Whose idea was it to hold so many Iowa candidate debates on Saturday nights this year? At 7 pm this evening, Bruce Braley and Joni Ernst face off in the second of three scheduled debates. (C-SPAN will televise nationwide, and KWQC TV will televise in the Quad Cities area.) Immediately after that, KWQC will broadcast the second and final debate between Representative Dave Loebsack and Mariannette Miller-Meeks in the second Congressional district race. (That debate will be taped earlier in the day.)

I won’t be able to watch either showdown live because of a family wedding, but I will catch up later with some links and recap, as well as highlights from the new Selzer poll for the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. A bunch of links related to the IA-Sen race are after the jump. I still see the debate as equally risky for Braley and Ernst, for different reasons.

UPDATE: The new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll by Selzer & Co has Braley and Ernst nearly tied. Ernst is ahead by a statistically insignificant 47 percent to 46 percent. I do not believe Ernst lost a lot of ground during the last two weeks. I believe she was never as far ahead as the last Selzer poll indicated. Other polls in the field around the same time showed a much closer race. In particular, I do not believe that in two weeks, Braley went from a 25-point deficit among men to a 16-point deficit now.

SECOND UPDATE: The full debate video is on the KWQC website.

THIRD UPDATE: I wish every undecided voter in Iowa had seen this debate. Having finally watched the full video myself, I understand why shills for Ernst kept reaching for their security blankets on Saturday night. Talk about a disastrous performance. She repeatedly fell back on rote talking points that didn’t answer the question. On several occasions it was apparent that she did not understand the policy implications of her own words. I particularly loved how she insisted that the bipartisan Senate-passed immigration reform bill was “amnesty,” even though Braley had already explained why it was different from amnesty. She talked about securing the border, even though Braley had already explained that we would have 20,000 more border control agents if that immigration reform bill had become law. Toward the end of that exchange, though, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Ernst say she would not vote to repeal President Barack Obama’s DACA program (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). A lot of conservatives were presumably surprised too, but not in a pleasant way.

At the end of this post I’ve linked to several pieces summarizing the debate highlights.

Debate prediction 1: Neither the panel nor media commentators will hold Ernst accountable for the latest evidence of her failure to show up for work:

Ernst was appointed to the Iowa Council on Educator Development in August 2013. She missed two of the council’s sessions in October and November, and, by January, was no longer listed as a member of the organization.

The Iowa Republican was named to the Governmental Public Health Advisory Council in early 2011. However, Ernst has apparently not attended any of the group’s 18 meetings since then, according to its attendance records.

Similarly, Ernst was tabbed for the Mental Health and Disability Services Commission in January 2013. However, she [has] not attended any of the 20 commission meetings since that time.

And Ernst took part in only two of the 32 sessions of the Statewide Interoperable Communications System Board since 2011.

Surely most of those absences had nothing to do with Ernst’s National Guard service, but I expect she will keep on pretending that she’s only ever shirked legislative duties because of military obligations. It’s been working so far.

Debate prediction 2: Neither the panel nor media commentators will hold Ernst accountable for the fact that her father’s construction company received Montgomery County contracts worth more than $215,000 during her tenure as county auditor. She will smile and say that she didn’t get a vote on contracts, so there was no conflict of interest. I doubt anyone will follow up to point out that her position with the county should have disqualified her father’s company from receiving this kind of contract, period. Details don’t seem to be very important for Ernst or for most of the journalists covering this race.

Debate prediction 3: No one will press Ernst on why she once agreed that officials implementing “Obamacare” should be arrested, or why she co-sponsored a bill that would have made it a state crime to enforce federal gun control laws, such as background checks. I suspect Ernst never thought through either of those positions and was just doing what she thought a good conservative was supposed to do. If she is asked about these positions, I expect a well-rehearsed effort to change the subject.

Debate prediction 4: No one will press Ernst on what looks like an attempt to flout federal law on coordinating activities between political campaigns and groups making independent expenditures.

A new super PAC launching a $1 million TV campaign against Democratic Senate hopeful Bruce Braley in Iowa this week is run out of the Des Moines consulting firm of a strategist for Braley’s GOP opponent — the latest example of how campaigns and their outside allies are operating in close proximity.

The super PAC, Priorities for Iowa Political Fund, is headed by Sara Craig, a consultant for Redwave Communications. Last year, Craig and Redwave founder David Kochel together started a similarly named tax-exempt group, Priorities for Iowa, […]

More recently, Kochel has served as an outside strategist for Braley’s opponent, GOP Senate candidate Joni Ernst. Her campaign has paid Kochel’s firm more than $25,000 for direct mail services this year, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

Craig said in a statement that Kochel has no involvement with the super PAC, which she registered with the FEC on Sept. 5.

Craig and Kochel have worked closely together for a long time, including on efforts to promote Ernst’s Senate bid. Fortunately for Ernst, Craig, and Kochel, the FEC has no capacity to pursue flagrant violations such as this one.

First Lady Michelle Obama headlined a well-attended rally for Braley yesterday at Drake University. Unfortunately, media coverage focused on the first lady mispronouncing Braley as “Bailey,” the same mistake former President Bill Clinton made at the Harkin Steak Fry last month.

Matea Gold published a long feature for the Washington Post on the Iowa ground game of Americans for Prosperity, a 501(c)4 group that’s part of the Koch brothers network.

A zippy iPad app pinpoints which likely voters canvassers should approach, then allows them to instantly upload information from each contact. The data is also much richer than before, operatives said, the result of a far-reaching effort this year by the Republican National Committee and conservative groups to share information from the field.

The project is being spearheaded by Data Trust, a private company that has an exclusive list-exchange agreement with the RNC. Through an application interface created by Data Trust, the party and outside groups that are its clients can access and update profiles of individual voters in real time: where they stand on issues, how they prefer to be contacted and how likely they are to go to the polls. In August, Data Trust forged a partnership with i360, a data management company that works with AFP and about a dozen other groups in the Koch-backed political network, further expanding the data pool. […]

A few streets over, Bubeck made a similar inquiry of Jasmina Pandur, a 28-year-old bank employee. Pandur, a registered Democrat, said she did not have strong opinions about Braley, because she had not been following the race. “Are you with his campaign?” she asked Bubeck. No, the AFP staffer responded, explaining that she was with a nonpartisan organization.

Such confusion is one of the byproducts of AFP’s efforts to steer clear of explicit political pitches. Under tax rules, it can only spend a limited amount of its annual budget on campaign activities, and those expenditures must be reported to the Federal Election Commission – the kind of disclosure that the closely held group has sought to avoid.

I respect Republicans who are out there volunteering for their candidates, but I have contempt for people who deceive voters by posturing as a “nonpartisan” group. The entire goal of Americans for Prosperity is to elect Republicans, and in Iowa, the entire goal of this canvassing is to drive out the vote for Joni Ernst. Just be honest with the voters you’re contacting.

Factcheck.org’s D’Angelo Gore says Democratic attacks on Joni Erst over privatizing Social Security are misleading, because she’s only ever talked about private savings accounts for younger workers, not seniors. News flash: transitioning to a system with some personal savings accounts for younger and middle-aged workers is tantamount to privatizing the program. No, it wouldn’t be a completely private system, but yes, it would end Social Security’s guaranteed benefits for the younger generation.

A 12-state poll by Democracy Corps suggests that women’s issues are far more salient for voters who favor Democrats than they are for voters who favor Republicans.

A different 12-state poll showed that Democratic candidates in battleground U.S. Senate races “have racked up an enormous lead among single women.”

This is very pronounced in four specific Senate races – in which Greenberg did additional polling:

* In North Carolina, Kay Hagan leads Thom Tillis by 45-41 among likely voters. But among unmarried women, she leads by 34 points, 60-26.

* In Iowa, Bruce Braley trails Joni Ernst by a single point, 44-45. But among unmarried women, Braley leads by 43 points, 66-23.

* In Colorado, Mark Udall and Cory Gardner are locked in a tie, 45-45. But among unmarried women, Udall leads by 33 points, 64-31.

* In Georgia, Michelle Nunn trails David Perdue by five points, 41-46. But among unmarried women, Nunn leads by 34 points, 65-31.

That explains why Iowans are seeing and hearing so many television and radio ads highlighting Ernst’s support for a “personhood” amendment that would ban all abortions and criminalize medical procedures that are now legal.

On the other hand, right-wing talk radio host Steve Deace claims the attacks on Ernst over personhood are galvanizing her support among “pro-life” conservatives who “were on the fence” about voting for her.

UPDATE: James Hohmann highlighted the candidates’ early sparring over the EPA.

“I do believe our states know best how to protect their natural resources,” the state senator said. “I believe this can be done at the state level, rather than at a national level with the federal EPA.” […]

Braley, a four-term congressman, saw an opening to attack on environmental issues. “Sound bites have consequences,” he said several times. “You’re saying you don’t want anyone making sure the air we breathe is clean and the water we drink is pure.”

Ernst said states could work together to protect the environment, and that “there are other regulatory agencies that can step in” at the federal level if the EPA is killed.

“The reason a Republican president created the EPA is because states couldn’t prevent big polluters from destroying our planet,” Braley shot back. “When President [Richard] Nixon created it, there were rivers on fire.”

Conservative blogger Byron York’s piece about Ernst’s “lackluster” performance is a must-read. Excerpts:

Braley matched or outshone Ernst on topic after topic in tonight’s one-hour faceoff. Ernst had her moments, but there’s no doubt Braley recovered nicely after a poor performance in the pair’s first debate two weeks ago.

Ernst’s problems began with virtually the first question. Does she really want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, as Democrats accuse her of doing? Ernst didn’t fully answer, but seemed to suggest the answer is yes. “I…grew up on a southwest Iowa farm drinking well water,” she said. “I do believe that our states know best how to protect their national resources.”

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“The Clean Water Act is a good one,” Ernst continued, “but unfortunately, over the course of time, the EPA has overreached.” There is no doubt that’s true — the EPA apparently wants dominion over every puddle on every farm in America — but a compelling example of EPA overreach does not necessarily make the case for state-based national environmental policy. And yet that is what Ernst appeared to suggest. “The states can do that by working together,” she said. […]

Next came Obamacare. A query from a viewer said he had received health coverage through the Affordable Care Act. To Ernst, he asked, “Have you given any thought to how individuals in my situation won’t lose coverage, should repeal occur?”

Ernst called Obamacare a “job killer” in Iowa that is “taking personal health decisions out of our hands and placing them with nameless, faceless bureaucrats in Washington, DC.” That is to some degree true, but what about the guy’s question? It was a reasonable concern; millions of people are now receiving subsidies to purchase health insurance. If Republicans repeal Obamacare, what happens to them?

The exchange was a vivid illustration of how Republicans have to think through their position on repealing Obamacare to include a transition from the situation that exists today — with exchanges and subsidies up and running — to a newer, hopefully better Republican-authored plan. How will that happen? Ernst offered the viewer nothing.

Jonathan Strong’s post for the right-wing site Breitbart.com focus on Ernst “saying separately that she would consider increasing taxes to shore up Social Security and that she does not support repealing President Obama’s executive amnesty for so-called ‘DREAMers.'”

Speaking to the Des Moines Register, Republican strategist Robert Haus picked out that point as the “lowlight” for Ernst:

“I thought her low point was the short answer on DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which allows young people who crossed the border illegally with their parents to remain in the country), and the Obama administration policies that have led to the crisis at the southern border. She missed a chance to tell the audience the hypocrisy of Braley’s statements and the real cause for the problem, Congress’ inaction on securing the border.”

In the same article, Tim Hagle, a conservative political science professor at the University of Iowa, commented that “Ernst was a bit too much on her talking points. It’s good to stay on message, but candidates need to be smoother about moving from a specific question to the points they want to make.”

Speaking of the Des Moines Register, in her ongoing quest to paint every story in a favorable light for Ernst, Jennifer Jacobs highlighted Ernst’s attempt to bring the conversation back to Braley dissing Senator Chuck Grassley. Jacobs noted that it was “the biggest applause line of the night” and that “some members of the crowd at St. Ambrose University in Davenport roared with approval.” Then Jacobs observed,

Iowa politics watchers observed that Ernst wasn’t as dominant at the beginning of the Quad-City Times/KWQC-TV6 debate, which highlighted how well she did in the first debate two weeks ago at Simpson College.

Honestly, why doesn’t the Register just put Jacobs on the opinion page? Now she’s rewriting history to make it look like Ernst won the first debate, when the politics watchers she quoted at that time said Ernst’s answers lacked substance.

MONDAY UPDATE: What a strange post by Craig Robinson at The Iowa Republican blog. After going through all the reasons Ernst lost the debate, he concludes,

I also don’t blame Ernst for her “lackluster” debate performance. I think this was a classic case of her advisors prepping her too much. She was prepared to go into this debate as an attack dog, and that’s exactly how she preformed. That was most evident in her closing remarks. There were numerous times when the two candidates had agreed with each other, but Ernst began her 90-second closing remarks by saying it’s clear that she and her opponent don’t agree on anything.

I think Ernst’s handlers got it all wrong. Braley and all the out-of-state political groups that are spending millions of dollars running negative ads against her are trying to sell the voters on an image of Ernst that she’s in the pocket of special interest, that she’s too extreme for Iowa, and that she’s basically evil.

Unlike the first debate where Ernst came off like she does in person, as a likable, all-Iowa farm girl, in this debate, she was overtly political. I know all the political advisors want their candidates to land a punch that makes their opponent cringe, but it’s equally important to come off to voters as someone they can relate to. Ernst had opportunities to do that in Saturday’s debate, but she opted to attack Braley instead. That is one of the main reasons why she lost the debate.

In other words, your own candidate is a puppet incapable of answering questions without falling back on rehearsed talking points. And losing the debate isn’t this grown woman’s fault, it’s the fault of her advisers and handlers. Bizarre.