The Iowa Future Fund is running ads that are lying about Chet Culver’s record.  The group has apparently incorporated itself as a 501c4, so it can refuse to disclose its donors.   Basically, they are claiming that their intent is not to influence elections, despite the fact that all they have ever done is try to smear the big lug.

The organization’s spokesperson is David Kochel, who claims he is the only person who will speak for the Future Fund ever.   Give him a call at 515-865-6077 to let him know how you feel about his organization, or email him at david@jdkmpa.com to demand that the group disclose its donors.  Let us know what kind of response you get.

The Democratic candidates for Presidents outraised Republicans by about 47%.

The Democratic committees (DCCC, DSCC, and DNC) outraised their Republican counterparts by 4%.  (With the DNC dragging the other two down.)

And now from the Register, we find that state Democrats are doing even better.

Incumbent House Democrats altogether drummed up $1.1 million, based on reports on file Wednesday, while House Republicans raised $721,000.

In the Senate, incumbent Democrats collected $448,000 in reports on file while Republicans pulled in $371,000.For the statewide parties, new reports show the Iowa Democratic Party has $669,000 in cash on hand in its state account, and the Republican Party of Iowa has $49,000.

Because Iowa has basically no campaign finance laws, all of this money is essentially interchangeable.  That means that, overall, Democrats are outraising Republicans in state money $2.22 million to $1.14 million, giving us just short of double their resources.

Dwayne Alons:

“We shouldn't be as concerned, actually, about warming, especially now that we have modern refrigeration and air conditioning,” Alons said Tuesday.

Oh.  My.  God. 

As I said back when it came out, if Edwards is really limited to the rules of the public finance system, he is finished.  Having only $50 million through mid-August to go up against a Republican candidate sure to have well over $200 million is a debilitating disadvantage for the Democrats, and one that can be entirely avoided by supporting one of the other candidates.

However, there have been a developments with the story – not all specifically linked to Edwards.

The first is that it turns out there won't be money to pay for the public financing in January.  Instead, candidates will begin to get payments as tax receipts come in, and will probably receive their first disbursements in March, when the nomination will almost certainly have been settled.  While this seems like bad news, it is actually good for Edwards.  If I understand it correctly, it means that he can take out loans in the amount that he would be eligible for, delay or withdraw any request for matching funds until after February 5th (something Howard Dean did, though before Jan. 1), and then only accept the matching funds if he was clearly out of contention and just in need of paying back his loan.  If necessary he can certainly afford to take out loans on his ample personal assets.  John McCain, another guy who is thinking twice about accepting public financing, just did basically all of this.

I don't think anyone was naive enough to actually believe Edwards when he said that this was all about public financing being the right thing to do.  If people were actually snookered by that line, the fact that Edwards is trying to skirt the nomination procedure to start raising money again shoulddisabuse them of that notion.  For me, the whole “public financing is the right thing to do” garbage made him seem like a huge phony.  It still bothers me that the campaign still sticks by that line, all the while acting contrary to it.

Dodd misses the ballot in Virginia.

Long story short:  Terrible editorial, would work great for an endorsement of Biden, Dodd, or Richardson, but doesn’t explain at all why to pick Clinton.  My guess is it was based on gender.

A deep, talented field in the Democratic caucus race offers both good and difficult choices.

No fewer than three candidates would, by their very identity, usher the nation to the doorstep of history. Should the party offer the nation the chance to choose its first woman president? Or its first black president? Or its first Latino president?

Or should the party place its trust in two senators, Joe Biden or Chris Dodd, who have served their nation with distinction for more than 30 years each? Or should it heed John Edwards’ clarion call to restore opportunity for all Americans?

Beyond their personal appeal, the candidates have outlined ambitious policy proposals on health care, education and rural policy. Yet these proposals do little to help separate the field. Their plans are similar, reflecting a growing consensus in the party about how to approach priority issues.

Their plans on Iraq are not at all similar, no matter how often Clinton claims she will “end” the Iraq war.  Did anyone at the Register even consider this issue?  I personally think it is kind of an important one.

The choice, then, comes down to preparedness: Who is best prepared to confront the enormous challenges the nation faces – from ending the Iraq war to shoring up America’s middle class to confronting global climate change?

The job requires a president who not only understands the changes needed to move the country forward but also possesses the discipline and skill to navigate the reality of the resistant Washington power structure to get things done.

That candidate is New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

From working for children’s rights as a young lawyer, to meeting with leaders around the world as first lady, to emerging as an effective legislator in her service as a senator, every stage of her life has prepared her for the presidency.

That covers three years, eight years, and seven years of her life – a total of 18 years, or 30%.  For some reason the register doesn’t think childhood, early adulthood, and middle-age don’t count as stages of your life.  Clinton herself obviously does, since she has attacked Obama for both a kindergarten essay and his time in Indonesia as a 10-year-old.

That readiness to lead sets her apart from a constellation of possible stars in her party, particularly Barack Obama, who also demonstrates the potential to be a fine president. When Obama speaks before a crowd, he can be more inspirational than Clinton. Yet, with his relative inexperience, it’s hard to feel as confident he could accomplish the daunting agenda that lies ahead.

Hard for you, maybe.  He has had mostly success in his endeavors at bringing people together to pass legislation, whereas Clinton has one huge failure and then a bunch of throwaway bills.  I don’t think reaching across the aisle counts for much when she is reaching across the do things like ban flag-burning.

And that’s just the comparison for Obama.  Clinton unquestioningly loses when compared to Richardson, Dodd, and Biden, who all have real accomplishments to their name.

Edwards was our pick for the 2004 nomination. But this is a different race, with different candidates. We too seldom saw the “positive, optimistic” campaign we found appealing in 2004. His harsh anti-corporate rhetoric would make it difficult to work with the business community to forge change.

Earth to Register:  The business community isn’t going to work with anyone to enact policies that cut into profits.  Edwards deserves credit for recognizing this, not attacks for telling the truth.  Not taking the opposition of business groups seriously is something that leads to legislative defeats.  Like, say, health care.

Unfortunately, for many Americans, perceptions of Clinton, now 60, remain stuck in a 1990s time warp. She’s regarded as the one who fumbled health-care reform as a key policy adviser to her husband, President Bill Clinton, or as a driving force in the bitter standoff between the “Clinton machine” and the “vast right-wing conspiracy.”

Her record in the Senate belies those images. Today, she’s widely praised for working across the aisle with Sam Brownback, Lindsey Graham and other Republicans.

Widely praised for what?  As far as I can tell she wrote a letter with Brownback, and I can’t think of any major legislation she has even fought for as a Senator.  Is it too much to ask the register what makes her such a great Senator, other than making friends with members of the former majority?

Determination to succeed and learning from her mistakes have been hallmarks of Clinton’s life. She grew up in Park Ridge, Ill., graduated from Wellesley College and earned a law degree from Yale. As first lady in Arkansas, she was both strategist and idealist, borne out by her commitment to children and families. As the nation’s first lady, she in essence spent eight years as a diplomat, traveling to more than 80 countries and advocating for human rights.

Right, learning from her mistakes.  Iran, meet Iraq.  And Bill Richardson actually spent time as a diplomat, as well as a Governor, Congressman, and energy secretary.  And in terms of the advantages that diplomatic experience brings, does anyone really believe that electing Clinton would do more good to our world image than Obama?

In the Senate, she has earned a reputation as a workhorse who does not seek the limelight. She honed knowledge of defense on the Senate Armed Services Committee. She has proactively served rural and urban New York and worked in the national interest, strengthening the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Clinton is tough. Tested by rough politics and personal trials, she’s demonstrated strength, resolve and resilience.

Translation:  She brings home the pork and votes like a hawk.  I don’t consider either of these admirable traits.  Apparently the Register does.

Can she inspire the nation? Clinton is still criticized in some quarters as being too guarded and calculating. (As president, when she makes a mistake, she should just say so.)

Of course she won’t, since she won’t admit to making a mistake on Iraq now.

Indeed, Obama, her chief rival, inspired our imaginations. But it was Clinton who inspired our confidence. Each time we met, she impressed us with her knowledge and her competence.

Once again, Dodd, Biden, Richardson?  Are they ignorant or incompetent in the Register’s eyes?

The times demand results. We believe as president she’ll do what she’s always done in her life: Throw herself into the job and work hard. We believe Hillary Rodham Clinton can do great things for our country.

So basically the entire endorsement is a paean to competence and experience, yet it is in support of the fourth (and arguably fifth) most experienced candidate.  It talks about her bipartisanship, but all of the three or four more experienced candidates also have worked in bipartisan ways during their careers.

In other words, the editorial just does not explain any actual reason they could have used to pick Clinton.  It comes down to the fact that Laura, Carolyn, Carol, Linda, Rox, and Andie liked Hillary better than all the other candidates.  How about that.

And yes, I do anticipate getting flamed for insinuating that the decision was based on gender.  Maybe next time the editorial board can try writing an endorsement that actually explains why they picked the candidate they did so we out here in the blogs won’t have to guess at it.  And it doesn’t help when they bring up the issue themselves and then don’t address it:

Some had already speculated that we would endorse Clinton because the editor, publisher and I are women. We didn’t begin with Clinton. Like many others, we were skeptical, and, even at the end, not all the women leaned toward Clinton. But she won us over, particularly in the editorial board meetings and debates. And we take our responsibility to Iowa and the nation too seriously to make a decision based on just gender or race or one issue.

So, basically, they can’t explain why they liked her, they just liked her.  I guess that’s not any different than how most Iowans pick their candidate, but one would expect better from Iowa’s paper of record.

Long story short:  Terrible editorial, would work great for an endorsement of Biden, Dodd, or Richardson, but doesn’t explain at all why to pick Clinton.  My guess is it was based on gender.

A deep, talented field in the Democratic caucus race offers both good and difficult choices.

No fewer than three candidates would, by their very identity, usher the nation to the doorstep of history. Should the party offer the nation the chance to choose its first woman president? Or its first black president? Or its first Latino president?

Or should the party place its trust in two senators, Joe Biden or Chris Dodd, who have served their nation with distinction for more than 30 years each? Or should it heed John Edwards’ clarion call to restore opportunity for all Americans?

Beyond their personal appeal, the candidates have outlined ambitious policy proposals on health care, education and rural policy. Yet these proposals do little to help separate the field. Their plans are similar, reflecting a growing consensus in the party about how to approach priority issues.

Their plans on Iraq are not at all similar, no matter how often Clinton claims she will “end” the Iraq war.  Did anyone at the Register even consider this issue?  I personally think it is kind of an important one.

The choice, then, comes down to preparedness: Who is best prepared to confront the enormous challenges the nation faces – from ending the Iraq war to shoring up America’s middle class to confronting global climate change?

The job requires a president who not only understands the changes needed to move the country forward but also possesses the discipline and skill to navigate the reality of the resistant Washington power structure to get things done.

That candidate is New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

From working for children’s rights as a young lawyer, to meeting with leaders around the world as first lady, to emerging as an effective legislator in her service as a senator, every stage of her life has prepared her for the presidency.

That covers three years, eight years, and seven years of her life – a total of 18 years, or 30%.  For some reason the register doesn’t think childhood, early adulthood, and middle-age don’t count as stages of your life.  Clinton herself obviously does, since she has attacked Obama for both a kindergarten essay and his time in Indonesia as a 10-year-old.

That readiness to lead sets her apart from a constellation of possible stars in her party, particularly Barack Obama, who also demonstrates the potential to be a fine president. When Obama speaks before a crowd, he can be more inspirational than Clinton. Yet, with his relative inexperience, it’s hard to feel as confident he could accomplish the daunting agenda that lies ahead.

Hard for you, maybe.  He has had mostly success in his endeavors at bringing people together to pass legislation, whereas Clinton has one huge failure and then a bunch of throwaway bills.  I don’t think reaching across the aisle counts for much when she is reaching across the do things like ban flag-burning.

And that’s just the comparison for Obama.  Clinton unquestioningly loses when compared to Richardson, Dodd, and Biden, who all have real accomplishments to their name.

Edwards was our pick for the 2004 nomination. But this is a different race, with different candidates. We too seldom saw the “positive, optimistic” campaign we found appealing in 2004. His harsh anti-corporate rhetoric would make it difficult to work with the business community to forge change.

Earth to Register:  The business community isn’t going to work with anyone to enact policies that cut into profits.  Edwards deserves credit for recognizing this, not attacks for telling the truth.  Not taking the opposition of business groups seriously is something that leads to legislative defeats.  Like, say, health care.

Unfortunately, for many Americans, perceptions of Clinton, now 60, remain stuck in a 1990s time warp. She’s regarded as the one who fumbled health-care reform as a key policy adviser to her husband, President Bill Clinton, or as a driving force in the bitter standoff between the “Clinton machine” and the “vast right-wing conspiracy.”

Her record in the Senate belies those images. Today, she’s widely praised for working across the aisle with Sam Brownback, Lindsey Graham and other Republicans.

Widely praised for what?  As far as I can tell she wrote a letter with Brownback, and I can’t think of any major legislation she has even fought for as a Senator.  Is it too much to ask the register what makes her such a great Senator, other than making friends with members of the former majority?

Determination to succeed and learning from her mistakes have been hallmarks of Clinton’s life. She grew up in Park Ridge, Ill., graduated from Wellesley College and earned a law degree from Yale. As first lady in Arkansas, she was both strategist and idealist, borne out by her commitment to children and families. As the nation’s first lady, she in essence spent eight years as a diplomat, traveling to more than 80 countries and advocating for human rights.

Right, learning from her mistakes.  Iran, meet Iraq.  And Bill Richardson actually spent time as a diplomat, as well as a Governor, Congressman, and energy secretary.  And in terms of the advantages that diplomatic experience brings, does anyone really believe that electing Clinton would do more good to our world image than Obama?

In the Senate, she has earned a reputation as a workhorse who does not seek the limelight. She honed knowledge of defense on the Senate Armed Services Committee. She has proactively served rural and urban New York and worked in the national interest, strengthening the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Clinton is tough. Tested by rough politics and personal trials, she’s demonstrated strength, resolve and resilience.

Translation:  She brings home the pork and votes like a hawk.  I don’t consider either of these admirable traits.  Apparently the Register does.

Can she inspire the nation? Clinton is still criticized in some quarters as being too guarded and calculating. (As president, when she makes a mistake, she should just say so.)

Of course she won’t, since she won’t admit to making a mistake on Iraq now.

Indeed, Obama, her chief rival, inspired our imaginations. But it was Clinton who inspired our confidence. Each time we met, she impressed us with her knowledge and her competence.

Once again, Dodd, Biden, Richardson?  Are they ignorant or incompetent in the Register’s eyes?

The times demand results. We believe as president she’ll do what she’s always done in her life: Throw herself into the job and work hard. We believe Hillary Rodham Clinton can do great things for our country.

So basically the entire endorsement is a paean to competence and experience, yet it is in support of the fourth (and arguably fifth) most experienced candidate.  It talks about her bipartisanship, but all of the three or four more experienced candidates also have worked in bipartisan ways during their careers.

In other words, the editorial just does not explain any actual reason they could have used to pick Clinton.  It comes down to the fact that Laura, Carolyn, Carol, Linda, Rox, and Andie liked Hillary better than all the other candidates.  How about that.

And yes, I do anticipate getting flamed for insinuating that the decision was based on gender.  Maybe next time the editorial board can try writing an endorsement that actually explains why they picked the candidate they did so we out here in the blogs won’t have to guess at it.  And it doesn’t help when they bring up the issue themselves and then don’t address it:

Some had already speculated that we would endorse Clinton because the editor, publisher and I are women. We didn’t begin with Clinton. Like many others, we were skeptical, and, even at the end, not all the women leaned toward Clinton. But she won us over, particularly in the editorial board meetings and debates. And we take our responsibility to Iowa and the nation too seriously to make a decision based on just gender or race or one issue.

So, basically, they can’t explain why they liked her, they just liked her.  I guess that’s not any different than how most Iowans pick their candidate, but one would expect better from Iowa’s paper of record.

The college republicans have exactly one woman out of their ten executive board members.  On the plus side for diversity, I am under the understanding that gay men are actually overrepresented.

Via Marc Ambinder, Everyone but Clinton and Dodd removed their names from the DNC-violating Michigan Primary Ballot.  (Update:  Iowa Independent had it first.)

Adam B. at Daily Kos has a very good post on what accepting public financing means for John Edwards.

I am going to try to summarize and correct where I think he is wrong.  He is a lawyer and I am not, but I still think I'm correct.

1.  The overall expenditure cap for Edwards will theoretically be a little over $42 million.  He can also spend up to 20% on top of that ($8.5 million or thereabouts) for fundraising expenses.  The definition of fundraising expenses is pretty broad, so he would certainly max that number out, giving him an effective cap of maybe $51 million.  Any money he spends on legal stuff (compliance, etc.) doesn't count at all.

2.  His Iowa maximum expenditure is theoretically going to be around $1.5 million.  However, this only counts media expenditures, mailings, overhead (rent, furnishings, utilities, phones) phone programs (telemarketing and/or robocalls), and in-state polling.  For media it only counts the percentage of the buy that will reach Iowans, for overhead it only counts 90% of expenditures, and of that remaining amount only 50% of it really counts.

To put that in equation form, it would look something like this:

(Iowa% * Media) + (90% * Overhead) + Paid Phones + Mailings + Polling <= $3 million.

That's a very low number, but then again Edwards can just ignore the rule and pay some fines later on (probably after the end of the general election, even).  Therefore any concern about the limit is misplaced, and he should have plenty of money to implement his early-state strategy.  Of course, early-state strategies rarely work.

So, while this isn't as bad as I first though, I'm still of the opinion that an Edwards nomination turns a Democratic advantage into a Republican advantage for the general election.  I would say he's still more electable than Kucinich and Gravel, but has dropped far below every one of the other five major candidates.

Maybe Rush Limbaugh was “high on his drugs again.”

We are now down to five serious Democratic candidates for President.

Commenter Ben Jacobs has some good analysis on how the caucus will likely work for college students.

Like I commented a while back, my one vote could be the most powerful in the state.

Every candidate other than John Edwards and Barack Obama has made a serious effort to lay claim to the “Experienced” mantle.  To my eyes though, only Chris Dodd and to a lesser extent Bill Richardson are actually running as a experience candidates.  Think fast – what is one legislative achievement that Hillary Clinton puts at the front of her campaign?  How about Joe Biden?  Now how about Chris Dodd?

If you're like me, you've heard Dodd talk at length about the Family and Medical Leave Act, which is an important piece of legislation that I'm sure will matter to me in twenty or thirty years when I actually start to think about having kids.  (Much like, you know, Chris Dodd.)  He's also apparently done enough for firefighters that they felt compelled to endorse him over any of likely nominees.  (For comparison, in 2004 they went with then-frontrunner John Kerry with their late-September nod.)

Bill Richardson doesn't talk so much about his legislative record (for good reason, considering NAFTA is probably the biggest feather in his cap), but he does bring up his impressive experience in negotiating with foreign leaders.  He also talks about progress in New Mexico under his watch, which is expected from any Governor running for President.

Maybe I'm just not paying enough attention.  It seems to me though that those looking for experience should be thinking about these two instead of Clinton or Biden. 

One of the possibilities that horseracers find exciting is the potential for a tight two-way or three-way race coming out of Super Tuesday.  Some people are just in it for the West Wing theatrics of a brokered convention, while others enjoy the poetic justice of all the early states being rendered meaningless and the surviving candidates fiercely battling for Montana's 15 and South Dakota's 14 pledges delegates on June 3rd.

What people usually miss in this discussion, though, is that most caucus/convention states don't officially select their delegates until their state conventions – the “results” from their precinct or county-level caucuses are really just estimates of what would happen were the convention held that day (and not even good estimates at that).  Delegates to the county convention can pick a different candidate to support than they did in their precinct, and state and district delegates have the opportunity to change their minds as well.

This means that, though Wikipedia would have you believe that the last delegate is pledged on June 3rd, in fact the last 18 delegates are selected on June 28th by the Idaho Democratic State Convention.  And directly preceding that?  Iowa.

Nebraska and Iowa (and no one else) hold their conventions on June 14th, electing 24 and 10 pledged delegates respectively (Most of Iowa's delegates are actually elected at the congressional district conventions).  The biggest post-primary prize is Minnesota, which I understand to elect all 72 of their pledged delegates at their June 7th convention.  Still, I find it pretty awesome that Iowa will be a critical state no matter how things shake out.

(Information on convention dates was collected here.)

The Iowa Independent catches new Iowa Senate Republican Leader Ron Wieck in a candid moment:

“Our primary function, our primary goal during the next session will be to do everything that we possibly can to regain the majority,” Wieck said.

So there you have it, folks.  Iowa Republicans aren't interested in doing what's best for Iowa.  They aren't interested in crafting law to better serve residents of the state or even of their own districts.  They are 100% devoted to exploiting every event, first and foremost, for political gain.

Senatorial failure and state wacko conservative Bill Salier (His current position as chair of Tom Tancredo's Iowa campaign neatly sums him up, really) is circulating a petition expressing his desire to see judge Robert Hanson impeached for declaring Iowa's gay marriage ban unconstitutional.  Because, as we all know, people like Bill Salier will be unable to help themselves from getting gay marriages if they become legal, and pretty soon that slippery slope will lead to him having three or four simultaneous gay marriages with his dogs.

Here is Mike Gronstal's response:

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal laughed when he heard about the effort.  

 And later:

Gronstal said Salier’s impeachment demand was not an honest attempt to oust Hanson. “Let’s be blunt: The likelihood of that happening is zero, and he knows it, and you know it.”

 House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy doesn't mince words either:

“This is a very emotional issue, but we are not interested in politicizing the judicial branch to help the failing presidential campaign of Tom Tancredo,” the Des Moines Democrat said in a statement. 

This is the perfect way to talk about this issue – go right back at the crybabies.  Major props to our elected leaders today.

Well that was fast.  Not two weeks after she signed a pledge stating that she wouldn't campaign in states scheduling invalid early primaries, Clinton is already on her way to breaking her pledge:

So, do five funders and “a discussion about her senior agenda at the Century Village West in Boca Raton” a constitute a “public appearance” that is campaigning?

You be the decider.

Mark Daley, her spokesman in Iowa, said “she is doing 5 fundraisers and a public meeting about seniors issues. This doesn’t violate the pledge as Florida is not in violation of the DNC rules at this time.”  He initially said Sept 30 is the deadline for them to set their date but said later he wasn’t sure of the deadline.

“Sen Clinton is very much committed to Iowa’s special role and that is why she signed the pledge,” he said.

Ah.  But the pledge she signed says nothing about deadlines or Sept. 30.

There isn't any question about it.  This clearly violates the letter and spirit of the pledge she signed. 

Something about how Chet Culver describes gay marriage always struck me as funny, but I could never quite put my finger on it.  I knew there was some dog whistle politics thing about it, and today with this whole new gay marriage flap I finally realized what it was.  Check out this quote:

“I have said personally that I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, and I’ve been consistent on that. At the same time, I think it’s important we let the judicial process work itself out here,” [Culver] said.

Do you notice it?  The guy never makes any judgement at all.  He believes that marriage is between a man and a woman, not necessarily that it should be.  And, I think we can all agree, he is correct for the state of Iowa.  Marriage is indeed only between a man and a woman.  And, until we let the judicial process work itself out, it will certainly remain between a man and a woman.  Culver doesn’t make a judgment one way or the other, because you can’t go from an “is” to an “ought.”  And while I’d certainly prefer that he come out and say that he thinks gay marriage is fine, he is coming about as close to the line as you can go without a real potential for negative repercussions.

Also, The Big Lug would be a pretty good name for a gay cover band.

We saw how lazy Fred Thompson was when he motored around the state fair in a golf cart, but with his new ad we now have an explanation:

No healthy person's head bobbles around that much.  Let's just say that it won't be too surprising when he flip flops on stem cell research.

Iowa True Blue is back and better than ever.  Especially this post.  Just letting you know in case you, like me, had abandoned it when it wasn't updated for months.

Not really, but it is entertaining watching Kos from DailyKos become further and further unhinged.  The latest?  Going apopleptic over a Bill Richardson joke.  Honestly, I don't know if his heart is going to make it through this election cycle. 

I'm trying to come up with a breakdown of the size of unions in Iowa, along with their endorsement history.  Here is what I have so far, but it might not be 100% accurate.  Unions report their size using different metrics to fluff up their apparent importance.  I've divided their reports into four categories – Membership, Employees Represented, Active and Retired Employees, and Families.  Because of the Right to Work (for less) law in Iowa, the membership is always going to be the smallest of these numbers, and probably the most important.  (Active and retired members would be helpful too, but no one reports that.)

Of course, it is not all that unlikely that some of the membership numbers are misrepresented, as well.  Still, this is a pretty good rough approximation of the most important labor unions in Iowa, at least for the top 5 or so, their sizes, and their track records.

If you can help me fill in the blanks, please email me at simonrstevenson@gmail.com.

(Inspired by this post from Open Left on the national breakdown.) 

Iowa,  Nevada,  New Hampshire and  South  Carolina Call on
Democratic Presidential Candidates to Sign Campaign  Pledge

Des  Moines, Las Vegas, Concord, Columbia  – The Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina Democratic Parties joined  together today in releasing a pledge that calls on the Presidential candidates  to preserve the traditional role of retail politics, socioeconomic and ethnic  diversity early in the nominating process.

The pledge, a one-page document that the early states  are asking the Presidential candidates to sign, respects the work done by the  DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee in 2006. The Committee created a pre-window  allowing for early contests in only Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina. This calendar was approved by the full DNC over a  year ago.

As Chairs of the four pre-window Democratic State  parties, we believe recent actions by a few states have sought to create  upheaval in the approved calendar and dismantle the thoughtful and deliberate  work previously agreed upon. As a party, we owe it to the people working  diligently to elect the next Democratic President of the  United  States  to conduct a sensible and timely nominating process, one that has already been  established.

“I believe the pledge we asked the Presidential  candidates to sign sends a strong message from  Iowa and our early-state companions that the pre-window  must be respected,” said Scott Brennan, Iowa Democratic Party State Chair. “We  need to bring order, predictability and common sense to the presidential  nominating calendar and focus on electing a President who will deal with the  ongoing war in Iraq, healthcare and renewable energy, instead of  focusing on selecting dates to hold our nominating  contests.”

Attached to this release is the letter sent to all  the Democratic Presidential candidates along with the pledge the  Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina Democratic Parties are asking the  candidates to sign.

In case you're wondering or have heard wrong, I checked with campaigsn that Clinton, Richardson, AND Obama are all returning Norman Hsu's donations.  The other interesting part of that story is all the donations he bundled from people who realistically wouldn't be able to afford the levels they were giving at.  Campaigns can't be expected to investigate every donor, though, and if and when more information comes out it seems clear that they are ready to do the right thing.

Of course, the mere fact that it is impossible for some people to contribute even a fraction of what others can seems more like an indictment of the system than of the donors.

Chase Martyn over at Iowa Independent notices Mike Huckabee climbing the charts in the latest ARG poll.  ARG is usually total crap, but this particular result is corroborated by a recent poll by the ONE campaign as well.  With Fred Thompson tanking before he even officially announces, and Huckabee going negative on President Bush, is he the Republican Howard Dean?

About fucking time.

Interestingly, the AP quotes Republican Senator Ron Wieck, a leading contender for Senate Minority Leader.

Here's the decision courtesy of KCCI.  The key quote:

The court concludes that there are no genuine issues of material fact and that Plaintiffs [the six homosexual couples] are entitled to judgement as a matter of law but Defendant is not.  Because 595.2(1) violates Plaintiff's due process and equal protection rights for the aforementioned reasons including, but not limited to, the absence of a rational relationship to the achievement of any legitimate governmental interest, the Court concludes it is unconstitutional and invalid.

Not Iowa related (thank God) but if you're like me you'll find this article really interesting.

Wyoming Republicans just moved to January 5th.

Wyoming selects its delegates at county conventions and the state convention, rather than using a caucus or primary system.  This means that Gardner could declare them to be dissimilar enough not to trigger the New Hampshire law.  It's also possible that the legitimate early state Republican parties can work together to force a boycott of Wyoming.  My guess is that this won't end up changing anything.

The normal avenue of attack from Iowa and New Hampshire don't work against Wyoming though – it has the lowest population of any state, so campaigning there would be about as one-on-one as it gets.  It is geographically large, but then so is Iowa for its population.  If that is the problem then you might as well have Delaware and Rhode Island first every year.  It isn't a swing state, but then the caucusgoers in Iowa and primary voters in New Hampshire don't tend to represent swing voters anyway.

What do you think – minus the linecutting in this particular instance, would Wyoming be a legitimate state for pre-window status?

The smart money is on January 3rd.

David Yepsen covered most of the bases in his column yesterday, but here are a couple more reasons:

• Florida isn't backing down.  With their jump the South Carolina Democrats will likely follow their Republican statemates and go on the 19th of January, and Michigan will feel justified in violating the DNC scheduling rules as well.
• New Hampshire SOS Bill Gardner wants to go on a Tuesday.  While the New Hampshire reworked their law so that he can put it on any day just so long as it is the first primary.  In case you're just tuning in, Gardner is the God of the Primary in New Hampshire.  Even if Michigan backs off, the latest Tuesday available is January 8th.

If New Hampshire is on the 8th, then legally we can go no earlier than the 31st of December.  Fat chance.  Since December is basically out of the picture barring further excitement, the only possible dates are the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th, and the earlier the better.  The 2nd will be ruled out as too close to New Year's Day, although really anyone who hasn't slept off their hangover from drinking 43 hours before is probably not a likely caucus attendee anyway.  The 3rd seems like the sweet spot between giving people at least a little time to think about politics again and giving the winners a measurable bump in New Hampshire.

I'm serious.  He said that.

Here's a joke one of my friends who would probably get in trouble if I said his name told me:

Did you hear that Tammy Duckworth isn't going to run for Congress again?

Yeah, it's too bad – she was a decent fundraiser, and she sure gave one hell of a stump speech.

Get it?

The true agenda of the left:

The Iowa State Fair has come and gone, and with it the only non-scientific poll that Ron Paul supporters weren't able to freep.  I am of course referring to the infamous “Cast Your Kernel” table set up by WHO 13, where fair attendees were able to drop a kernel of corn into the jar of the candidate they wanted to see as our next President.  If you wanted to you could probably go cast a kernel every few hours, but the nature of the event would make it difficult and costly to really stuff the poll.

The results on the Democratic side ended up very similar to caucus polling, suggesting that either most caucus polls are basically sampling the general population of Iowa rather than likely-caucusgoers, or that only likely caucus-goers attend the Iowa State Fair.  The Republican totals meanwhile either show a tremendous Huckabee bounce after his second place finish in the Ames Straw Poll or that the heavy presence of Fair Tax people at the fair ended up influencing this vote too.

The most important thing of all from this exercise though is the total number cast for each side:  21,438 for Democrats and 14,010 for Republicans.  That's better than 60%/40% for the Dems, and shows that even among the rural-and-probably-conservative-leaning Iowa State Fair crowd most people would like to see a Democratic President.

I wasn't crazy enough to wake up for the debate, but I did watch the rerun on C-Span.  The thing I noticed most was the number of times they cut to Elizabeth Kucinich in the audience.  I think she might have actually gotten more face time than her husband, the candidate.  Certainly her legs got more attention from ABC than Dennis's new plan to nationalize the banking industry in the face of the subprime mortgage crisis.  I guess ABC didn't want MSNBC to corner the market on blatant sexism.

George Stephanopoulos mostly stayed out of the way of the candidates, but seemed to deliberately steer the conversation to either Obama or Clinton, trying desperately to get them to attack each other or to at least get the other candidates to attack them.  He succeeded in at least getting nearly all the post-debate coverage to focus on the two of them, but I guess he is an old Clinton hand so what do you expect.

The actual issue discussion for the debate was pretty good.  While nailing the big three down on just how many troops they would leave in Iraq has been difficult, we did get an idea of who has given the topic much thought in terms of logistics (Biden, Clinton, Richardson:  A lot; Obama, Edwards:  Not much).  No one gave any indication of their residual force goals, leaving Richardson as still the only serious candidate who really wants to bring home all the troops.

Merit pay for education was discussed with candidates coming down in no particularly predictable way, other than me remembering Obama's answer as the one that seemed the most reasonable.  He doesn't want to impose it on teachers, but thinks that it is a good idea if they can be convinced to buy in.  Everyone else just talks about paying teachers more, which would be nice of course but didn't answer the question and is generally more of a state issue anyway.

Aside from some blah blahing about Nuclear hypotheticals where Clinton got caught attacking Obama for something she herself had advocated just months before, there wasn't much else of substance discussed at the debate.  Clinton, Obama, and Kucinich all had pretty good laugh lines, and Richardson avoided looking like a homeless man brought on stage for sport, which qualifies as a debate “win” for him.  Mike Gravel, on the other hand, might actually be a homeless man masquerading as a candidate.  Someone should look into this.

Obviously Christopher Rants is the biggest impediment to extending the civil rights code to cover the GLBT community, but there isn’t much we can do about him (other than send even fewer Republicans back to the state house next year).  There are some legislators that need to hear from concerned Iowans about their opposition or indecision on the bill currently bottled up in the house.

These Democrats are either currently planning to vote no or refuse to take a stand one way or the other:

Dolores Mertz

Dawn Pettengill

Brian Quirk

Paul Shomshor

These GOP representatives are believed to be supportive:

Chuck Gipp (Retiring in 2008)

Linda Miller (Voted for it in committee)

Bill Schickel

Tami Weincek

You can call all of them at (515) 281-3221.

This is urgent – if anything is going to happen on this bill, it is going to happen in the next couple of days.  GLBTers have been a model team players for Iowa Democrats, supporting our candidates without hesitation and with very little demanded in return.  While Democrats have been successful in the minority at stopping a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, now that we are in the majority we ought to be working to make Iowa a more equal state.

It’s not like gay activists are being unreasonable here.  They aren’t asking for gay marriage, or even civil unions.  Just one tiny change that says that it is wrong to discriminate against someone based on their sexual orientation.  The fact that there is any difficulty at all getting Democrats to vote for that is depressing, and the fact that not one single Republican is willing to stand up for the principle is appalling.

Seriously, it’s great news that Johnson County Republican Chairman Sanders finds Google useful.

We all know that he is the frontrunner in Iowa, but it turns out that Edwards is popular all over the midwest.  Obama is surprisingly strong in the west (anyone have any idea why?), while Clinton is weaker in these two regions.  That’s unfortunate, since those are the two swing regions in the country.  We’re going to win the northeast for sure in 2008.  We’re probably going to lose most of the south, no matter how big our overall victory.  It’s states like New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and, yes, Iowa that are going to make the difference if I’m wrong and it does turn out to be a competitive race.  And in that kind of a fight, it looks like Hillary would be our weakest candidate.

There is nothing more satisfying than looking at the current field of Republican candidates.  Cyclone Conservative has a great list on his blog – my favorite is Millie Howard, whose website is like a bad myspace page and who has apparently been running since 1992.

It’s hard for me to get too worked up about who gets the Democratic nomination, because any one of them is going to win in a landslide.  Jesus, people – the Republican’s best candidate is a cross-dresser and proud adulterer whose (third, if you count the time he married his cousin) wife murders dogs.  This is their best guy!  It’s going to be a fun cycle.

Many people have taken the 2004 Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary results as proof positive that the candidate winning here will develop enough momentum to carry him or her through the entire nominating process.  While that obviously happened with John Kerry’s dramatic turnaround in New Hampshire following his win here, it is by no means a rule.

Historically, Iowa and New Hampshire have almost always differed in their choices.  Not counting sitting Presidents or Vice Presidents, Jimmy Carter was the last time that Iowa and New Hampshire agreed on anyone for either Democrats or Republicans (and technically Iowa voted for Undeclared over Carter).  If anyone other than Kerry had won the Iowa caucus in 2004, that streak would almost certainly have remained intact.

No, what 2004 taught us was that soft support in New Hampshire never really goes away.  Kerry was the default frontrunner there for half of 2003, with Dean eclipsing him around the middle of the year.  Even after moving all of his resources into Iowa, Kerry was still polling in second place.

After winning in Iowa, those 25%-30% of people who supported him earlier in the year suddenly remembered that they still supported him.  That, combined with an important but not overwhelming general boost from winning the caucus, led to his win there.

If John Edwards had won the Iowa Caucus, Howard Dean would have probably picked up New Hampshire, and the 2004 nomination fight would have been a lot more interesting (I’m just going to say for fun that Edwards probably would have ended up winning – he’s just a better all around candidate than Dean).  Instead we saw that Kerry rebounded, and took the combined momentum of back to back wins into a dominating performance throughout the rest of the season.

What does this tell us about 2008?  Right now Hillary Clinton is the John Kerry of New Hampshire, with high natural support that is persisting even with other campaigns active in the state.  If she exceeds expectations in Iowa, she should recapture those voters even if they stray in the meantime.  She is also much less likely than Dean to dramatically underperform in Iowa, which means that her New Hampshire supporters won’t be as shaken as Dean’s no doubt were.

2008 is going to be a lot different than 2004 though, with all three first tier candidates regularly polling in the double digits in early primary states.  Both Edwards and Obama have the potential to string together back to back wins, though it seems unlikely right now that a surprise Iowa showing by any of the second tier candidates would lead to dramatic movement in New Hampshire.  It’s still early, but with the campaigns moving as fast as they are this kind of analysis is appropriate now when it wouldn’t have been in February 2003.  Al Gore would shake things up, but other than that, or someone (probably Obama) making a dramatic gaffe, it looks like our field is pretty well set.

Does anyone else think that it is a big mistake for Obama to not release his numbers, given that everyone else has?  He is more or less being cut out of the discussion right now, and unless he has actually beat Hillary he’s not going to get a huge boost when he does (and even then he would get the same boost now and drown out her positive press.)

If Iowa is any indication, the bumbling Obama campaign likely has no idea how much money they raised this quarter, and won’t know for sure until the deadline or even after.  The checks are spread all over someone’s desk – on top of their list of important phone messages, no doubt.

I am also surprised that the media has accepted that $26 million figure from Clinton uncritically, when a healthy chunk could be useful only in the general election.  Mitt Romney may end up being the highest fundraiser of all the candidates on either side.  He should also see a more dramatic second quarter drop than anyone else.

Winners:

John Edwards – He stays in the first tier, when bad fundraising could have knocked him out of the competition.

Bill Richardson – Raises the most by far of the second tier candidates.  This guy is doing everything right, and has a good chance if one of the top candidates stumbles.

Losers:

Chris Dodd and Joe Biden – Come on guys, you have some sort of national networks, and you’re getting killed by the governor of a tiny state?  You might as well drop out now, because neither of you are going anywhere.

Obama – For not having his shit together.  Not getting talked about is as good as not raising money.

Hillary (maybe) – We’ll know better on the 15th, but her inability to put serious distance between her opponents and herself in fundraising means that the whole “inevitability” thing is disappearing fast.  As far as I’m concerned, general election money raised at this point is gimmickry.  It’s not like people who max out to you in the primary aren’t going to go back and donate to you in the general anyway.

I know that VOICE has nearly universal support in the blogging world and among activists, but the truth is that it is definitely not happening this cycle and unlikely to happen in the future without a serious accounting of how Iowa campaigns are run, both by Democrats and Republicans.

Exhibit 1:  Mike Gronstal’s 2006 third quarter campaign finance report (pdf).

Exhibit 2:  Mary Lundby’s 2006 third quarter campaign finance report (pdf).

Both of these show six-figure donations and expenditures for Senators not even up for election in 2006.  They don’t represent even close to all the centralized money in Iowa politics, either.

The reason you see so much party-line activity in Iowa politics is because all the money is controlled by leadership.  If you cross them too much you can expect to have a very difficult time raising money in your next election, and everyone hates to raise money.  If you are a team player though your seat will be defended and you can focus more on shaking hands and kissing babies.

If Iowa implemented VOICE, leadership’s power would disappear.  Naturally, then, it is going to be very hard to convince Gronstal or Murphy to buy into something that will work to marginalize them.  And with Republicans temperamentally opposed to any sort of campaign finance reform, there is next to no chance of getting this passed without their support.

I don’t see VOICE being passed by 2008, nor necessarily should it be.  Ed Fallon isn’t our governor.  Elections have consequences.  But we should keep pushing it this year, and we should do our best to make it a voting issue in 2008.  With the Presidential races expected to combine to over a billion dollars, we’ve got the context for it.  With caucus coverage more expansive than ever, we’ve got the microphone.  And with luck and a little work, in 2008 we’ll have the votes.

Simon Stevenson is the pseudonym of a student at Iowa State University who has been involved Democratic politics for the past year.  His primary interests are economics and statistics.  He’s also a notorious gossip hound, so drop him a line at simonrstevenson@gmail.com.  Oppo dumping is encouraged!

I cannot believe that this poll by the University of Iowa made news.  I cannot even believe that the University of Iowa would let it be published under their name.

According to it, the biggest winner after the announcement of Elizabeth Edward’s cancer was Hillary Clinton, and the biggest loser was Barack Obama.

If you read all the way to the bottom of the press release, you find out the sample size of the poll for likely Democratic caucus-goers (and God only knows how they determined that status).  That size?  128.  They report a margin of error of 6% on that sample, though by my calculations it should be more like 8.7%.  Even under the generous assumption that this sample was divided exactly in half for pre- and post- announcement polling, that leaves the before and after numbers with a margin of about 12%.

You know what that means?  Nothing at all can be concluded from this poll.  Nothing.  You’d think a University would be able to figure that out, but maybe they don’t teach statistics 101 to Political Science Ph.Ds.

It’s being held up in the house by around ten Democratic legislators who are all either firm no votes or on the fence.  A disproportionate number of them are women, suggesting that Speaker Pat Murphy’s strong-arm tactics might not work so well on legislators of the fairer sex.  Whatever the problem with getting these legislators on board, it almost goes without saying that they are wrong for holding out.  Almost.

If one were feeling charitable, one might say that they are merely confused.  If Fair Share is about people paying a fair share for the specific services provided them by the union, then why would there be any opposition to amendments designed to restrict the fee to the specific costs of representing individual workers?  Good question.

In truth, Fair Share is as much about employees paying their fair share as Right To Work is about people having the right to work.  The ability for unions to control who could or couldn’t work for any particular employer ended with the Taft-Hartley act, way back in 1947.  Now, even in the most union-friendly set up available to states, employees can be required to join a union after they are hired but cannot be fired merely because the union rejects them for one reason or another.  Everyone has a right to work to work in every state for every employer as far as unions are concerned, so there is no reason for Iowa to restrict unions further.

What this is really about is whether Iowa should be an open-shop state (no) or a union-shop state (yes).  Unions are a good thing, and unions should be stronger.  Union-shop states have much higher overall wages – $6000 more for the median household income.  While their economies may not be growing as quickly, they tend to already be strong.  Out of the twenty poorest states in the country, fourteen are open shop states.  That’s bad by itself, but even worse when you realize there are only twenty-two open shop states total.  Out of the top ten richest states, nine are union shop.  (This data brought to you today by the National Right To Work Foundation, the U.S. Census and Math.)

Most of this is academic though, since enough of the legislators holding out signed pledges that they would support Fair Share legislation if it came up.  Anyone who goes back on their word now – I’m looking at you Doris Kelley – deserves a vigorous (and I suspect well-funded) primary in 2008.

“Town Hall” in quotes in the title because, not unlike a Bush ’04 event, questions are being screened.  The theme of the town hall is “health care,” so it makes some sense to screen out the sensible priority spammers, but don’t look for any tough questions about her failed handling of the health care initiative during the first Clinton administration either.  If you watch it and feel like the questions are a little too softball, let Jennifer Wlach at ABC know what you thought.

From Mark Schmidt at The American Prospect:

One that might be of interest to liberals thinking about whether to support Clinton is “Labor Relations.” In this section, Senator Clinton’s top advisor [Mark Penn]’s company says, “Companies cannot be caught unprepared by Organized Labor’s coordinated campaigns whether they are in conjunction with organizing or contract negotiating … That is why we have developed a comprehensive communications approach for clients when they face any type of labor situation.”

Jerome Armstrong of MyDD (and the Dean campaign) points out that Robert Gibbs, Obama’s spokesman, worked for a sleazy anti-Dean 527 that refused to reveal it’s funding during the 2004 caucuses.  What an asshole.  This is the same guy who attacked Clinton yesterday for “Lincoln Bedroom” issues, which is a right wing smear if ever I’ve heard one.  I’m with Jerome – if this is the kind of people Obama is going to hire, his politics of hope are really just politics as usual.