Jason Hancock has the story at Iowa Independent: former Iowa Democratic Party chairman Gordon Fischer wants to become the U.S. Attorney for Iowa’s southern district. He is asking prominent Democrats to “reach out to Sen. [Tom] Harkin on my behalf, with either a letter, or phone call, or (preferably) both.”
Fischer wasn’t a particularly early supporter of Barack Obama by Iowa standards, but he was an enthusiastic one, as any regular reader of his blog Iowa True Blue can attest.
Sometimes Fischer was a bit too caught up in the primary wars, by his own admission. Even though I never backed Hillary Clinton for president, I also felt Fischer went too far on more than one occasion (like when he approvingly quoted Andrew Sullivan’s casual reference to the Clintons as “sociopaths”).
One Clinton supporter even filed a Federal Election Commission complaint against Fischer because of his blogging. The FEC found no evidence to substantiate the allegations made in that complaint.
I have no idea whether Fischer is the leading candidate the U.S. Attorney job. Anyone hear about other Iowa lawyers who are putting their names in for this one?
I have no opinion about who should get the appointment, as long as it’s someone who won’t prosecute members of the other political party on very thin evidence.
UPDATE: Someone in a position to know tells me that several others have applied for this position, including Iowa Assistant Attorney General Donn Stanley and Tom Henderson, chairman of the Polk County Democrats.