The Des Moines Register announced yesterday that Kathie Obradovich will be the paper’s new political columnist. Her first column will run this Sunday.
Obradovich has covered Iowa politics for many years and been the Register’s political editor since 2003. She replaces David Yepsen, who earlier this year left to become director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
Even though the Register’s statewide reach is not what it was a few decades ago, Yepsen still played an agenda-setting role for Iowa politicians and fellow journalists. Sometimes that was for the good, when he called attention to possible backroom deals at the statehouse. However, Yepsen sometimes forgot that his disapproval didn’t automatically make a political strategy illegitimate. I don’t think he ever apologized for wrongly giving his readers the impression that there was something unfair about encouraging college students to come back to Iowa for the 2008 caucuses, for instance. He was too quick to cite think tank reports as proof that Iowans are overtaxed, without considering the services Iowans get for our tax dollars compared to low-tax states like South Dakota. I also didn’t appreciate his suggestion that women’s political opinions are more “catty” than men’s.
May Obradovich use her agenda-setting power wisely.
I’ve posted the Register’s press release announcing Obradovich’s promotion after the jump.
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