Like Cityview’s Civic Skinny, I’ve been hearing some chatter about former Governor Terry Branstad considering another gubernatorial bid. Branstad ruled out running for governor in May but has made ambiguous comments more recently. He may be encouraged by The Iowa Republican poll’s finding that he leads Governor Chet Culver 53 percent to 37 percent in a hypothetical matchup. In a hypothetical Republican primary, Branstad has 35 percent support to 31 percent for Bob Vander Plaats, with 19 percent of respondents unsure and all other candidates in single digits.

I’m skeptical about a Branstad resurgence. First, I doubt he would give up his prominent, lucrative job as president of Des Moines University. Second, the Iowa electorate has become much more Democratic than it was in Branstad’s day.

Third, I don’t think the Republican field would clear for him. I am not convinced the evangelical conservatives who were his base of support in the 1980s and 1990s will remain loyal. Branstad appointed two of the seven Iowa Supreme Court justices who cleared the way for same-sex marriage rights, including Mark Cady, who wrote the Varnum v Brien decision. Moreover, he declined to condemn those justices after the ruling.

Most important, Branstad nearly lost his own party’s primary as a three-term incumbent in 1994. There’s a reason so many elected Republicans, like then State Auditor Richard Johnson, backed Congressman Fred Grandy in that race. The phrases “two sets of books” and “cooking the books” may ring a bell with Bleeding Heartland readers of a certain age.

I don’t expect Branstad to run for governor again, but if he does he should expect his management of state finances to come under a lot more scrutiny. Likely candidate Chris Rants told The Iowa Republican blog this month,

I am worried that we are backsliding to those days in the late 80’s when the governor and legislature fudged the numbers to look good for an election. They didn’t abide by generally acceptable accounting principles. That led to bigger problems and late payments to local school districts.

It’s frankly a joke to portray Branstad as more fiscally responsible than Culver. Branstad managed this state during tough times by keeping two sets of books and digging us into a hole. Under Culver, Iowa still has a healthy reserve fund and a AAA bond rating. He has made budget cuts when necessary and is ready to do so again if need be after final revenue figures come in.

Share any thoughts about the governor’s race in this thread.

UPDATE: Fascinating comment thread under Craig Robinson’s post at The Iowa Republican. It didn’t take long for someone to post news clippings from 1994 about Branstad “cooking the books” and Johnson endorsing Grandy. Also, I noticed a few social conservatives predicting that people would not abandon Vander Plaats for Branstad.  

The Iowa Republican blog continues to release results from the poll it commissioned on the 2010 governor’s race. Last week we learned about Governor Chet Culver’s approval, favorability and re-elect numbers. This week we’ve seen some numbers about same-sex marriage and a hypothetical rerun of the 2006 race. I’ll have more to say about the wording of this poll’s questions in a future post. (Todd Dorman identified a glaring problem with the marriage question here.)

In today’s installment, Craig Robinson highlights results from a straightforward question:

Question: If the Republican primary for Governor was held today, who would you vote for between Chris Rants, Bob Vander Plaats, Paul McKinley, Rod Roberts, Jerry Behn, and Christian Fong?

   Republican Primary Voters

   Bob Vander Plaats: 46%

   Don’t Know: 27%

   Chris Rants: 14%

   Neither/Other: 5%

   Paul McKinley: 3%

   Christian Fong: 3%

   Rod Roberts: 1%

   Refused: 1%

   Jerry Behn: 0.2%

   (Republican Primary Voters N=394 – Margin of Error ±5.0%)

Join me after the jump for some early thoughts about Bob Vander Plaats’ front-runner status.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey has been saying for months that he was leaning toward running for re-election rather than for governor in 2010. On Saturday he made it official.

I announced to the crowd at Bill’s BBQ Bash that I will run for re-election as Iowa Secy of Ag in 2010.

I’ve long felt that Northey would be a long-shot for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, having gone on record supporting a gas tax increase. Even if Northey won the GOP nomination, I think that with no base of support in eastern Iowa population centers, he would have been quite an underdog against Governor Chet Culver.

I’m curious to see whether Northey continues to employ the high-profile campaign staffers he hired in May, or whether they will jump to a different Republican gubernatorial contender.

Northey will be heavily favored against Francis Thicke, the most likely Democratic candidate for secretary of agriculture. Thicke is highly qualified and articulate, however, and has the potential to energize parts of the Democratic base who are dissatisfied with Culver and our statehouse leaders.

Now that Northey has ruled out running for governor, he will be able to focus more on his current job. I wonder whether anything will come of his working group on farmland protection. Northey announced plans to create it last August during his keynote address to the annual meeting of 1000 Friends of Iowa. However, the working group has only met once, in December 2008.

Iowa has been losing prime farmland at an alarming rate in the last few decades. Northey could do a real service for our country’s food security if he would identify and advocate for some farmland protection strategies that have been successful in other states.

UPDATE: Northey is searching for ways to save money at the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, which was allocated about 15 percent less in the 2010 budget than in the fiscal year that just ended.

I see a Chet Culver campaign ad in our future after reading this Radio Iowa story. The non-partisan U.S. Government Accountability Office examined how 16 states are using stimulus funds from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act:

“We found that Iowa has a foundation of safeguards to help ensure the funds are being spent in the way that they were intended and to minimize the fraud, waste and abuse,” [GAO Iowa division head Lisa] Shames said. The G.A.O. report also praises Iowa for setting up an Accountability and Transparency Board.

“We found that there were many good features in place and that bodes well in terms of the Recovery Act dollars and to ensure that they’re going to create the jobs and retain the jobs that the law intended,” Shames said.

Click here for the summary of the G.A.O’s report on Iowa. From that page you can download the full report (a 40-page pdf file). Reports on other states are available here.

Did I mention that unlike many states, Iowa is fully utilizing stimulus funds intended to help unemployed people?

And that compared to many states, Iowa has wisely invested its stimulus funds for transportation?

We’ll be hearing more about this next year in response to Republicans attacks against Governor Culver. No doubt ragbrai08 is right, and some version of this Tom Vilsack re-election message from 2002 will return to Iowa airwaves in 2010:

My opponent suggests in negative ad after ad that a bunch of problems that have struck virtually every state in the nation are somehow unique to Iowa. That’s his whole campaign. The truth is that in Iowa, we’ve met that challenge better than most.

Though unemployment remains a significant problem in Iowa, our unemployment rate is well below the national average during this recession. Our state officials are doing a good job allocating federal funds intended to save and create jobs, and the I-JOBS program will save and create additional jobs.

Don’t expect Iowa Republicans to pay attention to the G.A.O.’s findings. They never got the point of the stimulus anyway.

Governor Chet Culver hired John Frew as chief of staff yesterday to replace Charlie Krogmeier, whom Culver appointed head of the Department of Human Services in May. Frew goes way back in Iowa politics, having worked for Senator John Culver (the governor’s father) and managed Tom Harkin’s first Senate campaign in 1984. Frew will begin as chief of staff in late September. Until then, Culver has named his general counsel Jim Larew as acting chief of staff. After the jump I’ve posted a news release from the governor’s office with more background on Frew and Larew.

Also on Thursday, the Culver/Judge re-election campaign announced that

A long-time and respected political strategist is returning to Iowa to help Governor Chet Culver’s campaign committee prepare for 2010. Teresa Vilmain will serve as a senior advisor to the Chet Culver Committee.

“Teresa Vilmain is not only synonymous with well-run, well-organized political campaigns around the nation, but she knows and loves Iowa,” said Governor Culver. “As we start to look ahead to 2010, Teresa will play a leading role in helping us prepare our effort to reach out to Iowans about the important issues we are working on in our state.”

I’ve posted the full text of that news release, containing more background on Vilmain, after the jump. Some highlights: she was deputy manager of Harkin’s 1984 campaign and general consultant to both of Tom Vilsack’s winning gubernatorial campaigns. Vilsack had to come from behind to beat Jim Ross Lightfoot in 1998 and faced re-election in 2002, which was a challenging national environment for Democrats.

First Lady Mari Culver was in Mason City on Thursday

to talk about state grant funding for shelters for domestic abuse, emergencies and the homeless and the need to apply for it soon.

Available through the $10 million Public Service Shelter Grant Program, a part of the Iowa Jobs Program (IJobs), the funding is for construction, expansion or upgrades. […]

Funding can be used for deferred maintenance issues, additional security measures and expansion, said Culver […]

I recommend reading the whole article in the Mason City Globe-Gazette for more on the pressing needs of Iowa’s crisis shelters. Click here to listen to the first lady’s comments about this program in an interview with KGLO radio. Applications for this portion of the I-JOBS money are due next Wednesday, July 15. Click the link for the Iowa Finance Authority’s contact information. Republicans can criticize the I-JOBS borrowing all they want, but this is another example of how I-JOBS will improve services that Iowans need.

Finally, I want to call your attention to a new poll that The Iowa Republican blog has been highlighting this week. I will have more to say about the poll in a future post, but for now, here are some important facts:

This statewide poll conducted by Voter/Consumer Research found that 53 percent of Iowans approve of the job Culver is doing as governor, while 41 percent disapprove. Furthermore, 48 percent of respondents had a favorable impression of Culver, while 41 percent had an unfavorable impression.

Of course, The Iowa Republican blog is putting a Republican spin on these results. Criag Robinson headlined one post “53 percent of Iowans want a new governor,” based on a question suggesting that 36 percent said Culver deserves re-election, while 53 percent said it’s time to give someone else the chance. He also touted the findings on some issue-based questions that had ridiculously biased wording.

The bottom line is this: in a Republican-commissioned poll, Culver has a 53 percent approval rating and a 48 percent favorability rating. Also, the statewide survey sample contains “35% Republicans, 37% Democrats, 25% Independent or declined to state, and 2% other/don’t know.” I’m looking into how that compares with the proportion of Democrats and Republicans who have cast ballots in recent Iowa general elections.

I’ll write more about this poll when The Iowa Republican releases more of the findings.

LATE UPDATE: Forgot to mention this story:

Gov. Chet Culver on Thursday directed state revenue officials to delay any enforcement against taxpayers who claimed disaster-related credits on their state tax returns that later were not validated by Iowa lawmakers.[…]

The federal changes approved for 2008 offered income-tax deductions, exemptions and other advantages for such items as disaster-related expenses, business equipment depreciation, education-related expenses, tuition and fees and certain sales tax charges. The state, however, did not retroactively adopt those deductions as part of the state tax code.

On Wednesday, Culver asked the state Department of Revenue to provide him “any and all options” to address the issue, and one day later he sent a letter to agency director Mark Schuling directing him to “hold off specific enforcement” for taxpayers who may have claimed federal disaster relief provisions on their state returns.

“I am aware that changes must be made by the Iowa Legislature in order for these same disaster relief provisions to be available for Iowa tax purposes,” Culver said in the letter. “This will require legislation in 2010 to couple with the federal law changes that will benefit those individuals and businesses directly impacted by the 2008 disasters.”

Given Barack Obama’s Iowa caucus breakthrough and convincing general-election victory here, it was only a matter of time before someone else built an Iowa campaign around his strategy. I didn’t count on a Republican being the first person to try, though.

Enter Christian Fong, who made the Republican race for governor a lot more interesting last week.

Some early impressions of Fong’s personal narrative, political rhetoric and electoral prospects are after the jump.  

Iowa’s 2009 fiscal year ended on June 30, and if the Legislative Service Agency’s projections are correct, net revenues will fall well short of what legislators anticipated when they approved the 2009 budget. The Legislative Service Agency puts the possible shortfall at $161 million, whereas Iowa’s budget director Dick Oshlo says things don’t look that bad:

Total gross receipts for FY 2009 are $6.921 billion, which is only $57.7 million lower than the Revenue Estimating Conference’s official estimate of $6.979 billion.

Dick Oshlo, state budget director, said: “With yesterday marking the end of the fiscal year, we now know the state’s gross receipts for FY 2009. While the state’s tax receipts deteriorated more than expected during the last two months of the fiscal year due to the ongoing effects of the national economic recession, this is a manageable number. Fortunately, receipts improved during the final days of June.  At this point we see no legitimate reason for a special session to balance the state’s budget.”

Meanwhile, Republican State Representative and gubernatorial candidate Chris Rants says Governor Chet Culver should call legislators back to the capitol:

“It is time to quit worrying about the political ramifications of admitting that we have a deficit and get about the business of fixing it,” Rants said. “Gov. [Tom] Vilsack put aside partisan politics and called a special session in 2001 and 2002 to balance the budget after revenues declined. Culver needs to do the same.”

I wasn’t living here during Vilsack’s first term and don’t know how bad the projected shortfalls were in those years, compared to what Iowa is facing now. Culver’s office argues that we won’t know the real picture for a while yet:

The LSA’s figures are just estimates, and true net receipts won’t be known until September when the Department of Management closes the books on the fiscal year 2009 budget.

There is also revenue that will be collected within the next 90 days but allocated to the fiscal year that ended Tuesday, money that will improve the state’s financial situation and is not included in the LSA projections.

Culver Press Secretary Troy Price told the Iowa Independent last month that until accruals, expenditures and refunds are all taken into account there is no way of getting an accurate picture of the 2009 budget.

Like Chris Woods, I felt a special session was warranted last year to address flood relief and recovery issues, but that never happened. Incidentally, many Iowa Republicans opposed calling the legislature back in response to the flooding.

I’d like to hear from others in the Bleeding Heartland community. Should Culver call legislators back in light of the possible budget deficit?

I’ll update this post later today after Culver’s press conference with State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald. According to Lynn Campbell of IowaPolitics.com, they will discuss the budget and “new info” on state finances.

LATE UPDATE: Forgot to update yesterday. As you can see from ragbrai08’s comment below, Vilsack called a special session in October 2001. Like Culver, he waited until all the numbers were in (rather than calling the legislature back shortly after June 30). It’s quite misleading for Rants to suggest Culver is being less prudent here than Vilsack.

At yesterday’s press conference, Culver said he is “very confident” the 2009 budget is balanced. He and Fitzgerald emphasized Iowa’s AAA bond rating:

“In a very partisan way, the Republicans running for governor are misleading people,” Culver says. “…So I think it’s very important to make sure that we hold those people accountable that are misleading Iowans. It’s just not fair. It’s not appropriate and there’s no need for alarm.” […]

Culver is also stressing that the Wall Street firm “Standard and Poors” just “reaffirmed” Iowa’s triple-A bond rating.

“What a timely testimonial from (Standard and Poors.)  They’re just looked at our books inside and out,” Culver says.  “They’ve looked at our debt.  They’ve looked at our revenue streams.  They’ve determined…that Iowa is one of the best-managed states in America.”

That triple-A bond rating (the highest on the Standard and Poors scale) means Iowa will be able to borrow money for the I-JOBS program at favorable interest rates.

Bob Krause, who is running for U.S. Senate next year against five-term incumbent Chuck Grassley, was in the news last week with some sensible comments about health care reform. He encouraged Grassley to demand higher reimbursement rates for Iowa health care providers in exchange for dropping his opposition to a public option in the Senate bill:

Iowa ranks 49th in Medicare reimbursement, Krause said. That makes it hard for the state to attract and retain health professionals, according to various state officials, including Grassley, who has long advocated for reforms in the reimbursement system.

“This has hurt the quality of medical care in Iowa as some doctors refuse Medicare patients because of the low reimbursement rate,” Krause said. “On the flip side, continuing with only private providers for health insurance coverage hurts Iowans because it locks in a monopoly.” More than 80 percent of the Iowa health insurance market in Iowa is controlled by just two companies.

A public option would provide competition for the private insurers, Krause said.

Krause is obviously right on both counts, but don’t expect Grassley to listen. He is the leading Republican voice against the public option and has an ally in Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat whose health care reform plan may be worse than the insurance industry’s.

Iowa Democrats have given Grassley a pass for too many years. I appreciate Krause’s commitment to running a real race against him. I encourage you to donate to his campaign and get to know him better by checking out his website. Blog for Iowa’s three-part interview with Krause is a good read as well. Here are the links:

part 1 (a bit of personal history, Iowa Democratic Veterans’ Caucus, plus views on gay rights and progressivism)

part 2 (about Krause’s campaign strategy and views on the environment and Judge Sonia Sotomayor)

part 3 (about health care reform, media reform and RAGBRAI)

This thread is for any comments about the 2010 Senate race in Iowa. How could Krause use his campaign funds most effectively? Which issues should he emphasize in making a case against Grassley?

Today, the right-leaning news aggregator The Bean Walker ran a headline: THE CAMPAIGN KICKS OFF TODAY. The link and reference refer to a GOP fundraiser in Sac County this morning that brought together four likely candidates for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Those men are Rep. (and former Speaker of the House) Chris Rants of Sioux City; 2006 Lt. Governor candidate Bob Vander Plaats of Sioux City;Rep. Rob Roberts of Carroll; and Sen. Jerry Behn of Boone.

While the Republican primary is still months away, this unofficial first step on the long road to the nomination seems a good place to start with some early odds on the eventual winner.

Rep. Chris Rants (R-Sioux City)     3:1

Rants is the Hillary Clinton of this race. He's been a figurehead and a lightning rod within the party for almost a decade. He served as Speaker of the House during the Vilsack years, from 2002 until his party's ouster in 2007. In fact, many within the party still blame him for that defeat–even though 2006 was such a realignment that it would have been hard for the party do much better than it did under any circumstances. Much like Ms. Clinton, Rants is highly polarizing figure who has a reputation for having a “bulldozer” style of leadership, with little time or tact for those who stand in his way. Also, like Hillary, he is going to have to learn to deal with media and pundits who are less than cordial.

(The best analysis of his candidacy comes from this piece in Cityview's Civic Skinny column. It is a must read.)

Rants 2010 candidacy seems based on what Craig Robinson at the Iowa Republican calls “a kinder, gentler Chris Rants”.  According to O. Kay Henderson's liveblog of the Sac County event, Rants primary focus in the campaign is going to be economic and business issues; somewhat of a departure from his rivals. 

Analysis:  Rants is well positioned in the race to become the choice of Republicans who are turned off by Bob Vander Plaats but are hesitant to embrace a less-conservative choice. He also has a fat rolodex of fundraising contacts and a long list of favors to call in. He's in it to win it.

Bob Vander Plaats     3:1

Vander Plaats, the 2006 Lt. Governor candidate and primary candidate in his own right in 2002 and 2006, has been to the political wilderness and back several rimes. His supporters believe, however, that the third time around is the charm.

Borne aloft by the twin archangels of Iowa conservativism Steve Deace and Mike Huckabee, Vander Plaats' “plaatform” is straight-line social conservative. His primary issue thus far is putting an end to same-sex marriage rights as granted by Varnum v. Brien.  However, reactions to his plan to do so by issuing an executive order have been extremely negative outside of his core group of supporters. Many believe that his plan is patently unconstitutional. 

Analysis: Vander Plaats appeals to the basest parts of the Republican base. However, among that segment of the party he enjoys fervent, dedicated support. Unless the more moderate elements of the Republican Party can grasp the reins, Vander Plaats remains a strong contender.

Unknown Moderate     3:1

It's an open secret that there is a sizable contingent of the Republican Party that isn't happy with the current crop of candidates. This shadowy group of mostly moderates, old-money and business Republicans has been candidate shopping lately. Headed by favorite so-con punching bag (and 2002 candidate for Governor) Doug Gross, this faction has been talking to some unconventional potential candidates. Among the names being talked about: Vermeer CEO Mary Andringa, Dubuque University president Jeff Bullock, Generation Iowa Commission vice-chair Christian Fong, Farm Bureau president Craig Lang, Jeff Lamberti, Marianette Miller-Meeks and even Fmr. Gov. Terry Branstad.

The platform for such a candidate is seen through a glass darkly, but is sure to run to to the left of Rants and far to the left of Vander Plaats–a center-right agenda, with an emphasis on economic/budget/tax issues over traditional so-con fare.

Analysis: It remains to be seen who will emerge as the center-right option in this race, although Gross has promised to find a candidate by Septmber. What is certain, however, is that that candidate will enjoy significant financial and institutional support from the faction of the party that doesn't want to see the race wasted on a quixotic Vander Plaats run. In the absence of more information, I give Rants, Vander Plaats and the moderate candidate the same chances.

Earlier this week I wrote about a Survey USA poll taken June 15, which showed Governor Chet Culver’s approval rating at 42 percent. That was the same approval number that SUSA found for Culver in its April poll. However, I did not realize that SUSA also conducted a poll in late May, which showed somewhat better numbers for Culver: 48 approve, 47 disapprove.

Probably this is just statistical noise, and Culver’s support is somewhere in the 40s. Alternatively, if you have some hypothesis that would explain why the governor’s support rose in May but dropped by mid-June, please post a comment.

Click here to see all of SUSA’s approval numbers for Culver since he became governor.

It would be nice if some other polling firm released a new Iowa survey soon.

There’s a lot going on in central Iowa this weekend. If you’ve never been to the Des Moines Arts Festival, head downtown to check it out. Bonus tip: If you love art, check out the “other art show” in the Varied Industries Building at the State Fairgrounds this weekend. You’re more likely to find art you can afford there. I go every year to buy note cards with art photography or reproductions of paintings. I also like to look at children’s clothing decorated by a batik artist (she also sells women’s clothes).

This is an unusually busy week in Iowa politics, considering that’s summer in a non-election year. Governor Chet Culver is taking a campaign train to several western Iowa locations today (Wednesday). Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is headlining a Republican event on Thursday. The Iowa Democratic Party’s Hall of Fame awards ceremony is on Saturday.

If you attend any of these events, please post a comment or put up a diary afterwards.

Event details are after the jump.  

Three Republicans who may run for governor attended a June 15 event in Boone featuring Ed Failor, leader of Iowans for Tax Relief. During a typical Republican speech about how Democrats are wrecking the country, Failor went beyond boilerplate rhetoric and likened Democratic economic policies to events in Nazi Germany in 1933.

Iowa Democratic Party leaders want to know whether State Representative Chris Rants, State Senator Jerry Behn, and Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey agree with Failor’s analogy. After the jump I’ve posted an action alert asking Iowa Democrats to contact Behn, Rants and Northey to ask them if they agree with Failor’s remarks, and if not, why they didn’t speak up at the time.

The Boone News Republican followed up on the story today and posted a longer excerpt from Failor’s speech. I’ve posted that after the jump as well, though from where I’m sitting the larger context doesn’t make him look any less unhinged.

I doubt any Republican will distance himself from Failor. Iowans for Tax Relief and its members could be helpful during next year’s gubernatorial primary. Speaking to the Boone Times Republican, Behn dismissed the incident as much ado about nothing. Failor’s in no mood to apologize either:

“I was very careful to say that I like Pat Murphy, he is a good guy,” Failor said.

When you have a political disagreement with a “good guy” you like, do you say he is “behaving as a jack-booted Nazi”? Neither do I.

Failor added that he completely stands by his statement. He said that previous examples of political parties that succeed in taking too much power never end up being successful, or good for a country’s well-being.

“When you try to find an example of one party, normally by election and fairly, taking over means of production, it never works out well,” Failor said. “I stand by that, if you are a student of history you will know there is no example of that where it didn’t go terribly wrong eventually. And, in many cases, it started with the best of intentions.”

Can’t say that I’m too impressed by Failor as a “student of history.”

Only three states (Iowa, Louisiana and Alabama) allow citizens to deduct their federal tax payments on their state income tax returns. Yet to Failor, Democratic efforts to make our tax code more like laws in 47 other states is tantamount to “taking over means of production.” Ejecting people who were disrupting a public hearing from the legislative chamber is comparable to how Nazis treated their political opponents.

I don’t pretend to understand the psychological need to elevate a dispute over tax policy into some heroic struggle against dictatorship. I doubt dire warnings about fascism (or Marxism, depending on your paranoid mood) are going to scare Iowans back into electing Republicans.

Share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

Survey USA released a new batch of approval ratings for governors based on polls taken June 16. Our own Chet Culver was at 42 percent approval and 51 percent disapproval. The previous SUSA poll in Iowa, taken in late April, found similar numbers for Culver: 42 percent approval and 50 percent disapproval. (CORRECTION: I did not realize that SUSA also conducted a poll in late May, which showed somewhat better numbers for Culver: 48 approve, 47 disapprove. Click here to see all of SUSA’s approval numbers for Culver since he became governor.)

Having noticed that Culver’s SUSA numbers bounced up last May and June after being in net negative territory from February through April 2008, I wondered whether a “legislative session effect” might have dragged him down from February through April of this year. Either that was not the case, or the weaker economy this year has prevented the governor from getting a post-session bounce.

Approval ratings in the low 40s are outside the comfort zone for an incumbent, but I wouldn’t hit the panic button yet. SUSA has tended to measure Culver’s support at lower levels than some other pollsters, and most governors have seen their approval ratings slip during the past year, presumably because of the economy and the fiscal problems affecting almost every state.

I couldn’t find any breakdown of Culver’s support among Democrats, Republicans and independents either at this site or on Survey USA’s site. If anyone has those numbers, please post a comment or send me an e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com). I still think a large number of Democrats and independents who may not “approve” of Culver would choose him in a heartbeat over Chris Rants or Bob Vander Plaats, who are most committed to running for governor.

We’ll have a better idea of the governor’s re-election prospects when we see polling of head-to-head matchups with potential Republican challengers. Some of the Republicans considering this race would be stronger than others in terms of personal appeal or fundraising (though Culver will probably be able to outspend even the best GOP fundraisers).

Finally, keep in mind that despite ups and downs in the economy, Iowa hasn’t voted an incumbent governor out of office since 1962.

Share any thoughts about Culver’s chances or the GOP gubernatorial primary in this thread. Who has the potential to overcome Vander Plaats’ head start on campaigning? Can Rants reinvent himself as a likable politician? Who would benefit from a more crowded Republican field? Will the GOP primary be negative enough to do lasting damage to the eventual nominee?

UPDATE: Culver is bringing his campaign train to several stops in western Iowa tomorrow.

The Iowa Democratic Party announced yesterday that Dena Gleason will be field director for the 2009/2010 election cycle. From the IDP’s press release:

“Grassroots organizing has been the foundation of recent successful Democratic campaigns. Dena learned the value of these techniques while working for now President Barack Obama. She will be a key player in implementing a field strategy to mobilize the thousands of new Democratic registrants and volunteers recruited over the last two election cycles,” said Michael Kiernan, Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party. “Dena brings with her cutting edge organizational techniques that were used so successfully to elect President Obama. I am excited to welcome Dena to the team as we prepare to re-elect Governor Culver and the Democratic Ticket.”  

Gleason, originally from southern Minnesota, worked for President Obama during the primary in Iowa, Kansas, Texas and Pennsylvania. She returned to Iowa in the general election to continue her work for President Obama. Most recently Dena worked for SEIU’s Change that Works where she mobilized health care supporters across Iowa.

I would like to congratulate Gleason and wish her every success in her new job. I have a few other wishes too:

May Culver and our legislative leaders remember that Gleason can’t wave a magic wand and deliver an effective GOTV campaign.

May Iowa leaders motivate newly-registered Democrats to vote in a non-presidential year by showing them tangible results from Democratic control of the legislature and governor’s chair. Many big problems in this state haven’t been addressed during the past three legislative sessions.

May legislative leaders excite key constituencies about volunteering next year–for instance, by passing a good labor bill and moving forward instead of backward on environmental protection. I currently hear a lot of “Why should I bother?” from experienced phone bankers and door knockers.

May Gleason’s field plan prioritize legislative districts we won and lost by narrow margins in 2008, so that Democrats are not left wondering what might have been parts of the state where Democratic turnout was weak last year.

May Gleason learn from the Obama campaign’s mistakes as well as its successes, so that field organizers and volunteers do more to educate new voters about filling out the whole ballot.

Please share your own welcoming wishes in this thread.

BENAWU has restarted a diary series tracking Democratic candidates in U.S. House districts across the country. So far there are no declared candidates in either of Iowa’s Republican-held districts.

If you know of any Democrats considering a run against Tom Latham (IA-04) or Steve King (IA-05), please post a comment in this thread, or in BENAWU’s thread, or send me an e-mail at desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.

Please also feel free to speculate here about who might become good candidates for us in these districts. I recognize that neither of these races are strong pickup opportunities for Democrats, but there are benefits to leaving no Republican unchallenged. Active Democratic candidates working different parts of the state should help boost turnout in our statehouse races, for instance.

I found some unintentional comedy in this AP story on Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s one-on-one meetings with senators:

Sotomayor has managed to disarm even senators who came prepared not to like her. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican, went in thinking “she would be aggressive and maybe even a little obnoxious.”

“I would classify her as kind of much friendlier … more reserved, less aggressive,” than he expected, Grassley told reporters later.

I wonder why Grassley thought Sotomayor would be “aggressive and maybe even a little obnoxious.” Would he expect that of any high-achieving Puerto Rican woman from New York, or only one who had been on the receiving end of a hatchet job in The New Republic? Or maybe he was taken in by right-wing commentators’ caricatures of Sotomayor.

Anyway, it’s safe to say that Sotomayor’s personality wasn’t the reason Grassley voted against her confirmation to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. He’ll have to keep trying to remember why he cast that vote in 1998.

By the way, the Democrat who’s running against Grassley next year, Bob Krause, has his campaign website up and is on Twitter @KrauseForIowa. He plans to campaign hard against Grassley’s opposition to universal health care with a public option.

The Democratic-controlled legislature failed to pass some important bills during the 2009 legislative session, including a tax reform package and all major agenda items for organized labor.

Since the fiasco that doomed the “prevailing wage” bill in February, I’ve thought that electing better Democrats to the state legislature is at least as important as electing more Democrats. With a 56-44 majority in the Iowa House, it’s ridiculous not to be able to find 51 votes for some of these bills.

According to a letter I received last weekend, Ed and Lynn Fallon of I’M for Iowa are already meeting with potential progressive challengers in some House districts. I’ve posted the full text of the letter after the jump. I share their disappointment with what the Democratic “trifecta” has accomplished since the 2006 elections.

The Fallons do not specify where they are recruiting candidates. The obvious targets are the six House Democrats who refused to support “prevailing wage.” Known in Iowa political circles as the “six-pack,” these incumbents also stood in the way of other labor bills. Of those six, Geri Huser and Dolores Mertz seem particularly likely targets, because they supported House Republican efforts to ban same-sex marriage in April. Marriage equality is one of I’M for Iowa’s priority issues.

Good opportunities for primary challengers include districts that are relatively safe for Democrats in the general election. That points to “six-pack” members Huser (House district 42), Brian Quirk (district 15) and Doris Kelley (district 20).

Challenging the rest of the group is somewhat more risky. McKinley Bailey (district 9), Larry Marek (district 89) and Dolores Mertz (district 8) represent marginal districts. In fact, first-termer Marek will probably be the most endangered Democratic House incumbent next year. Bailey beat back a strong challenge from Republicans to win a second term by a fairly healthy margin in 2008, but according to this report by Iowa Independent’s Jason Hancock, some House Democrats have been “quietly concerned” that he might consider switching parties.

Mertz is a longtime incumbent in a very conservative district. In the unlikely event that a progressive challenger defeated her, Republicans would almost certainly pick up the seat. On the other hand, a smaller Democratic House caucus without Mertz would be an improvement over a larger caucus with Mertz, in my opinion. As chair of the House Agriculture Committee, she blocks any decent bill in sight, and she will be the Republicans’ biggest Democratic ally in the fight to overturn the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling in Varnum v Brien.

Two big questions come to mind. First, will organized labor put money and/or foot soldiers into serious Democratic primary races? Earlier this year, Ken Sagar of the Iowa AFL-CIO didn’t rule out supporting competitors to Democrats who are unfriendly to labor.

Second, will the Iowa House Democratic leadership spend money or political capital to defend targeted incumbents? In 2008 the Iowa Democratic Party blocked Huser’s primary challenger from access to the voter database. I heard from multiple sources at the time that the House Democrats made that call. Huser returned her colleagues’ favor by not being a team player during the general election campaign, then refusing to support the labor bills mentioned above.

I look forward to reading your comments on whether it’s worth taking on any House Democratic incumbents next year, and if so, which ones. The Fallons’ letter laying out the case for primary challenges is after the jump.

Governor Chet Culver’s re-election campaign is having a big fundraiser in Des Moines on June 11, and he told Iowa Politics.com recently that there will be more to come:

“We are gearing up,” Culver said. “You’ll see a lot of movement in terms of fundraising efforts. […].”

Asked if he had more than the $1.5 million in the bank than his campaign finance reports showed he had in January, Culver said: “We’re doing extremely well on fundraising. The response has been overwhelmingly supportive. It’s been very gratifying to know that so many of my supporters across the state continue to have complete confidence in my ability to lead this state.”

The Des Moines Register reported on June 3,

“I am going to be cranking up our political operation,” Culver said recently. “I’m excited about it. I love campaigning.”

Culver brought John Kirincich, a national policy and political aide, into the governor’s office as its chief operating officer. The former chief of staff in the U.S. House is expected to play a key role in Culver’s campaign. […]

He also plans to move his campaign operation by early July from the small office at 13th and Locust streets in Des Moines, occupied by his campaign finance and political staff now, into larger space closer to the Capitol.

“We’re going to have a very capable team,” Culver said. “I’m already assembling that team of talented political advisers. We’re going to be renting office space and raising money to run a very competitive re-election campaign.”

I’m all for hiring good staffers and giving them a decent office, but I hope the governor’s campaign will not spend too much money this year. In 2008 Culver’s campaign raised about $1 million but spent $550,000.

Some of the potential Republican challengers to Culver, such as former State Senator Jeff Lamberti, have the potential to raise large amounts of money. In addition, the Republican nominee may receive lots of out-of-state contributions from opponents of same-sex marriage.

Meanwhile, organized labor interests probably will not give Culver as much money next year as they did during his 2006 campaign, because of lingering bad feelings over the governor’s veto of a collective-bargaining bill in 2008.

I still think the governor’s in a strong position going into his re-election campaign, but I would hate to see him burn through lots of money in 2009 and then face a Republican who’s able to match his spending.

Former Iowa GOP chairman Mike Mahaffey told CQ Politics that he is thinking about running against Representative Leonard Boswell in Iowa’s third Congressional district next year. (Hat tip to WHO’s Dave Price.) Boswell barely defeated Mahaffey in his first bid for Congress in 1996.

CQ Politics highlights a big obstacle for Mahaffey if he runs:

A Boswell-Mahaffey rematch after a 14-year hiatus would also take place on quite different turf from their first race. The 3rd District in 1996 was located mainly in southern Iowa and was heavily rural; Boswell was aided in that race by the fact that he had spent his life outside of politics in farming. But redistricting, performed in a non-partisan procedure in Iowa, move the district’s boundaries north and east to take in the state capital of Des Moines, to which Boswell relocated from his rural hometown.

It will take a lot to convince me that Mahaffey, a small-town lawyer and part-time Poweshiek County attorney, poses a serious threat to Boswell in a district dominated by Polk County. So far IA-03 doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s list of competitive U.S. House districts.

Please post a comment if you know of any other Republicans thinking about getting in this race.

Conservative blogger Craig Robinson argued last week that “Iowa Republicans Have Plenty of Opportunity in the State Senate” in 2010. The GOP has almost nowhere to go but up. Republicans currently hold 18 of the 50 seats in the Iowa Senate, fewer than at any previous time in this state’s history. After making gains in the last four general elections, Democrats now hold 19 of the 25 Iowa Senate seats that will be on the ballot in 2010. Also, several Democratic incumbents are in their first term, having won their seats during the wave election of 2006.

To win back the upper chamber, Republicans would need a net gain of seven seats in 2010, and Robinson lists the seven districts where he sees the best chances for the GOP.

I generally agree with John Deeth’s view that only a few Senate districts are strong pickup opportunities for Republicans next year. Winning back the upper chamber will take the GOP at least two cycles, with redistricting likely to create who knows how many open or winnable seats in 2012.

After the jump I’ll examine the seven Iowa Senate districts Robinson views as worthwhile targets as well as one Republican-held district that Democrats should be able to pick up. Here is a map (pdf file) of the current Iowa Senate districts.

Over at The Iowa Republican, Craig Robinson reports that Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey

has recently employed Tim Moran and Marcus Branstad to work on his behalf. […]

Both Moran and Branstad were sought after during the Iowa caucuses. Branstad worked briefly for Sen. Bill Frist before joining Mitt Romney’s Iowa staff. After the caucuses, Branstad worked on Congressman Tom Latham’s re-election campaign. Moran cut his teeth on the 2002 Vander Plaats campaign and also worked on Romney’s Iowa campaign. He then went to work for Congressman Steve King’s campaign before joining King’s congressional staff. […]

In Moran, Northey has a political operative who has spent most of his political career working western Iowa. Having worked for both Vander Plaats and King makes Moran a valuable asset to any campaign, but especially to a statewide gubernatorial campaign. It would be difficult to find a better person to organize western Iowa for a campaign.

Branstad, the youngest son of former Governor Terry Branstad, has spent most of his time organizing north central Iowa for Mitt Romney and Congressman Tom Latham. Marcus is a talented organizer with a great last name, and even if his last name was Smith, he would still be one of the best organizers in central Iowa.

Robinson speculates that “Either Secretary Northey is about to run the most extensive and expensive Secretary of Agriculture re-election campaign in Iowa’s history, or he is exploring a run for governor.”

Although I think Northey would be an underdog in both a Republican gubernatorial primary and a general election matchup with Chet Culver, hiring quality staff makes sense. He’s got enough money in the bank to pay their salaries. He now knows no other candidate for governor can hire Moran and Branstad. They can work on building up Northey’s name recognition and support around the state. If Culver’s poll numbers continue to slip this year, Northey can jump in to the governor’s race without having to spend time searching for key staffers.

If Culver bounces back up in the polls like he did last year after a shaky few months, Northey can always run for re-election as secretary of agriculture, which is the direction he claims to be leaning.

UPDATE: Dave Price of WHO-TV reports that Jeff Lamberti, a businessman and former state senator from Ankeny, is thinking about running for governor and will decide by this fall at the latest. Lamberti retired from the state senate in order to run against Congressman Leonard Boswell in 2006.  

I just saw this on Charlotte Eby’s Twitter feed:

Chuck Larson tells me he’s not jumping into governor’s race. Cites his two young children as the reason.

Larson is an attorney from Cedar Rapids who was elected to the Iowa Senate in 2002. During his term he did a 12-month tour in Iraq as a military lawyer. Although Larson retired from the Iowa Senate in 2006, many people believed he harbored higher political ambitions, because he founded a pro-Iraq War group called Families United. In late 2007 President Bush named Larson U.S. ambassador to Latvia.

I respect people who put family considerations before career. That said, Larson’s statement is another sign that Republicans are not jumping at the chance to take on Governor Chet Culver. Having young children doesn’t often deter politicians from seeking office when a promising opportunity comes up, as it did for Terry Branstad in 1982 and Culver in 2006.  

Who’s a Culver-skeptic now?

State Auditor David Vaudt announced today that he won’t run for Iowa governor in 2010. It’s bad news for Republicans who were hoping to recruit a candidate known for expertise on fiscal matters.

More details and analysis are after the jump.

UPDATE: The governor signed the bonding plan into law on May 14.

It’s only been a few weeks since the Iowa legislature’s 2009 session ended, and I’m already tired of hearing Republican attacks on the $830 million infrastructure borrowing program (I-JOBS).

The bonding proposal was among the most important bills passed this year. However, to the Party of No it was a terrible idea because paying back $830 million in bonds will cost a total of $1.7 billion.

Iowa Republicans “support funding infrastructure projects on a pay-as-you-go basis.” In other words, while the economic recession is bringing down state revenues, we should sit tight and only improve our infrastructure when the state has the cash to pay the full cost up front.

I cover a few problems with this argument after the jump.

Yesterday Taniel at the Campaign Diaries blog posted about 68 Democratic-held U.S. House seats that could potentially be competitive in 2010. Iowa’s third Congressional district is not on that list.

IA-03 did not make Stuart Rothenberg’s list of competitive House seats for 2010 either.

The National Republican Congressional Committee released a list of 51 targeted Democratic-held House districts in January. Lo and behold, IA-03 is not on that list either.

I realize that Boswell only won the district with 56.3 percent of the vote in 2008, but I don’t hear any chatter from Iowa Republicans about recruiting a candidate to run against him. The focus is on the governor’s race and the Iowa House.

I bring this up because the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has kept Boswell on its list of “Frontline Democrats” for 2010. John Deeth recently noticed that Boswell is “by far the senior member” of the 41 Frontline candidates. Almost all of them were first elected to Congress in 2006 or 2008. The others with more terms under their belt represent districts significantly more conservative than IA-03 with its partisan voter index of D+1.

For Deeth, this is yet another sign that IA-03 deserves better than Boswell. I view it as a sign that the DCCC is wrong. Boswell definitely needed to be in the Frontline program the first five times he ran for re-election, but he was a safe six-term incumbent in 2008, and there’s no reason to believe he won’t be a safe seven-term incumbent in 2010.

According to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, Iowa’s third district had about 433,000 registered voters as of May 1, 2009. Of those, about 399,000 were “active voters.” More than 156,000 of the active voters in IA-03 are registered Democrats. Only about 118,000 are registered Republicans, and about 124,000 are registered no-party voters.

Why should you care if the DCCC erroneously classifies Boswell as vulnerable? Frontline Democrats are exempt from paying DCCC dues, which are used to support Democrats in competitive races across the country.

Look, I would still prefer to elect a new Democrat to IA-03 in order to avoid a potential matchup of Boswell and Tom Latham in 2012. But since Boswell has no plans to retire, let him pay his DCCC dues just like every other House incumbent whose seat is not threatened next year.  

On a related note, Deeth recently cited Progressive Punch lifetime ratings as an argument for replacing Boswell. It’s worth noting that Boswell’s voting record in the current Congress is much better than his lifetime Progressive Punch score suggests. (For instance, he was not among the Blue Dogs who voted against President Barack Obama’s budget blueprint.) Yes, IA-03 should be represented by a more progressive Democrat than Boswell, but I’m cutting him slack as long as he’s not casting egregious votes in the current Congress.  

I see no reason to keep him in the Frontline program, though. We will genuinely be playing defense in dozens of House districts next year. Until there is some sign that Republicans are making a serious play for IA-03, Boswell should pay his DCCC dues.

I’m so disappointed in Terry Branstad. I had a post in my head about why he won’t get back into politics and was all set to write it when he scooped me by telling the Des Moines Register that he won’t run against Governor Chet Culver next year.

It’s a smart move for Branstad. He served four terms as governor already and has a good job as president of Des Moines University. Why give that up to seek the Republican nomination, which would be far from a sure thing?

I know, a recent Republican poll showed that

Nearly half of likely Iowa voters said they wanted their next governor to be a lot or somewhat like Branstad [….] About a third said they wanted someone somewhat or very different from Branstad.

A generic GOP candidate described in the poll as “a widely respected, former statewide elected official who has managed Iowa through troubled times before” rated highest in the poll. Branstad’s tenure coincided with the Iowa farm crisis of the 1980s.

Despite those poll findings, I don’t think Branstad would have had a smooth ride in the GOP primary. As a three-term sitting governor he nearly lost the 1994 primary to Congressman Fred Grandy. I bet a lot of Republicans wish they could have that one back–with Governor Grandy as an incumbent Iowans probably would not have elected Tom Vilsack or any other Democrat in 1998.

In the middle of his fourth term as governor, Branstad backed Lamar Alexander for president. We all saw how influential that endorsement was in the 1996 caucuses.

Even if Iowa Republicans were eager to nominate Branstad for governor again, would that be smart when the public already views Republicans as “backward-looking” and Democrats as “the party of the future”?

I’ll have more to say about the recent Republican poll in the next few days. I wasn’t surprised to read that Vermeer Corporation chief executive Mary Andringa also told the Des Moines Register that she’s not running for governor next year. Republican moderates like Doug Gross want a candidate from the business community, but I don’t think Culver looks vulnerable enough now. Leaving a senior corporate job to run a serious campaign for governor is a big risk. Even the Republican poll, which had a fairly high ratio of Republicans to Democrats in the sample, found Culver at 52 percent approval and 35 percent disapproval. Culver’s re-elect numbers are somewhat lower, but I stand by my opinion that he is not yet in the danger zone for an incumbent.

Last October, Representative Michele “Crazy as Steve King” Bachmann (MN-06) disgraced herself on “Hardball” and sparked a ridiculously successful fundraising drive for her Democratic opponent, El Tinklenberg. I was impressed by the enthusiasm and kicked in a few bucks for Tinklenberg myself, but I was dismayed to see bloggers continue to help him raise money even after he’d raised more than $750,000 and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had promised to spend an additional $1 million in his district. Within a few days of Bachmann’s notorious comments, Tinklenberg had more money than he needed to run a solid media and GOTV campaign during the final two weeks before the election.

Since most Congressional races against incumbents are longshots, I wanted to see the netroots expand the field by raising $50,000 or more for a large number of unheralded challengers.

A fellow Iowa blogger sent me this piece from CQ Politics about how Tinklenberg’s campaign committee was the largest donor to the DCCC in March, giving a total of $250,000:

You may recall that his Republican opponent was Rep. Michele Bachmann, whose mid-October comment that Obama “may have anti-American views” angered Democrats nationwide and spawned an avalanche of contributions to Tinklenberg in the waning days of a campaign that Bachmann won by 46 percent to 43 percent, with a third-party candidate taking 10 percent.

Apparently the money was coming in too fast for Tinklenberg to spend completely: he raised $3 million for his campaign, of which $1.9 million came in after October 15, and had $453,000 in leftover campaign funds at the end of 2008 and $184,000 at the end of March.

I’m not saying it wasn’t worth getting behind Tinklenberg. Bachmann is among the worst Republicans in Congress, and this district rightly seemed winnable. However, the netroots clearly funneled way more money to Tinklenberg than he could spend effectively.

What if a million of the dollars we sent to the MN-06 race had been spread around 10 or 20 other districts? A bunch of the candidates I wanted to support as part of an expanded field got blown out by large margins, but an extra $50,000 could have made the difference for Josh Segall in AL-03, or for several candidates who weren’t on my radar, such as Bill Hedrick in CA-44.

The netroots rally for Tinklenberg started out as a good cause but took on a momentum of its own. It didn’t help that Tinklenberg sent fundraising e-mails to his new donors every day or two during the home stretch, even after he had more than enough money to close out the campaign.

Maybe the majority of blog readers who gave $10 or $20 or $50 to Tinklenberg wouldn’t have given to some other longshot Congressional challenger. Maybe people need an emotional trigger before they are willing to open their wallets. But in future election cycles, we need to be smarter about how we focus our energy and our fundraising efforts during the final weeks of a campaign. There’s no shortage of wingnuts worth targeting. Also, a fair number of good incumbent Democrats will probably need our help in 2010, depending on how the economy looks 18 months from now.

Any ideas or suggestions on how to raise money effectively during the next cycle would be welcome in this thread.

In January I went over some of Governor Chet Culver’s strengths and weaknesses looking ahead to the 2010 campaign. Click the link for the analysis, but to make a long story short, I saw three big pluses for the governor:

1. He’s an incumbent.

2. Iowa Democrats have opened up a large registration edge since Culver won the first time.

3. He has at least $1.5 million in the bank.

I saw his problem points as:

1. The economy is lousy and could get worse before 2010.

2. The first midterm election is often tough for the president’s party.

3. Turnout will be lower in 2010 than it was in the 2008 presidential election.

4. Culver’s campaign had a high burn rate in 2008, so may not have a commanding war chest going into the next campaign.

A lot has happened since then, so let’s review after the jump.

Angry social conservatives are speculating that Senator Chuck Grassley could face a primary challenge in 2010. The religious right has been dissatisfied with Grassley for a long time (see here and here).

After the Iowa Supreme Court announced the Varnum v Brien decision, Grassley issued a statement saying he supported “traditional marriage” and had backed federal legislation and a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. But when hundreds of marriage equality opponents rallied at the state capitol last Thursday, and Republicans tried to bring a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the Iowa House floor, Grassley refused to say whether he supported their efforts to change Iowa’s constitution:

“You better ask me in a month, after I’ve had a chance to think,” Grassley, the state’s senior Republican official, said after a health care forum in Mason City.

Grassley has supported legislation in the past decade to establish marriage as between a man and a woman, and to enact an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning same-sex marriage. […]

“But it doesn’t have to be marriage,” he added. “There’s things like civil unions.”

Grassley said the amendment he supported left the issue of government acknowledgment of same-sex relationships, such as civil unions, up to states

to allow or ban.

Wingnut Bill Salier, who almost won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in 2002, says conservatives are becoming “more and more incensed [the] more they start to pay attention to how far [Grassley] has drifted.”

Iowa GOP chairman Matt Strawn denies that party activists are unhappy with Grassley. I hope Salier is right and Grassley gets a primary challenge, for reasons I’ll explain after the jump.  

Congressman Steve King is still “royally ticked” about the “unanimous decision on the part of seven unelected Iowa judges who decided to take the law into their own hands and usurp the legitimate authority of the Iowa Legislature […].” He doesn’t seem real clear on the concept of judicial review, whereby courts can strike down laws that violate citizens’ constitutional rights.

Then again, maybe King does understand that legislators can’t pass unconstitutional laws. As David Waldman pointed out, last month King complained that a bill to restrict bonus payments to executives from bailed-out financial institutions was “a dangerous and unconstitutional disruption of America’s free-market system.”

In any event, King is bringing his crusade against marriage equality to a telephone near you. Several Bleeding Heartland readers in different parts of the state have told me that they received the robocall corncam diaried here. Paid for by the National Organization for Marriage, the call features King asking if you are a registered voter in Iowa. If you say yes, King asks if you believe marriage should be between one man and one woman. If you say no, King thanks you and says good-bye.

We need someone to say yes, take detailed notes about the rest of this robocall, and post a diary here about it. Obviously it’s a voter ID call for a group that will be campaigning to overturn the Varnum v Brien ruling, but what talking points are they using, and what information are they collecting from sympathetic respondents?

Some people have wondered whether King recorded this call in order to raise his profile for a future statewide campaign. Last week King told the Omaha World-Herald that he would be more likely to run for governor in 2010 if Chet Culver did not work hard to overturn the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision in Varnum v Brien. Although I’d love for King to leave Congress, I agree with Iowa Senate Democratic leader Mike Gronstal, who says “Steve King’s too chicken to run for governor because he knows he’d get his butt beat.”

King responded by accusing Gronstal of being “afraid to allow a vote on marriage,” which made me laugh. If Gronstal were afraid of backlash on this issue, he would be making cautious statements that grudgingly accept the Supreme Court ruling while emphasizing his own belief in “traditional marriage.” Instead, Gronstal has made clear that he welcomes marriage equality and will not “insert discrimination into our state constitution.”

The Steve Kings of the world are scared because they know Iowans and Americans increasingly support legal recognition of committed relationships, regardless of sexual orientation.  

Speaking of campaigns, Politico reported on April 3 that the Federal Election Commission has questioned why King’s campaign committee paid the Congressman’s son Jeff King $156,000 during the past five years. An attorney for the campaign committee responded that Jeff King is the sole full-time employee of the campaign, and that he was paid a “fair market value” salary for “bona fide campaign-related services.”

King isn’t the most energetic campaigner, so I find it surprising that he employs a full-time year-round campaign staffer, but to me this is a non-issue. Many politicians employ close relatives on their campaigns. If King’s contributors don’t mind his paying his son $30,000 a year, then who am I to argue?

What bothers me are the elected officials who hire close relatives to do taxpayer-funded work–especially when those officials pretend to care about allegedly unethical campaign payments.

Social conservatives made clear at yesterday’s rally against gay marriage that they will try to remove Iowa Supreme Court justices next year:

“This is only the beginning,” said Danny Carroll, a former legislator and now chairman of the conservative Iowa Family Policy Center. “We will remember and we will remember in November.”

Chuck Hurley, also a former legislator and president of the policy center, noted that in addition to legislators and Gov. Chet Culver, three Iowa Supreme Court justices would face retention elections next year.

That includes Chief Justice Marsha Ternus.

“Maybe she will know how it feels after November of 2010,” said Hurley.

Justices Michael Streit and David Baker also will be up for retention elections next year. The Supreme Court struck down the state’s gay marriage ban on a 7-0 decision.

“Three judges on the ballot. We will remember next November,” Hurley said. “You are not fooling anyone.”

In Iowa, judges are appointed through a merit-selection process that was approved by voters in the 1960s. Voters decide whether to keep a judge in office. Supreme court judges are up for retention every eight years, while court of appeals and district court judges are up every six years.

I automatically vote to retain every judge, whether conservative, moderate or liberal, unless I have heard from trusted attorneys that the judge is incompetent or corrupt. In more than two decades of voting I’ve only voted against retention once or twice. I’ve disagreed with some court rulings, just like Hurley and Carroll disagree with the Varnum v Brien decision. But our justice system depends on judges being able to interpret the law without fear of reprisal.

The threats from Carroll and Hurley underscore how extremism has become mainstream for Iowa Republicans. These are not fringe wackos; Carroll and Hurley are both former state legislators.

Marsha Ternus has 16 years of experience on Iowa’s high court. She was appointed by Republican Governor Terry Branstad (as was Mark Cady, the author of the Varnum v Brien decision). Streit and Baker also have lengthy and distinguished legal careers. Yet that means nothing, because social conservatives want to impose their religious beliefs on everyone.

We’ll need to remember to tell our friends to vote yes on retaining all judges in November 2010. Many people never bother to fill out the back side of the ballot.

Iowa Senate Majority leader Mike Gronstal is on a tear this week. On Monday he rejected Republican efforts to bring a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the Senate floor. Read his remarks here (scroll to the bottom) or watch the video:

On Tuesday Gronstal in effect dared conservatives to push for a Constitutional Convention, which might consider adopting an amendment to ban gay marriage. From the Des Moines Register:

“I’m inclined to hope they succeed, if that’s their strategy,” said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, who has saluted Friday’s Iowa Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage. “There’s a lot of good, progressive issues that we could pursue: a woman’s right to choose, guaranteed health care for all Iowa citizens, workers’ rights – so if there are people that want to help us get to a constitutional convention, that’s kind of my dream world.”

If Iowa voters approve a ballot initiative next November on calling a Constitutional Convention, the Iowa legislature will draw up rules for selecting delegates to that body. If the convention approves proposed constitutional amendments, a special election will be scheduled, and voters will consider each amendment separately, not as a bloc.

Some Iowa Republicans don’t sound eager to roll the dice on this procedure:

Sen. Ron Wieck, R-Sioux City, said he will likely vote against holding a convention. “We have bumps in the road but we’re operating pretty well without going in and messing with the Constitution,” Wieck said.

Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley said he will continue to push for a second route toward a constitutional amendment on gay marriage: votes by the Iowa House and Iowa Senate in two consecutive general assemblies followed by a vote of the people.

But McKinley understands why some might have an interest in a constitutional convention.

“I think the reason there is some appeal at least on the surface is citizens feel very disenfranchised from their government,” McKinley said. “Democracies are crazy things. Sometimes the people want to do things that maybe the elites don’t agree with.”

Although I’m confident that over time a large majority of Iowans will come to support marriage equality, I confess that I am a bit nervous about the issue coming to a statewide vote in 2010 or 2011. At the same time, like Gronstal, I can imagine lots of good amendments that might come out of a Constitutional Convention.

Share any relevant thoughts or speculation in this thread.

There’s nothing opponents of marriage equality can do to stop gay and lesbian couples from getting married in Iowa starting on April 24. Over at Daily Kos, Wee Mama posted information about getting a marriage license in Iowa for those who live elsewhere. If you would like to have a religious ceremony, I recommend contacting The Interfaith Alliance of Iowa for help in finding a sympathetic officiant, most likely to be from a United Church of Christ, United Methodist or Unitarian Universalist congregation. Couples wanting a Jewish wedding should contact Rabbi David Kaufman of Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Des Moines, if at least one partner is Jewish and the couple is open to raising children as Jews. Rabbi Kaufman has officiated at a same-sex commitment ceremony and published this blog post on Friday demolishing the arguments against legalizing gay marriage in Iowa.

The political battle over marriage equality will go on for a long time after wedding bells start ringing.

After the jump I will bring you up to date on prospects for amending Iowa’s constitution and the latest statewide opinion poll on same-sex marriage.

UPDATE: Scroll to the bottom of this post to read a very strong statement Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal released the evening of April 6.  

The phone rang early Tuesday evening, and the voice on the other end was an interviewer conducting a survey for Hill Research Consultants. I asked who commissioned the survey, but the interviewer said he didn’t know.

Judging from the type of questions and their wording, I assume this poll was commissioned either by a Republican considering a run for governor in 2010, a Republican interest group trying to decide what kind of candidate to support for 2010, or the Republican Party of Iowa itself.

As I always do whenever I am surveyed, I grabbed a something to write with and took as many notes as I could about the questions. However, it was a long poll and there was commotion in the background on my end, so I know I didn’t get all the questions down. If you have been a respondent in the same survey and can fill in some blanks, please post a comment in this thread or e-mail me (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com).

My notes on the questions asked during this 15-20 minute survey are after the jump. These are paraphrased, but I tried to remember the wording as closely as I could. I don’t know whether the order of the suggested answers was the same for everyone, but since this sounded like a real poll, I assume the order of multiple-choice answers was rotated.

I was downtown today helping set up a couple of booths for the Natural Living Expo tomorrow, which has been taking up a lot of my time lately. Maybe I’ll see some of you there, but I won’t have my “desmoinesdem” hat on, so won’t be talking about partisan politics.

As always, please post a comment or send me an e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) if you know of an event I’ve left out.

The calendar is after the jump.

Happy Spring, Bleeding Heartland readers! There’s a lot happening this week, and I’ve posted the events after the jump.

Post a comment or send me an e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) if you know of something good happening that I’ve left out.

If you live within striking distance of Iowa City, there’s a benefit for the Iowa Renewable Energy Association tonight at the Mill (details below).

It’s not yet clear whether Iowa’s Republican Secretary of Agriculture, Bill Northey, will seek re-election in 2010 or run against Governor Chet Culver instead. But at least one Democrat appears ready to seek Northey’s job next year.

Francis Thicke, an organic dairy farmer near Fairfield with a Pd.D. in agronomy and soil fertility, announced yesterday that he has formed an Exploratory Committee to consider running for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture. I’ve posted the press release from Thicke after the jump. One of his top priorities would be expanding local food networks:

“Growing more of our food in Iowa represents a multi-billion dollar economic development opportunity.”  This potential economic activity could “create thousands of new jobs and help revitalize rural communities in Iowa, as well as provide Iowans with fresh, nutritious food,” said Thicke.

Thicke would be an outstanding asset to Iowa as Secretary of Agriculture. A working farmer and expert on many agricultural policy issues, he currently serves on Iowa’s USDA State Technical Committee and has an impressive list of publications. In the past he has served on the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission, the Iowa Food Policy Council, and the Iowa Organic Standards Board.

He has also won awards including “the Activist Award from the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club, the Outstanding Pasture Management award from the Jefferson County Soil and Water Conservation District and the Friend of the Earth award from the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition in Washington, D.C.”

Here’s an interview Thicke gave in 2003 about his organic dairy operation. He also wrote this piece on the benefits of pasture-based dairies for CounterPunch in 2004. I found a YouTube video of Thicke speaking about livestock farming in Pella last year.

Thicke’s relationship with the Culver administration is strained, to put it mildly. He did not go quietly when Culver declined to reappoint him to the Environmental Protection Commission. In addition, Thicke is a strong advocate for “local control” of confined-animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge opposes and Culver has not pursued as governor.

If Thicke runs for Secretary of Agriculture, his campaign is likely to become a focal point for environmentalists who aren’t satisfied with our current Democratic leadership in Iowa.

UPDATE: Denise O’Brien responded to my request for a comment on Thicke’s candidacy:

I have pledged my support to Francis. He has an excellent background to be a strong leader of our state agriculture department. His depth of knowledge of agriculture and natural resource management gives him credibility when it comes to truly understanding the relationship of agriculture to the rest of the world. It is my intention to work hard to get Francis elected.

I haven’t written anything yet about Senator Chuck Grassley’s comments on the AIG bonuses. The whole episode was such an empty populist gesture. First he said the AIG no-goodniks should act like the Japanese and either offer a humble apology or kill themselves. Then he walked back his comments and said they should offer a sincere apology. That’s all? I’d like to see more strings attached to the Wall Street bailout program, which Grassley voted for.

The Twitterer for the Daily Iowan Opinion page had the best response to Grassley I’ve seen so far. After the senator explained that “I do want an attitude in corporate American that’s similar to what they have in corporate Japan,” DIOpinions commented, “Making failed American executives more like their Japanese counterparts would require massive pay cuts.” Don’t hold your breath until Grassley gets behind that.

Anyway, we’ll find out how much Grassley cares about getting taxpayers’ money back from AIG when the Senate votes on the bill the House of Representatives passed yesterday.

Follow me after the jump to read about Grassley’s recent comments on medical marijuana and health care reform.

Also, I can confirm that at least one Democrat is stepping forward to challenge Iowa’s senior senator in 2010. Details are below.

Remember when I asked Bleeding Heartland readers to let me know if Representatives Tom Latham or Steve King tried to take credit for infrastructure projects funded by the stimulus bill they opposed?

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee noticed that Latham has been sending out press releases touting earmarks in the 2009 omnibus spending bill that he and nearly every other House Republican voted against. That’s right, Latham has been bragging about earmarks he inserted in a bill he didn’t support on the House floor. This is from the DCCC’s press release of March 12:

In a striking example of hypocrisy, after voting against the recently enacted FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations, Congressman Tom Latham is taking credit for millions of dollars included in the legislation that will help local community colleges, health care clinics, and renewable energy producers in  Iowa ‘s 4th Congressional District.

“Congressman Latham keeps telling people he ‘secured’ millions of dollars in funding for Iowa, but the truth is he voted against these investments,” said Gabby Adler, the Midwestern Regional Press Secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  “Congressman Latham can’t hide from his voting record, no matter how hard he tries.  Counter to what Congressman Latham would have you believe, these millions of dollars aren’t coming to Iowa because of his hard work, these investments are being made in spite of Congressman Latham’s efforts to defeat this bill and the funding for Iowa.”

In every single press release sent out by Congressman Latham announcing investments for Iowa included in the FY 2009 Appropriations, he not only hid the fact he voted against the legislation but he led people to believe he championed its passage.  One release read Congressman Latham “once again this past week demonstrated his commitment to community colleges,” another one discussed his role as a “long-time supporter” of new health care technologies.  In a third release, Congressman Latham even referred to his support of Iowa’s renewable energy industry as “steadfast” despite his vote against $1.4 million for a cutting edge wind energy project in Iowa.

After the jump I’ve posted the rest of the DCCC’s release, which contains further details about the earmarks Latham voted against but is now taking credit for.

The two-faced Republican position on earmarks is truly sickening.

Latham may feel secure in IA-04 for 2010, but in 2012 he will probably have to run in a redrawn third district, which may not be as friendly as his current turf. For that reason, I have wondered whether voting for some of President Barack Obama’s policies would be in Latham’s political interest, or whether he would be better off rejecting every significant White House proposal, like most House Republicans.

Apparently Latham plans to have it both ways and hope Iowans don’t notice.

Let me know if you see any news reports in the fourth district that tell the whole truth about Latham’s position on the omnibus spending bill. My hunch is that most journalists will pass along the information from Latham’s press releases without mentioning that he didn’t vote for the final package.

Congressman Tom Latham is one of 34 Republicans who represent U.S. House districts carried by Barack Obama, according to analysis by CQ Politics.

Jonathan Singer was struck by the fact that Obama won nearly twice as many Republican-held districts as John Kerry did, even though far fewer Republicans won House elections in 2008 compared to 2004. Singer believes that as the next elections draw closer, these Republicans from Obama-districts will eventually feel pressure to support the president on some issues.

I don’t accept Singer’s premise that Obama will remain popular in all of the districts he carried in 2008. We don’t know what the economy will look like 18 months from now or whether Republicans will pay any political price for obstructing Obama’s agenda.

Still, Singer’s post got me thinking–is there any reason for Latham to cooperate with Obama?

After the jump I’ll try to answer this question.