Trump, Biden shuffled to the stage like the elderly man he is. He often stumbled for a loss of words as he tried to recall accurate, real facts and statistics. 

I could relate; in school, having to memorize dates in history or speeches for English class, it wasn’t easy. Words did not always flow—and I wasn’t on national TV at the time. I wasn’t 81 years old. I didn’t have a lifelong stutter. I wasn’t debating for the soul of democracy. And I wasn’t debating against someone who doesn’t know how to engage in civil discourse.

Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

Two comments should continue to haunt us with regard to the 2024 election and the fate of democracy. Donald Trump memorably said while campaigning in Iowa in 2015: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?”

And from then CBS executive chair and CEO Les Moonves, in assessing Trump’s 2016 campaign and TV coverage and revenues: “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” 

In that vein we may opt for presidential candidates grappling with one another in a cage match, instead of grappling with the issues.

Dan Guild is a lawyer and project manager who lives in New Hampshire. In addition to writing for Bleeding Heartland, he has written for CNN and Sabato’s Crystal Ball, most recently here. He also contributed to the Washington Post’s 2020 primary simulations. Follow him on Twitter @dcg1114.

Before the June 27 debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, I wrote about the history of presidential debates. I observed in that piece,

“A good performance tonight may allow Biden to close the gap below. A bad one and this gap may become permanent, creating enormous turnout problems among key elements of the Democratic base.”

A week later, the question isn’t whether Biden’s performance was a bad one—the question is whether it was fatal for his campaign. At a minimum, Biden missed an opportunity to close the enthusiasm gap that exists between Democrats and Republicans. At worst, he has ended his chances at winning, and imperiled Democrats down the ballot from U.S. Senate to state legislatures.

In some ways, the data creates a paradox. The shift from the last debate was not large in historical terms. However, the impact on the race is enormous, because the race was so close, and Biden trailed in many key states before the debate.

Writing under the handle “Bronxiniowa,” Ira Lacher, who actually hails from the Bronx, New York, is a longtime journalism, marketing, and public relations professional.

It’s all about image.

“Although we are admonished ‘don’t judge a book by its cover,’ we repeatedly defy that warning as we go about our daily lives responding to people on the basis of their facial appearance,” Dr. Leslie Zebrowitz of Brandeis University and Dr. Joann Montepare of Emerson University wrote in the psychology journal Social and Personality Compass.

“The concept of image management applies to anyone … who has ever wanted to get an idea across to someone else, to influence opinion or action … ” agrees Judith Rasband, founder of the Conselle Institute of Image Management in Orem, Utah. She adds, “[R]egardless of who you are, how old, and what your role or goal, ongoing image management can give you the personal/professional presence you need.”

Seldom in my lifetime has there been a presidential election that didn’t hinge on image. Jimmy Carter’s kindly, pastoral visage against an apparently clumsy Gerald Ford. Rugged, cheerful, upbeat, athletic Ronald Reagan against the hapless Carter, who couldn’t rescue Iran-held U.S. hostages. World War II combat aviator George H.W. Bush against wannabe-helmeted Mike Dukakis. Have-a-beer-with-me-pardner George W. Bush against Al “Gore the Bore.”

Henry Jay Karp is the Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Emanuel in Davenport, Iowa, which he served from 1985 to 2017. He is the co-founder and co-convener of One Human Family QCA, a social justice organization.

This week, I shared an article about U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks claiming in a televised interview that President Joe Biden would step onto to the debate stage, high on drugs to cover up his “cognitive decline.” I described her comments as “dirty politics scraping the bottom of the barrel,” and her efforts to curry favor with Dictator-for-a-day Donald as a sign of her own “moral & ethical decline.”

Well, after anguishing through Thursday night’s debate, I have to admit that Miller-Meeks had it partially right. It was obvious that Biden was on something when he stepped onto the debate stage: cold drugs. His hoarse, gravely voice, his obvious congestion, his partial brain fog gave ample testimony to every speaker’s and performer’s nightmare of falling ill and being medicated just before having to step on stage before an audience.

Even so, while Biden failed to deliver the knock-out punches that Trump deserved, he was able to counter the litany of outrageous lies with facts—feebly delivered, but facts nonetheless.

As disgusted as I was by Miller-Meeks’ defamatory attacks on the president the day before the debate, I was equally disgusted, if not more so, by the many commentators, journalists, and fellow Democrats who were so quick to throw Biden under the bus after the debate. Many floated or demanded his removal as the Democratic presidential nominee.