DISQUS

Jerry Sullivan's campaign volunteers did NOT run out of candy during the Windsor Heights parade yesterday. I kept telling everyone not to throw too much early in the route, because last year the Edwards people ran out of candy to throw.

Anyway, we rationed things well yesterday and had plenty for the kids at the very end of the route.

I think it helped that the crowd was smaller than usual. My theory is that more people went out of town for the weekend, since July 4 fell on a Friday.

I sure hope so Because of Obama decides that he's solid in Iowa, he could easily move most of his GOTV resources from here to other states in October.

I don't want us to lose several close House races because the Obama campaign had its own priorities on turnout.

what happens to the $100,000 that Chet Culver donated from his campaign fund to the IDP's coordinated campaign?

http://www.iowapolit...

Please help Iowans dump this national embarrassment. Rob Hubler is running against King in Iowa's fifth Congressional district, and he is a great Democrat. By the way, he's issued a strong statement against the FISA bill, even though he's running in Iowa's reddest district:

http://www.hublercongress.com/hublerblog/

why am I not surprised? We did what we could, but there has been little pressure on Boswell to do the right thing on this issue (other than from bloggers).

I don't remember the Des Moines Register even mentioning Boswell's position on FISA during the primary campaign.

offensive

"She doesn't have any real ideas," he said. "She's just saying what she's been told to say by the party, and we are already represented by a rubber stamp. I don't want to elect someone like that again."

She has achieved a lot in life for a woman who apparently has no ideas and has to be told what to say.

That kind of insult doesn't reflect well on William Meyers.

It is unfortunate that he feels the process was unfairly stacked against him, but the course he's taking now is destructive, especially for any future aspirations he may have.

is Miller-Meeks the first woman the GOP has nominated for Congress in Iowa?

great post Just wanted to let you know that robocalls pushing negative information on Jerry Sullivan (Democratic candidate in House district 59) were in the field on Sunday and Monday. Details here:

http://www.bleedingh...

oh, please I am so tired of Obama supporters venting about the evil Hillary. I can turn on right-wing talk radio if I want to hear that every misstep by her is a sign of her malicious and nefarious intentions. Sometimes a gaffe is just a gaffe.

I was more bothered by the clearly premeditated comments of her chief fundraising official:

http://www.bleedingh...

If I were Obama, I wouldn't offer Hillary the VP slot, and if I were Hillary, I wouldn't take it if offered. But I almost hope she does end up on the ticket, just to watch the collective conniption fit of the pro-Obama bloggers.

smart move Declaring victory on Tuesday will put pressure on the DNC committee that meets ten days later to hammer out a solution to the FL/MI problem.

And it's appropriate for him to be here, since he sure wouldn't be where he is without Iowans. No Iowa victory = bigger loss in NH = bigger loss in NV (as unions refused to come off the fence for him) = less of a shift in the SC vote in his direction. He probably would have been finished on February 5.

good interview--I linked to this at Bleeding Heartland and mentioned a couple of other resources on this issue:

http://www.bleedingh...

I put up a post at Bleeding Heartland with my own list of 10 ways for smokers to stop whining about the smoking ban:

http://www.bleedingh...

good profile--she sounds like a great candidate And if anyone from her campaign is reading, I am encouraging any and all Democratic candidates in Iowa to post at Bleeding Heartland. I plan to promote all diaries by candidates to the front page.

We need to focus on expanding our statehouse majorities, but it's not always easy to find out what's going on in a state legislative race.

glad to hear we've got a good candidate in that district. It will be an uphill battle, but it will also be a big Democratic year, I think. We need to challenge the GOP everywhere and make them work for every seat.

off-topic question Does anyone know when we will get some public polling on this race? It's hard to know if something will hurt Boswell or Fallon when we have no baseline to tell us the candidates' level of support.

Fallon's campaign is not doing any polling, and I haven't heard any leaks about Boswell's internals.

if the legislature rushes through a "Fallon loophole bill," I will have written my last check to the House Democratic or Senate Democratic leadership funds. I haven't supported them so that they can turn the statehouse into an arm of Leonard Boswell's campaign.

Anyone can write a check of any size to any legislator, and that's not an ethical problem. No one in the leadership will support the VOICE act, which would create a voluntary public financing system like the very successful ones operating in Maine and Arizona.

But all of a sudden, there is an emergency need to close the "Fallon loophole." Pathetic.

a few points I know Boswell's people love to say Fallon has never had a "real job." I am active with 1000 Friends of Iowa, for which he served as executive director for a number of years. Just because it's in the non-profit sector doesn't mean it's not a real job.

You are saying you don't trust Fallon because you don't know exactly how much he's raising for I'M for Iowa, and you don't know how he is spending the money.

I don't trust Boswell because of my experience of how he has represented me for the past 11 years. I am tired of getting action alerts from the various groups I belong to, urging me to contact Boswell on this or that issue. Inevitably, all I am asking Boswell to do is to take the mainstream, majority Democatic position for or against whatever bill is the issue.

Why is it that progressive interest groups always need to mobilize their supporters to put pressure on Boswell on these issues? Most of the House Democrats are already taking the right position on these bills without action alerts.

You may prefer Boswell because we know what we are getting, but I would rather not have to worry about how my representative is going to vote on key economic and environmental policies.

or someone on his staff screwed up the wording of a press release. It's likely that someone at the FEC confirmed the content and/or intent of the relevant statutes, without specifically commenting on what's at issue here.

While we're talking about ethics and campaign finance, how much of my taxpayer dollars has Boswell spent on campaign-style direct mail pieces this year?

quick response to your thoughtful comment Making a mistake in a campaign press release is bad, I agree with you there.

If Fallon is elected to Congress, I also agree that it would be inappropriate for him to continue running the I'M for Iowa business.

I don't know the details about what it takes to set up a 501(c)4 compared to a business like I'M for Iowa. I know from friends who are in the business world that it gets complicated when you are trying to decide whether to establish a partnership, and S-corp, a limited liability corporation, etc.  There are pros and cons to each variant.

I am involved in several non-profit organizations, and it is frustrating not to be able to take a position on certain issues because of limitations related to 501(c)3 status. So I see a niche for a business like I'M for Iowa, although as I wrote at Bleeding Heartland, I have never contributed to I'M for Iowa and haven't followed its work closely.

To me, none of this rises to a level of concern comparable to my concerns about Boswell. I know from experience that he will often not represent my views on matters of great importance to me, and I know that he takes a lot of money from corporate PACs that are trying to push him in a direction that is different from mine.

Also, I would like to know: how much taxpayer money did Boswell spend when he sent out three fliers that had the look and feel of campaign materials? Producing and mailing those must have been very costly. They were very different from the typical constituent letter that I have received many times from members of Congress.

I am surprised no journalists are digging into the ethical questions surrounding Boswell's use of his franking privilege.

Chase, I also do not get the alleged ethical problems here Seriously, why should I be worried about the "unlimited funds" Fallon can raise through I'M for Iowa? Those funds have allowed him to draw what, around $10K in salary over the past year?

How does that compare to Boswell taking $5K contributions from corporate PACs?

I was actually more offended by a post on Gordon's blog from mid-March, in which he approvingly quoted Reagan-loving, Clinton-hating conservative Andrew Sullivan's reference to both Clintons as "sociopaths":

http://www.iowatrueb...

That post, titled "Nauseating," was never taken down or apologized for.

I am now seeing the "sociopath" label applied to Hillary by some Obama fans at Daily Kos as well.

Democrats should be embarrassed to cite Andrew Sullivan as an authority on anything, but calling the former president and first lady "sociopaths" on a public blog is positively Limbaugh-like.

but willful misinterpretations are not ok Contrary to what you have read in countless outraged blog posts by Obama fans, Bill Clinton never questioned Obama's patriotism. I watched the video, I read the transcript of his remarks.

Yet again the Obama campaign has ginned up a firestorm by putting the most nefarious interpretation on something Bill said, then getting their surrogates to denounce it (in this case claiming Bill had echoed McCarthy).

It reminded me of how the Obama campaign twisted Bill's "fairy tale" comment into something it wasn't.

So the whole premise for Gordon's outrage was bogus.

Debbie Gitchell caucused for Obama FYI.

I think it is better for the commission not to formally censure King for this statement, in light of King's far worse statements on other subjects that have never been censured. Gronstal is right about this.

I have been seeking input from people about whether there was anything Clinton could have done to beat Obama in Iowa (e.g. go negative on Obama, use Bill less or use Bill more, have a different voter contact strategy, etc.).

Many Democrats I talked to were extremely worried about her electability. Sexism could be one reason for that, but I think the whole Clinton-hating industry was more of an issue.

I also think a huge undercurrent working against Clinton here was that everyone knew if she won Iowa, the race was over.

She was ahead of all other candidates by double-digits in every state but Illinois and Iowa. In most states she was ahead by more than 20 points. Even in New Hampshire, she was ahead of Obama by more than 10 points until the last couple of weeks before the Iowa caucuses.

I think Iowans particularly wanted to give other candidates a hearing so that the nomination race would continue.

this is a ridiculous idea It has nothing to do with "going by the rules."

Splitting the delegates 50-50 is the same as not counting the votes of Democrats in those states at all.

Why not just make up proportional allocations for every state, regardless of how people voted?

Some other compromise will have to be found. Hillary kicked Obama's ass in Florida and would have finished well ahead of him in Michigan if his name had been on the ballot. There is no reason that he should get half the delegates from those states.

If he wants half the delegates from FL and MI, let him win them fair and square in re-votes.