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

The Iowa State Fair may be a good place for conspirators to say the quiet part out loud in public and hardly get noticed. People are far too busy eating food on sticks and taking pictures of the Butter Cow. 

If you happened to watch Governor Kim Reynolds’ “fair-side chats,” you may have seen the governor clap gleefully as GOP presidential candidate Perry Johnson spoke of wanting to do away with the U.S. Department of Education.

Rule 1: Put it out there, normalize the concept to avoid real thought about what that would mean for our future students.

Less than six months before the 2024 Iowa caucuses, former President Donald Trump’s grip on the GOP seems as solid as ever. Despite multiple criminal indictments and well-funded direct mail and tv ad campaigns targeting him, Trump has a large lead over the crowded presidential field in nationwide and Iowa polls of Republican voters.

Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has failed to gain ground with rank-and-file Iowa Republicans, despite massive support from this state’s political establishment and Governor Kim Reynolds’ thinly-disguised efforts to boost his prospects.

The Republican Party of Iowa’s Lincoln Dinner on July 28 was the first event featuring both candidates, along with eleven others. State party leaders strictly enforced the ten-minute time limit, which forced the contenders to present a concise case to the audience of around 1,000.

I’ve posted my take on each candidates below, in the order they appeared on Friday night. I added some thoughts at the end about former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the only declared GOP candidate to skip the event (and all other Iowa “cattle calls” this year).