The plot thickens in Iowa’s second Congressional district, where Steve Rathje has released a new television commercial called “Bench Miller-Meeks”:

Rough transcript:

Voice-over: Two years ago, Mariannette Miller-Meeks challenged Dave Loebsack. She lost by double digits. [visual shows fake newspaper headline: LOEBSACK WINS BIG Loebsack 57% vs. Miller-Meeks 38%]

Rathje: I coached football for several years, and sometimes the returning quarterback didn’t give us our best opportunity to win, so we were forced to make some changes. I believe the same is true for politics.

I’m Steve Rathje. My experience: cutting spending and bringing jobs back home to America. Dave Loebsack’s record: unsustainable spending and a disregard for the constitution.

I’m Steve Rathje, and I approved this message.

It’s gutsy for Rathje to come out against second chances, since he lost the GOP primary for U.S. Senate in 2008. But as attack ads go, this one’s tame. He didn’t take any personal shots at Miller-Meeks or even call her a moderate. He’s just saying she doesn’t give Republicans the best opportunity to beat Loebsack. Then he presents his background as a sharp contrast to the incumbent.

I laughed to hear Rathje hit Loebsack on “unsustainable spending.” Rathje’s promoting a tax holiday plan that would add at least $400 billion to the deficit in two months. Such details probably don’t matter to the typical Republican primary voter, though.

Yesterday I wrote that I still consider Miller-Meeks a slight favorite in the primary. This commercial changes my view somewhat. If she sticks to her plan of running no tv ads before the June 8 primary, she leaves this message unchallenged. It’s not clear that she has the time or the funds to respond on television, and even if she does, I don’t know how to answer Rathje’s point without calling more attention to her double-digit loss to Loebsack. Miller-Meeks seems slightly less right-wing than the other Republicans, which makes her a better general election candidate, but no one won a Republican primary lately by claiming to be the most moderate person in the field.

My hunch is that Rob Gettemy benefits as much as Rathje from this commercial, if not more. Gettemy’s the freshest face in the Republican field, and his own advertising probably gives him as much visibility as Rathje outside his base in Linn County.

What do you think, Bleeding Heartland readers?

UPDATE: The second district candidates clashed at a forum May 26 in Mount Pleasant. James Q. Lynch has the story at the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Excerpt:

Gettemy told the crowd of about 100 people sitting on the lawn outside American Outdoors south of Mount Pleasant he offers the best opportunity to defeat Loebsack because voters are looking for a fresh face, “not a politician.”

His rivals have all run before and lost – “lost big time,” Gettemy said.

Without mentioning names, he noted that Rathje and Reed, who faced off in a U.S. Senate primary two years ago, are still fighting that battle and Miller-Meeks is willing to change her comments to suit various audiences. […]

“You can tell it’s campaign silly season, Miller-Meeks said. “I’ve been smeared so many times that I feel like a bug on a windshield.”

She called for uniting the fiscal, social and constitutional conservatives. “We need all three tent poles” to defeat Loebsack, she said. Miller-Meeks and reminded her rivals that “whatever we do before the primary can be used by the Democrats after the primary.”

United, Miller-Meeks said, the 2nd District can become “the Massachusetts of the Midwest – not in ideology, but in victory.”

Also, Kim Smith of Cedar Rapids claims Rathje is pro-abortion and is trying to spread the word on Twitter and via YouTube. I don’t know whether she or the group calling itself “Coalition for Iowa Values” has endorsed a different candidate in this primary.

SECOND UPDATE: Miller-Meeks responds to the new Rathje ad:

Miller-Meeks called the video “a deceitful, deceptive attack by someone going into a last minute panic” and threw the football analogies back at Rathje.

“So we’re supposed to pick someone who has been sitting on the bench and couldn’t win his primary after running for two years rather than someone who has been playing the game?” she asked. […]

Rathje was the first to run TV ads and Gettemy followed. Reed plans to air aids in June. Miller-Meeks doesn’t plan to run TV ads, preferring to focus her advertising, primarily direct mail, on likely primary voters.

“I have the resources to do what we need,” she said. Referring to her professional training as an ophthalmologist, Miller-Meeks said she works with lasers and prefers a laser focus over a scattershot approach.

“I look at the audience to determine the best method to reach the primary voters and to get them to the polls,” she said.

Four Republicans are running against two-term Representative Dave Loebsack in Iowa’s second district. As the June 8 primary approaches, I see more and more news about this race.

Follow me after the jump for links and analysis about Mariannette Miller Meeks, Rob Gettemy, Steve Rathje and Chris Reed.  

With the June 8 primary just four weeks away, Steve Rathje of Cedar Rapids is the first of the four Republican candidates in Iowa’s second Congressional district to start running television ads.

Rough transcript by me:

Rathje speaks to the camera: Congress and the president are no doubt lost as to how they’re going to compete with China. Hello folks, I’m Steve Rathje, and for more than 20 years, I’ve been working with companies all across the U.S. in an effort to eliminate waste, cut spending, and bring jobs back home to America.

It’s time to quit sending our jobs overseas and expect foreign countries to buy our debt due to our out-of-control spending. I approved this message because it’s time to compete, not retreat.

Male voice-over: Real-world experience. Steve Rathje Congress.

This strikes me as a very solid introductory ad, highlighting Rathje’s experience as CEO of a company that “find[s] people in Iowa who could make goods quicker, faster, better and cheaper than the foreign competitors.”

According to The Iowa Republican, Rathje is paying about $5,900 to run this commercial on Fox News and KCRG in Cedar Rapids for the week. He probably can afford to stay up on tv until the June 8 primary. At the end of the first quarter, Rathje’s campaign had $55,586 cash on hand, trailing Mariannette Miller-Meeks ($72,702) and political newcomer Rob Gettemy ($120,815 including a $100,000 loan from the candidate). I’m surprised Rathje was able to raise nearly as much money as Miller-Meeks, the 2008 GOP nominee against Representative Dave Loebsack. Gettemy probably has more potential for out-of-district donations now that the National Republican Congressional Committee has put him “on the radar.”

Loebsack’s Republican challengers don’t differ much on the issues. If three of them can afford paid media for the final month of the campaign, that will raise the chances for the nomination to be decided at a district convention. The fourth Republican candidate, Chris Reed, has little money to spend before June 8. He needs to hope that his far-right endorsers and team of volunteers are able to deliver a surprising number of grassroots votes.

This weekend, activists across Iowa have a chance to hear from their party’s candidates for Congress, the Iowa legislature, and statewide offices. The Iowa Democratic Party is holding conventions in all five Congressional districts on Saturday, April 24. These events are open to the public as well as the media. In other words, you do not have to be a convention delegate or alternate to attend. Here’s a list of Democratic convention locations and some scheduled speakers:

WHAT: 1st District Convention WHEN: 10:00AM WHERE: Northeast Iowa Community College 10250 Sundown Rd. Peosta, IA SPEAKERS: Senate Candidate Roxanne Conlin, Senate Candidate Tom Fiegen, Governor Chet Culver, Candidate for Secretary of Agriculture Francis Thicke, Congressman Bruce Braley

WHAT: 2nd District Convention WHEN:11:00 AM WHERE: Fairfield Arts and Convention Center 200 North Main St. Fairfield, IA SPEAKERS: Senate Candidate Roxanne Conlin, Governor Chet Culver, Candidate for Secretary of Agriculture Francis Thicke, Congressman Dave Loebsack, Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Michael Kiernan

WHAT: 3rd District Convention WHEN: 9:00 AM WHERE: Adventureland Inn 3200 Adventureland Dr. Altoona, IA SPEAKERS: Senator Tom Harkin, Senate Candidate Roxanne Conlin, Senate Candidate Tom Fiegen, Governor Chet Culver, Secretary of State Michael Mauro, Candidate for Secretary of Agriculture Francis Thicke, Congressman Leonard Boswell

WHAT: 4th District Convention WHEN: 10:00 AM WHERE: North Iowa Fairgrounds, Olson Building 3700 4th St. SW Mason City, IA SPEAKERS: Senate Candidate Tom Fiegen, Governor Chet Culver, Secretary of State Michael Mauro, Candidate for Congress Bill Maske

WHAT: 5th District Convention WHEN: 9:00 AM WHERE: Atlantic Middle School 1100 Linn St. Atlantic, IA SPEAKERS: Senator Tom Harkin, Senate Candidate Tom Fiegen, Governor Chet Culver, Secretary of State Michael Mauro, Candidate for Congress Matt Campbell, Candidate for Congress Mike Denklau, Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Michael Kiernan

The Republican Party of Iowa is holding conventions in the second, third and fifth districts this Saturday, and in the first and fourth districts on Saturday, May 1. (Click here for event details.) GOP conventions are open to the media but not the public.

The second and third district conventions will be well-attended because of the competitive GOP Congressional primaries. If no candidate wins at least 35 percent of the vote in the June 8 primary, district conventions will have to reconvene in June to select the nominee. Seven Republicans are running against Representative Leonard Boswell in the third district, and at least four of them are campaigning actively.

According to Republican blogger David Chung, there is “unprecedented” interest in the second district convention because of the four Republicans running against Representative Dave Loebsack. Chung writes, “For the first time in my memory, Linn County has filled [its] delegation. We have never actually had as many paid delegates as we were allotted.” Chung considers it “likely” that a second district convention will need to reconvene to select Loebsack’s opponent. Some other people following that race closely expect the contest to be decided on June 8, with only two candidates as serious contenders: Rob Gettemy and Mariannette Miller-Meeks. Gettemmy has the most cash on hand and the support of many influential Linn County Republicans as well as the National Republican Congressional Committee. The 2008 GOP nominee, Miller-Meeks, has spent the most time campaigning around the district. She has more cash on hand than either Steve Rathje or Chris Reed and is likely to do particularly well outside Linn County, where her three Republican rivals are based.

The district conventions will also elect members of the parties’ State Central Committees. Former Republican SCC member Chung is seeking that position again and expects a “massive shakeup” on the committee, because “several current members have decided not to run” again.

UPDATE: I’ve been told that Thicke will be at the fourth district convention as well, and Senate candidate Bob Krause will be at some of these conventions too, but I don’t have details.

The National Republican Campaign Committee added Rob Gettemy to its list of “on the radar” candidates today. Gettemy is one of four Republicans running against Dave Loebsack in Iowa’s second Congressional district.

“The NRCC is committed to working with Rob Gettemy as he continues to meet the rigorous goals of the Young Guns program,” said NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions. “Rob is an accomplished, independent leader who will fight to create jobs and rein in government spending. I am confident that Republicans will wage a strong fight against Dave Loebsack, a loyal Democrat who has repeatedly put his partisan agenda before a healthy economy.”

They’ll have to do more than that to convince me that this D+7 district will be competitive in the fall. The real reason for putting Gettemy “on the radar” is to signal to Republican donors that he’s the guy to support in this race. It’s a slap in the face to 2008 nominee Mariannette Miller-Meeks, not to mention the other two Republicans running in IA-02 (Steve Rathje and Chris Reed). Gettemy joined the race last but has the most cash on hand thanks to a $100,000 loan he made to his own campaign.

If no candidate wins 35 percent in the June 8 primary, NRCC support could help Gettemy at the district convention that would decide the Republican nominee. Gettemy already has backing from many prominent Linn County Republicans.

In the NRCC’s three-tiered system for candidates in supposedly competitive races, the next step up from “on the radar” is “contender.” Jim Gibbons’ campaign announced today that the NRCC has elevated him to that level. Gibbons became an “on the radar” candidate in February. If Gibbons can meet certain benchmarks, the NRCC may later elevate him to the top “Young Gun” level, for candidates deemed to have the best chances of winning Democratic-held House seats.

Getting a pat on the back from the NRCC will help Gibbons raise money, particularly from out-of-district donors who don’t know the political terrain in Iowa’s third district. Gibbons outraised the other Republican candidates in IA-03 by a substantial margin in the first quarter, and being a “contender” will probably help him extend that financial advantage in the second quarter. The Gibbons campaign press release is not subtle:

By achieving ‘Contender’ status, Gibbons has already proven his ability to build a successful campaign structure and achieve vital fundraising goals.

Gibbons added, “This recognition shows that our campaign is ready to take down Leonard Boswell in the fall.  I am the only candidate in this race that has shown the financial heft and organization structure to compete and win in November.  I am running for Congress to bring Iowa values back to Congress,” said Jim Gibbons.

I have to laugh to see Gibbons bragging about support from Washington party leaders a week after he tried to attack incumbent Leonard Boswell for getting help from the head of the DCCC.

Many people on the ground in IA-03 expect State Senator Brad Zaun to win the Republican nomination. Zaun appears to have an early advantage in name recognition as well as a base in vote-rich Urbandale. On the other hand, Zaun has raised only a little more than $80,000 for his Congressional campaign, about $50,000 of that in the first quarter. It may not be enough for strong district-wide advertising and direct mail before the June 8 primary. A majority of Republican voters haven’t yet decided on a candidate, according to a recent poll commissioned by Zaun’s campaign.

If no candidate wins 35 percent in the primary, Zaun could be well-positioned to win the nomination at a district convention, having much more background in Republican politics. But Gibbons could point to the NRCC’s backing as an argument in his favor. Party leaders in Washington are less likely to commit resources to this district if Zaun is the candidate.

A final word on Zaun’s meager fundraising. His defenders claim that his fundraising has lagged because he was tied up in the state legislature from January through March. I’m not buying it. Zaun announced his candidacy against Boswell in early December, more than a month before the 2010 legislative session began. If Rod Roberts could raise more than $50,000 in the kickoff event for his gubernatorial campaign, Zaun should have been able to raise much more at his kickoff event in late December (before the legislative session began). Zaun is a former mayor of Urbandale, a community with much more wealth and more Republicans than the Carroll area Roberts has represented in the Iowa House. Zaun should have a large pool of major donors to tap.

Share any thoughts about Congressional races in Iowa in this thread.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign the health insurance reform bill on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Iowa politicians from both parties have been responding to last night’s votes in the House of Representatives. After the jump I’ve posted lots of reaction quotes, plus some bonus embarrassing comments from Steve King.

The president is coming to Iowa City this Thursday to promote the health insurance reform bill:

Iowa City was where candidate Obama announced his health-care plan before the 2008 caucuses, when he was in a scrap with Hillary Clinton and John Edwards for the party’s presidential nomination.

A White House official said today the president will be in the state to “discuss how health insurance reform will lower costs for small businesses and American families and give them more control over their health care.”

I’ll be curious to see the public polling on this issue in Iowa. A new nationwide CNN poll released today showed that 39 percent of respondents support the Senate bill just approved by the House. Some 43 percent oppose the bill because it is “too liberal,” while 13 percent oppose the bill because it is “not liberal enough.” In other words, more than half the respondents either support the bill or (like me) feel it doesn’t go far enough.  

As many as seven Republican candidates may be competing for the chance to face seven-term Representative Leonard Boswell in Iowa’s third district this year. John Deeth noticed yesterday that Scott Batcher was the first to file for the Republican nomination in IA-03. Batcher’s campaign website highlights extensive experience in business, including 15 years as a healthcare consultant. He’s been running a low-profile campaign, but collected enough signatures “at high school basketball games and coffee shops” to attempt to qualify for the ballot.

Five declared Republican candidates have filed Federal Election Commission reports on fundraising for the IA-03 race, so I assume they will follow through and qualify for the ballot: Jim Gibbons, Brad Zaun, Dave Funk, Mark Rees and Pat Bertroche. A seventh Republican, Jason Welch, was rumored to be getting into this race too, but what turns up on Google searches as Welch’s official website hasn’t been working when I’ve clicked on it.

The second Congressional district Republican primary will be nearly as crowded, with four declared candidates likely to qualify for the ballot: Rob Gettemy, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Chris Reed and Steve Rathje. (So far only Rathje has filed nominating papers.)

If no candidate wins at least 35 percent of the vote in the June 8 primary, district conventions would select the Republican nominee in IA-02 and/or IA-03. In 2002, a fifth district convention selected Steve King as the Republican nominee for Congress after no one in the four-way primary cleared the 35 percent threshold.

Republican county conventions scheduled for this weekend will select delegates for the district conventions, which will be held later this spring. If no winner emerges from the June primary, the second or third district conventions would have to reconvene to select a Congressional nominee. That could happen during the state convention, to be held on June 26 in a location not yet determined. The convention usually takes place in Des Moines but has occasionally been held in Cedar Rapids. This year, Sioux City is also in the running as a venue. That would be a three to four hour drive from the counties in IA-03 and a four to seven hour drive from the counties in IA-02.

Western Iowa is the most Republican area of the state, but the bulk of the Iowa population still lives in the eastern counties. Former GOP State Central Committee member David Chung, who lives in Cedar Rapids, sounded the alarm on his Hawkeye GOP blog:

Even if hotels are short in Des Moines, holding the convention in Sioux CIty almost guarantees that a large number of delegates will need hotel rooms. I do not know whether there will be a major pre-convention event but if there is, it will be impossible for 1st and 2nd Republicans to attend without taking a whole day off from work.

Even worse, given the number of candidates for the 2nd and 3rd district congressional races there is the real possibility that the nominee will be chosen at a district convention. The state convention has been scheduled long enough after the primary to make resolving nominations at the convention possible. I cannot stress how bad a decision it would be to decide the 2nd CD race in Sioux City! The turnout from our district will be greatly suppressed if Siouxland is the choice.

Krusty Konservative also warned yesterday that many Republican delegates will not bother to attend a state convention in Sioux City.

Mariannette Miller-Meeks had a hard time uniting second district Republicans even after winning the 2008 primary. Be prepared for lasting hard feelings if a small group of party activists ends up choosing the GOP nominee in IA-02 or IA-03 this year. King wasn’t hurt by his path to the nomination in 2002, but he was fortunate to be running in heavily Republican IA-05. In contrast, Boswell’s district leans slightly Democratic (D+1) and Dave Loebsack’s district leans strongly Democratic (D+7).

P.S.- I took my kids to see a game at the Iowa girls’ state basketball tournament on Wednesday. A bunch of teams in the Des Moines metro area made the 4A quarterfinals. I noticed that NRCC “on the radar” candidate Jim Gibbons had an ad scrolling occasionally (nothing special, just “Jim Gibbons for Congress, www.gibbonsforcongress.com”). Unfortunately for him, the teams from Republican-leaning Ankeny and Johnston were eliminated in the quarter-finals, so their fans who live in IA-03 won’t be back to see more of the Gibbons ads later this week. Des Moines East advanced to the semis, but I don’t think many GOP primary voters live on the east side of Des Moines. The other teams in the semis are Linn-Mar and Cedar Rapids Kennedy (IA-02) and Waukee (IA-04).

Rob Gettemy, an entrepreneur from the Cedar Rapids suburbs, announced today that he is running for Congress in Iowa’s second district. His campaign website here, and he is @RobGettemy on Twitter. He will compete against Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Chris Reed and Steve Rathje in the Republican primary. His first press release as a Congressional candidate contains what passes for “vision” in today’s GOP:

In my gut, I believe our country has reached a tipping point. We must decide now what country we are. Are we the country of our founders? The country of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. (not a guarantee of happiness). Are we a country that gives us a right to fail…which is necessary if we want an opportunity to succeed?

Or, are we a country that looks to Washington, DC, or Des Moines, Iowa to solve so many of our basic problems? When we pick this path, we give up our liberties. We become enslaved as we become dependent.

Lynda Waddington wrote a good piece on Gettemy at Iowa Independent. Excerpt:

Rob Gettemy, 44, attends Antioch Christian Church in Marion, as do several members of the Linn County Republican Executive Board. He and another member, Jim Mayhew of Vinton, launched a Christian t-shirt and ministry business in 2008 dubbed “1M4JC,” or “One Million For Jesus Christ.” He is an instructor at the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center at University of Iowa and serves on the board of directors for Aid to Women, a local anti-abortion pregnancy crisis center. […]

From a purely horse-race perspective, the entrance of Gettemy likely does the most harm to Reed. Not only does it pull the hometown base Reed hoped to energize, but it sends a definite signal that Reed, who had attempted to position himself as the only true social conservative in the race, was found to be lacking.

Due to Gettemy’s entrepreneurial and business background, it is also feasible that he could melt support that has been slowly building for Rathje, who has emerged as the predominant fiscal conservative.

Waddington mentions that several prominent Linn County Republicans belong to the church Gettemy attends, including “Linn County GOP Chairman Tim Palmer and Vice-Chairman Brent Schulte, a minister at Antioch, and Schulte’s wife, state Rep. Renee Schulte.” The kingmakers in the local GOP don’t appear to be sold on any of the three previously declared candidates, even though all have tried to position themselves as conservatives (see also here).

Miller-Meeks probably has the most name recognition, having been the 2008 nominee against Congressman Dave Loebsack. Rathje has raised the most money. Reed has the wingnuttiest endorsements so far.

I still find it remarkable that Republicans think they can win Iowa’s second district with a far-right candidate. IA-02 has a partisan lean of D+7, meaning that in the last two presidential elections, the district voted about seven points more Democratic than the country as a whole. Only two Republican-held House seats in the entire country have this strong a Democratic lean. One of those is a fluke; Joseph Cao was able to win in Louisiana’s second district because the Democratic incumbent had stashed $90,000 in his freezer. Delaware’s at-large seat (D+7) is held by pro-choice, pro-gun control former Governor Mike Castle. The obvious play for Republicans in IA-02 would be to nominate a moderate in the Jim Leach mold, who could focus on economic issues. Instead, the GOP primary keeps getting more crowded with social conservatives.

Miller-Meeks couldn’t crack 40 percent against Loebsack in 2008. In a Republican wave year, the GOP nominee should do somewhat better, but I doubt a down-the-line conservative can win a district dominated by Johnson and Linn counties. Feel free to argue with me in the comments if you’re so inclined.

Financial reports for the end of 2009 were due with the Federal Election Commission on January 31. Here are some highlights.

The Iowa Democratic Party announced yesterday that it raised about $2.47 million across all accounts in 2009, while the Republican Party of Iowa raised $1.46 million. IDP chair Michael Kiernan said the party had met its goal of securing “the resources needed to win this November.” Details:

IDP filed $1.23 million in the state report. RPI filed $450,137 in the same report.

Filed 19 January 2010. Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board.

http://iowa.gov/ethics/

IDP filed $148,574 in State Party Building Fund Report. RPI filed $177,365.

Filed 28 January 2010. Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board.

http://iowa.gov/ethics/

IDP filed $1.09 million filed in Federal Year-End Report. RPI filed $837,406.

Filed 31 January 2010. Federal Elections Commission.

http://fec.gov

The money reported in the federal year-end report can be used to support any candidates and campaigns. The money in the state fund can be used on statewide races or Iowa House and Senate races. The State Party Building Fund money can’t be used on candidates or campaigns, but only on expenses for the building where the party headquarters is located (such as equipment or maintenance).

The Iowa GOP responded that it entered 2010 with about $100,000 more cash on hand than Iowa Democrats, but I don’t know whether its cash is in restricted or unrestricted accounts. (UPDATE: The Iowa Democratic Party disputes this claim. Adding the amounts from all three reports filed, the IDP has $449,334.94 on hand, while “RPI has $265,281.06 on hand between all three reports filed.”)

As for the federal races, Senator Chuck Grassley raised about $810,000 in the fourth quarter of 2009, spent about $156,000 and ended the year with about $5 million cash on hand. That’s about ten times as much as Democrat Roxanne Conlin has on hand for her campaign. Democrats Bob Krause and Tom Fiegen reported approximately $3,500 and $400 on hand, respectively.

IowaPolitics.com posted numbers for the Congressional candidates here. I was most interested in the numbers from the second and third districts. In IA-02, two-term incumbent Dave Loebsack raised $94,479 in the fourth quarter, spent $36,572 and ended the year with $336,311 cash on hand.

Surprisingly, Steve Rathje led the money race on the Republican side, raising $59,130 in the fourth quarter, spending $12,648 and ending with $46,242 cash on hand. The 2008 GOP nominee, Mariannnette Miller-Meeks, raised $20,660 (including $4,000 she gave herself), spent $39 and had $20,620 on hand. IowaPolitics.com didn’t mention numbers for Chris Reed, but The Iowa Republican blog reported that Reed raised “a miniscule $2,833.75 in the last quarter of 2009,” ending the year with “just over $2000 cash on hand.”

In the third district, seven-term incumbent Leonard Boswell raised $169,377 in the fourth quarter, spent $50,643 and had $462,193 cash on hand. Most of his money came from political action committee contributions.

Jim Gibbons led the crowded Republican field, thanks to support from heavy-hitters like Bruce Rastetter as well as a number of political action committees. Gibbons raised $207,310, spent $2,240 and ended the year with $205,069 on hand and $2,686 in debts owed. Craig Robinson of the Iowa Republican blog is ready to declare victory for Gibbons in the primary already, based on these numbers. However, Bleeding Heartland user mirage (a supporter of State Senator Brad Zaun) noted in the same thread, “About $51,000 of Gibbons funds will be restricted (meaning they can’t be used against Zaun in a primary), and about $130,000 came from outside the 3rd district.”

Speaking of Zaun, he raised $30,600, spent $93 and ended 2009 with $30,507 on hand. Presumably he has raised more money since January 1, because he made a television ad buy last week. But as Robinson noted triumphantly, “Even if [Dave] Funk or Zaun raised $1000 everyday between now and the primary, they still wouldn’t match what Gibbons currently has in his campaign account.”

Funk, the IA-03 candidate favored by the Tea Party crowd, raised $22,685 in the fourth quarter, spent $19,553 and ended the year with $16,507 on hand. According to mirage, much of Funk’s remaining money is restricted for use after the primary. I don’t think he’ll be needing that.

Mark Rees, who is running as a more moderate Republican, raised $3,100 and loaned his own campaign $52,647. He spent $3,247 and ended the year with $52,500 and $52,647 in debts owed to himself. I don’t know how much of a moderate GOP base is left in the Des Moines suburbs, but if conservatives divide their support among three or four candidates, Rees could slip through.

Following up on my review of news from the first half of last year, I’ve posted links to Bleeding Heartland’s coverage of Iowa politics from July through December 2009 after the jump.

Hot topics on this blog during the second half of the year included the governor’s race, the special election in Iowa House district 90, candidates announcing plans to run for the state legislature next year, the growing number of Republicans ready to challenge Representative Leonard Boswell, state budget constraints, and a scandal involving the tax credit for film-making.

Cedar Rapids-based businessman Steve Rathje confirmed on January 2 that he will run for Congress in Iowa’s second district. A press release posted to his Facebook page emphasizes his experience cutting waste and creating jobs as a business owner. He is scheduling appearances around the district for later this month, and his campaign website is here.

Rathje is best known as one of the Republican candidates in the 2008 U.S. Senate primary. He finished third but not far behind Christopher Reed and George Eichhorn. His website indicates that he will be running as a more conservative alternative to Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who was Congressman Dave Loebsack’s opponent in 2008 and is running again this year.

Rathje and Reed will have an uphill battle in the primary, as they will be splitting the votes of Republicans for whom Miller-Meeks isn’t right-wing enough. I doubt either of them can beat her, but Reed probably has a better chance to make the primary competitive than Rathje. Not only has Reed already announced his candidacy in IA-02 and lined up a bunch of county coordinators, he has also received quite a few wingnut endorsements: former presidential candidates Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter, the National 9/12 Patriots, the Minutemen Patriots and America’s Independent Party.

Any thoughts on the upcoming campaign in IA-02 are welcome in this thread. I still find it remarkable that there isn’t a social moderate running in the GOP primary in this D+7 district.

UPDATE: John Deeth took a closer look at Reed’s county chair list and noticed Johnson County supervisor candidate Lori Cardella. When I clicked on the list again, I saw that Reed’s Jefferson County chair is Stephen Burgmeier, the unsuccessful GOP candidate in last year’s special election in Iowa House district 90.

Assuming the House and the Senate pass whatever health insurance bill comes out of the conference committee, Republicans and Democrats are likely to highlight the reform during next year’s campaigns. Recent polls have shown that most Americans don’t expect action by this Congress to improve the quality of their own health care or reduce its cost. Complicating matters for Democrats, key provisions of the bill won’t take effect until 2013 or 2014, giving Republicans plenty of time to exploit fears about the so-called “government takeover” of health care.

After the jump, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Senator Chuck Grassley preview messages we’ll hear from GOP candidates across the country, while Senator Tom Harkin summarizes some “immediate benefits” of the health insurance reform.

This thread is for anything that’s on your mind this weekend.

After the jump I’ve posted links about Christian Fong, Sarah Palin, House district 1 and Kim Lehman to get things rolling.

So many campaign stories the past few days, so little time.

After the jump you’ll find lots of links about various campaigns for U.S. Senate, House, governor and state treasurer.

Iowa’s second Congressional district is the most Democratic-leaning of our five districts. It has a partisan voting index of D+7, which means that in any given year, we would expect this district to vote about 7 point more Democratic than the country as a whole. In 2008, Dave Loebsack won re-election in IA-02 with about 57 percent of the vote against Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who couldn’t crack 40 percent.

Today Republican blogger Craig Robinson previews the GOP primary to take on Loebsack. His piece is a good reminder of how small the Republican tent has become in a district once represented by Jim Leach.  

Craig Robinson has a post up at The Iowa Republican on efforts by the Scott County GOP to “turn the tide” for Republicans in eastern Iowa and statewide. The problem:

Just over a decade ago, Republicans held eight of the nine legislative seats in Scott County, today Republicans only control three of those seats. […] Currently, Republicans control only five senate seats and sixteen house seats east of Polk County. If you want to understand why Republicans have lost their majorities, one need[s] to look at what has happened to the state of the Republican Party in eastern Iowa.

In January of 2000, there were almost 5,000 more registered Republicans in Scott County than there were registered Democrats. Today, Democrats enjoy a registered voter advantage of 8,622 over Republicans. The 13,000 person swing in registered voters explains why Republicans have struggled to win elections in Scott County, the first congressional district, and statewide.

In the late 1990’s, Republican statewide candidates could win if they were able to perform reasonably well in Polk County. Many times, western Iowa counties as along with eastern Iowa Republican strongholds like Scott County could offset the margin that Democratic candidates could build in Polk and Johnson counties. Unfortunately, those were the glory days of Republican politics. In recent years, the only area of the state in which Republicans can build significant margins over Democrats is in northwest Iowa.

Here’s a name you won’t find in Robinson’s piece: Jim Leach. In the “glory days,” Jim Leach represented Scott County in Congress. But other Republicans attacked Congressional candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks last year because she praised Leach’s work (even though she disagreed with his pro-choice position).  Now Christian Fong, the only gubernatorial candidate from eastern Iowa, assures voters that he is a social conservative and ducked a question about whether he’d ever voted for Leach.

In the “glory days,” most of the statehouse Republicans representing eastern Iowa were moderates. But in the 2006 Republican primary in Iowa Senate district 41, right-wing interest groups helped David Hartsuch oust pro-choice incumbent Republican Maggie Tinsman. Legislators on both sides of the aisle respected Tinsman, which can’t be said of Hartsuch. Getting rid of Tinsman helped social conservatives gain more power in the Iowa GOP, but I doubt it helped the Republican brand in Scott County.

The Republican Party in Iowa and nationally has simply become too conservative to compete in much of eastern Iowa. The same process has turned many longtime Republican districts in Illinois and Wisconsin blue.

Robinson praises Brian Kennedy’s organizing and fundraising work as the finance chair of the Scott County GOP. He argues that rising unemployment in eastern Iowa has created an opening for Republicans in 2010. For that reason, Kennedy wants GOP candidates to focus on “job creation and the economy.” But clearly, there is no room in the GOP for candidates who don’t accept all of the religious right’s positions, whether or not they talk about jobs.

Until the Republican Party makes room in the tent for people who admire Jim Leach, they won’t regain a dominant position in places like Scott County. A weak economy can help the GOP make up some ground next year, and raising more money can improve their grassroots organizing, but that won’t solve their fundamental problem.

Eastern Iowa Bleeding Heartland readers, tell me if I’m right or wrong and why.

I learned from Sioux City Journal columnist Bret Hayworth that a Democrat has already filed Federal Election Commission paperwork to run against Representative Steve King in Iowa’s fifth Congressional district:

Mike Denklau has eyed the possibility of running in the strong Republican district since early 2009, and after traveling western Iowa recently he decided to go all-in.

On Oct. 15, Denklau will announce his candidacy 55 weeks out from the election in stops here in Sioux City, Council Bluffs and Des Moines. Denklau will turn 27 next month – he was raised in Blue Grass near Davenport and graduated from the University of Iowa with majors in political science and finance. He worked in New York for two banking firms through June 2009, including Lehman Brothers, until moving to Council Bluffs recently.

Hayworth notes that it’s not clear whether Rob Hubler, King’s 2008 opponent, will run again. Although Democrats cannot realistically hope to defeat King in a district with a partisan voter index of R+9, an energetic challenger may help drive up Democratic turnout across the district. There will be several competitive state legislative races in the counties that make up IA-05.

Meanwhile, Craig Robinson reports at The Iowa Republican that Rod Blum of Dubuque is ready to challenge Representative Bruce Braley in the first Congressional district.

Blum has strong eastern Iowa roots. He graduated from Dubuque Senior High School in 1973, earned a bachelor’s degree from Loras College (Finance) in 1977, and received a Masters in Business Administration from Dubuque University in 1989. In 1989, Blum was one of the initial employees of Dubuque-based Eagle Point Software. In just five years, Eagle Point Software went public on NASDAQ and had 325 employees. In 2000, Digital Canal was created as a result of a leveraged buyout of Eagle Point Software. Digital Canal is a leading provider of home building and structural engineering software. Blum was also named the Iowa Entrepreneur of the Year in 1994.

While Blum has never run for elected office before, he has been making his political views known in eastern Iowa since 2001 as the Dubuque Telegraph Herald’s conservative columnist. Blum’s writings for the Telegraph Herald will be helpful for a couple of reasons. First, having a regular column in the local newspaper helps build credibility and name ID. Secondly, writing a political column means that he has well thought out positions on many of the issues facing our country today, something many first time candidates lack.

He’ll need more than conservative ideology and name ID in the Dubuque area to unseat Braley. Robinson notes that Republican Jim Nussle represented IA-01 before the 2006 election, but Nussle’s position as chairman of a House budget subcommittee helped him hang on in a Democratic-leaning district. That’s different from a Republican challenger trying to swim against the tide in a district with a partisan voting index of D+5. Republicans currently hold only two House disticts with that much of a Democratic lean: Delaware’s at-large seat, which the GOP will lose when Mike Castle runs for U.S. Senate next year, and Louisiana’s second district, which was a fluke in 2008 because of the Democratic incumbent’s apparent corruption.

Braley is a rising star and effective legislator with a spot on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He won re-election with more than 64 percent of the vote in 2008. Even if 2010 turns out to be a Republican year, Braley’s not losing in a district with 35,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans.

To my knowledge, Republican Tom Latham (IA-04) is Iowa’s only incumbent in Congress with no likely challenger yet. Steve Rathje and probably Mariannette Miller-Meeks will run against Dave Loebsack in IA-02, while Dave Funk and Pat Bertroche are challenging Leonard Boswell in IA-03. I don’t expect either of those districts to be competitive in 2010.

Former Governor Terry Branstad is expected to announce soon that he’s running for governor again. The rumor going around town is that he will name his running mate immediately upon entering the race. One person I’ve heard mentioned for that role is former State Representative Libby Jacobs. She represented Iowa House district 60, containing most of West Des Moines, from 1995 until she retired in 2008.

Jacobs would be a logical choice for Branstad in some ways. She could help correct the gender gap that hurts Republican candidates. She could help the GOP in wealthy suburban areas that are no longer solidly Republican. Jacobs never faced serious opposition in House district 60, but Chet Culver carried the district in 2006. Although House district 60 voters elected Republican Peter Cownie to replace Jacobs last November, Barack Obama narrowly beat John McCain in the district.

Jacobs also has time to embark on an aggressive campaign. In May of this year, she was laid off as a spokeswoman for the Principal Financial Group.

Choosing Jacobs would incur some political risks for Branstad, because she was a fairly reliable pro-choice vote in the Iowa House. Jacobs hasn’t been active in Planned Parenthood like some other former Republican women legislators (Joy Corning, Janet Metcalf, Betty Grundberg, Julia Gentleman), but that distinction won’t matter to social conservatives. Certain people on the religious right had trouble accepting even GOP Congressional candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who was against abortion rights with very few exceptions.

Branstad didn’t attend the Iowa Family Policy Center’s big fundraiser in September, and he skipped last weekend’s Iowa Christian Alliance dinner too. Selecting Jacobs or any other pro-choice running mate would indicate that Branstad agrees with his longtime top aide Doug Gross, who says Republicans will continue to lose until they stop alienating moderates and shift their focus from social issues to the economy. In effect, Branstad would be telling social conservatives, “I’ve got the money to win this primary, we need to appeal to the center, now sit down and shut up.”

Republicans who believe Gross hurts the party and are looking for Branstad to distance himself from him will be disappointed. Those who share Bob Vander Plaats’ view (Republicans have been losing elections in Iowa because they’re not conservative enough) will be enraged. Expect WHO talk radio host Steve Deace to go ballistic if Branstad shuns his campaign advice.

Of course, the rumor about Jacobs could turn out to be false. Branstad might choose a running mate with strong backing among social conservatives. That would indicate a desire to unify the party and neutralize critics who are angry that he chose Joy Corning to serve as lieutenant governor. If Branstad has any concerns about losing the Republican primary, he might take this route. Doing so would undercut Vander Plaats, who has already pledged not to pick a pro-choice running mate. State Representative Jodi Tymeson, who co-chairs the Vander Plaats campaign, is widely expected to be his choice for lieutenant governor.

Share any relevant rumors, thoughts or predictions in this thread.

Last year all five Iowa incumbents in the House of Representatives were re-elected by double-digit margins. The main challengers failed to win even 40 percent of the vote against Democrats Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02), as well as Republicans Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05).

I’ve long assumed that none of Iowa’s Congressional districts would be competitive in 2010. Although Republicans have put Leonard Boswell (IA-03) on their long list of House targets, several other analysts share my view that Boswell is safe for next year. To my knowledge, the only declared candidates against Boswell are the little-known Dave Funk and Pat Bertroche. Boswell’s 1996 opponent Mike Mahaffey is thinking it over too.

Isaac Wood and Larry Sabato released new House race rankings, and they included IA-03 among 47 Democratic-held districts that are “likely” to remain Democratic:

The “likely” category is reserved for those competitive races where one party has a distinct advantage over the other. Most of these races feature either strong challengers or weak incumbents, but not a combination of the two that would warrant a more competitive designation. Consider these races as a watch list which could turn into heated battle with a single misstep by an incumbent or positive fundraising report.

I could see Iowa’s third district becoming competitive, but only if the economy is in terrible shape next fall and Republicans fund a well-known candidate with a base in Polk County (the population center of the district).

I question Wood and Sabato’s decision to put Loebsack’s district in the “likely” category as well. So far right-winger Steve Rathje is definitely running against Loebsack (he narrowly lost the 2008 GOP primary for U.S. Senate). Mariannette Miller-Meeks is also considering a rematch. She’s an impressive woman, but I frankly can’t imagine this district becoming competitive in 2010. IA-02 has much stronger Democratic voting performance than IA-03, which tracks closely with the nationwide vote in presidential elections.

Share any thoughts or predictions in this thread.

President Barack Obama formally announced on Monday that he is nominating Kathleen Sebelius to serve as Health and Human Services Secretary in his cabinet. She should be confirmed with little trouble, as various Republicans have already praised her nomination.

After the jump I’ve posted my initial thoughts on the pluses and minuses of this appointment.

State Auditor David Vaudt’s a pretty good bean-counter, but he did not read the fine print of the stimulus bill Congress recently passed. (In fairness, the document was more than 1,000 pages long.) Vaudt told the Iowa Political Alert blog that

the state should consider the nearly $1.9 billion expected to flow to Iowa through the package in cafeteria style – taking millions here but potentially leaving money on the table elsewhere if he thinks the short-term gain would give birth to unwieldy bureaucracy down the road.

“I would sort through each piece of the stimulus package and try and say ‘where does it fit Iowa the most,’” he said.

(Hat tip to Iowa Independent.)

But Senator Charles Schumer of New York has bad news for Republican governors (or in this case a would-be governor) advocating an a la carte approach to the stimulus:

As you know, Section 1607(a) of the economic recovery legislation provides that the Governor of each state must certify a request for stimulus funds before any money can flow. No language in this provision, however, permits the governor to selectively adopt some components of the bill while rejecting others. To allow such picking and choosing would, in effect, empower the governors with a line-item veto authority that President Obama himself did not possess at the time he signed the legislation. It would also undermine the overall success of the bill, as the components most singled out for criticism by these governors are among the most productive measures in terms of stimulating the economy.

Vaudt may run for governor in 2010, but I don’t give him much chance of winning a Republican primary. A few days ago he dared to suggest that Iowans may have to pay higher gas taxes in order to adequately fund road projects. That will rile up the base in the wrong way.

Speaking to Iowa Political Alert, Vaudt acknowledged that he hasn’t focused much on social issues in the past. He added that on abortion he’s a “pro-life person” who would make exceptions in the case of rape or when the mother’s life is in danger.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Republican Congressional candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks had exactly the same stance on abortion and was consequently attacked by Iowa Right to Life. Amazingly, the State Central Committee of the Republican Party of Iowa barely had the votes to censure RNC committeewoman Kim Lehman for failing to support Miller-Meeks during her campaign against Congressman Dave Loebsack last fall.

I don’t think Vaudt will satisfy the social conservatives who dominate GOP primaries in Iowa unless several candidates of the Bob Vander Plaats variety split those votes.  

Last year at this time I was scrambling to make as many phone calls and knock on as many doors as I could before the Iowa caucuses on January 3.

This week I had a little more time to reflect on the year that just ended.

After the jump I’ve linked to Bleeding Heartland highlights in 2008. Most of the links relate to Iowa politics, but some also covered issues or strategy of national importance.

I only linked to a few posts about the presidential race. I’ll do a review of Bleeding Heartland’s 2008 presidential election coverage later this month.

You can use the search engine on the left side of the screen to look for past Bleeding Heartland diaries about any person or issue.

Thanks to the reader who suggested the correction and clarification I’ve added below.

The U.S. Census Bureau confirmed this week that Iowa will lose a Congressional district following the 2010 census unless we experience unprecedented (for Iowa) population growth in the next two years:

During the past eight years, Iowa has gained as many people – about 76,000 – as states like South Carolina and Virginia gained between 2007 and 2008 alone.

To retain the congressional seat, the state would have to gain nearly twice that number by 2010, according to projections by Election Data Services, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that analyzes the impact of demographics on politics.

Don’t get your hopes up: we are going down to four Congressional districts. No one knows what the new map will look like, but it’s likely that the 2012 race in the new third district will determine whether Iowa Democrats (who now hold a 3-2 edge in U.S. House seats) gain a 3-1 advantage or have to settle for a 2-2 split.

Note: A non-partisan commission draws up the new Congressional map after each census in Iowa, so Democratic gerrymanders will not take place, even if Governor Chet Culver wins re-election in 2010 and Democrats hold their majorities in the state House and Senate. (Clarification: if the Democrats maintain control of the legislature, they have the option of rejecting the first and/or second map produced by the non-partisan commission. Republicans rejected the first map proposed after the last census.)

Most of what’s now the fifth district, represented by Republican incumbent Steve “10 Worst” King, is likely to become the new fourth district. It makes no difference whether the new counties added to IA-04 come from the current third or fourth districts–that is going to be a safe Republican seat.

Given the voting trends in eastern Iowa, I assume the new first and second Congressional districts will still be relatively safe for Democrats. (Remember, fewer than 10 Republicans in the whole country represent districts with any kind of Democratic partisan lean.) Either Bruce Braley or Dave Loebsack may need to move if the new map throws Waterloo (Black Hawk County) in the same district as Mount Vernon (Linn County), but that should not present much of a problem.

The big question mark is what happens to IA-03. Polk County will remain the largest county in the district, but it won’t be as dominant in the new district as it is now. Roughly 75 to 80 percent CORRECTION: A majority of the votes in the current third district come from the county containing Des Moines and most of its suburbs.

In which direction will IA-03 expand? If the counties added to it come mostly from the southwest, Republicans will have a better chance of winning the district. One reason Greg Ganske beat longtime incumbent Neal Smith in the 1994 landslide was that Smith’s fourth district had lost Story and Jasper counties, and gained a lot of southwestern Iowa counties, following the 1990 census.

If IA-03 includes more counties from the southeast, Democrats would be better positioned to hold the seat, although it’s worth remembering that Ottumwa resident Mariannette Miller-Meeks carried seven southern counties in her unsuccessful challenge to Loebsack in IA-02 this year.

Speaking at an Iowa Politics forum in Des Moines last month, Miller-Meeks said she was leaving her ophthalmology practice at the end of 2008. She strongly suggested that she will run for office again. Whether that means another bid for Congress or a run for the state legislature was unclear.

Miller-Meeks has little chance of winning a district as strongly Democratic as IA-02, but I could easily see her taking on Leonard Boswell if Wapello County ends up in IA-03 after the next census. The Des Moines Register has endorsed Boswell’s challengers before and would back any credible Republican opponent against him.

The Republicans’ best chance in a third district stretching to the south, though, would be to run someone with strong Polk County connections to keep down the Democratic margins there. I don’t have any idea which Republicans have their eye on this race.

If IA-03 expands to the north, it’s good news and bad news for Democrats. Story County and Marshall County are reasonably strong territory for the party. On the down side, current fourth district incumbent Tom Latham lives in Story County. Latham is a mediocre Republican back-bencher; what else can you say about a seven-term incumbent whose big achievement on health care, according to his own campaign, was co-sponsoring a bill that never made it out of committee?

However, Latham has obviously used his position on the Appropriations Committee to build up a lot of goodwill in the district. He just won re-election by 21 points in a district Barack Obama carried by 8 percent, and he even carried Story County.

I don’t care to run Boswell or a non-incumbent Democrat (in the event of Boswell’s retirement) against Latham in a redrawn IA-03. I’m not saying Democrats couldn’t hold the seat in those circumstances, but I feel it would be a tough hold.

We would be better off electing a new, ambitious Democrat to Iowa’s third district in 2010, so we can run a rising star in the majority party against Latham, if it comes to that. Actually, we’d have been better off if Boswell had retired in 2008, allowing someone new to compete for this seat as a two-term Democratic incumbent in 2012. But what’s done is done.

Anyone think there’s a chance Boswell will reconsider his promise to run for re-election in 2010?

If Democrats still control the state legislature after 2010, should they reject the first new Congressional map suggested by the non-partisan commission if that map puts Story County in IA-03?

What kind of map would give Democrats the best chance of holding the third district?

I look forward to reading your absurdly early speculation about the 2012 races in the comments.

For those who are interested in the national implications of the post-census reapportionment, DavidNYC created a chart showing which states are likely to gain or lose Congressional districts.

Chris Bowers has already created a 2012 electoral college map, and even with one fewer electoral vote, Iowa will remain important to Obama’s re-election chances. You should click over and read the whole post yourself, but the good news is that Obama has a clear path to 270 electoral votes in 2012 even if he loses Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina.

UPDATE: John Deeth looked ahead to the 2012 Iowa races in this post last week. He concluded that in order to win three out of the four Congressional districts, Iowa Democrats will need to 1) beat Latham in 2010, and 2) get Boswell to retire in 2012. Click over to read how he reached that conclusion.  

Normally I mention these Iowa Politics events on my weekly calendar, but I only found out about this one today. There are still some spots available for reservations:

Drake to host forum on women in Iowa politics

Drake University will host a bipartisan forum Friday, Nov. 14, on the role women play in Iowa politics and future prospects for women to be elected to represent Iowans in Congress.

The featured speakers will be:

   * Dianne Bystrom, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University

   * Becky Greenwald, Iowa Congressional candidate

   * Mary E. Kramer, former U.S. ambassador

   * Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa Congressional candidate

   * Jo Ann Zimmerman, former Iowa lieutenant governor

The event, which is free and open to the public, will start at 11 a.m. in Levitt Hall in Old Main, 2507 University Ave.

Reservations are required for the event, which is sponsored by Drake, IowaPolitics.com and Mediacom, as part of the Cookies and Conversation Series. For reservations, call 515-226-8774 or send an e-mail to Julie Rutz at rutz@IowaPolitics.com.

IowaPolitics.com Des Moines Bureau Chief Lynn Campbell will moderate the program and questions will be accepted from audience members. The panel discussion will be televised to a statewide audience on the Mediacom Connections Channel and will be available for On Demand viewing from Mediacom on Channel 1.

Doors to Levitt Hall will open at 10:30 a.m. Free parking will be available in Drake lots at 26th Street and University Avenue and at 25th Street and Carpenter Avenue.

IowaPolitics.com is an independent, nonpartisan news operation offering a free Web site at www.IowaPolitics.com and paid subscriber products.

This is an open thread for discussing women in Iowa politics.

I still believe that the most important reason Iowa has never sent a woman to Congress is the fact that almost every woman who’s tried was challenging an incumbent.

Many women failed to defeat incumbents in other states too this year, including quite a few who had more money to spend on their campaigns than Miller-Meeks or Greenwald did in IA-02 and IA-04.

A leading voice of Republican social conservatives in Iowa makes a surprising analogy in an op-ed piece from Tuesday’s Des Moines Register:

Jesus Christ, whom many Republicans claim to follow, summoned his followers to be either hot or cold toward Him, because a “lukewarm” commitment makes Him want to vomit. I believe this accurately reflects the mood of voters in the past several elections where Republicans have witnessed consecutive defeats.

We have followed the misguided advice of “experts” to abandon our principles and move to the middle so we can supposedly win. In essence, we have become “lukewarm” on life, on marriage, on the Second Amendment, on limited government, on balanced budgets, on lower taxes, on parental rights in educating and raising children, on faith, on family and on freedom. The net result is that voters have spit us out of their mouths. […]

The “elite” politicos and Iowa’s dwindling Republican establishment are now convening committees and strategy sessions to advise their “flock” to abandon the party’s principles and move even further to the middle if they hope to win again. The voter sees and tastes the “lukewarm” and compromising attempts to gain positions and power. The result is no trust, and the voter, like Christ, wants to throw up.

If Republicans are to win again, they must authentically embrace their core principles and effectively communicate a compelling message of bold-color conservatism that inspires faith, family and freedom.

That is no fringe politician talking. It’s Bob Vander Plaats, a businessman from northwest Iowa who ran for the 2002 gubernatorial nomination, was the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 2006, and chaired Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign in Iowa.

If you click the link and read the whole piece by Vander Plaats, you won’t find any opinion poll data backing up his assertions about why Iowa voters have been rejecting Republicans.

National polling shows that the electorate as a whole thinks Republicans lost the 2006 and 2008 elections because they were too conservative. At the same time, Republicans are more likely to reach the same conclusions as Vander Plaats: their party is losing because its candidates have not been conservative enough.

I’ll be honest: I’d be happy to see the Republican Party of Iowa embrace Vander Plaats’ faith-based political strategy. I suspect that’s a path toward further losses for the GOP in 2010.

Quite a few GOP legislative candidates who put social issues front and center in their campaigns lost last Tuesday.

Vander Plaats does not name any specific candidates whose moderation allegedly made voters want to throw up. One who drew a lot of fire from the social conservative crowd was Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Republican candidate for the second Congressional district. She was a strong candidate, in my opinion, and it would be ridiculous to argue that she lost for not being conservative enough. This district has a partisan index of D+7. No Republican in the whole country represents a Congressional district with that much of a Democratic lean. Mike Castle of Delaware is the only one who comes close, and he is not a religious conservative firebrand.

The Vander Plaats piece is further evidence of the deep split in the Republican Party of Iowa. It won’t be easy to heal under any circumstances, but especially not if social conservatives insist on driving their party off a cliff.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that overall turnout in Iowa in 2008 was lower than it was in 2004. That is surprising, given the well-documented surge in new voter registrations.

Which people who participated in 2004 stayed home yesterday, and how did that affect the results?

Tom Harkin won all 99 counties, which is remarkable considering that John McCain beat Barack Obama in 46 or 47 of Iowa’s counties. Even in Republican areas, they’re looking for more in a U.S. senator than trash talk and smackdowns. Does anyone remember whether Chuck Grassley carried all 99 counties in 2004?

(UPDATE: The Daily Kos election scoreboard shows Christopher Reed beating Harkin in Page County in the southwest part of the state and in the four counties in the northwest corner. There may be a mistake on the Des Moines Register’s map, which shows all 99 counties in blue for the Senate race.)

The words “idiot” and “insane person” will be removed from the Iowa Constitution.

Speaking of idiots, Steve King got away with barely campaigning in the fifth district, winning by at least 20 points. Politics can be cruel, and I feel for Rob Hubler, who worked so hard for so long to give fifth district residents a credible candidate.

Nationwide, many Democratic challengers in districts like IA-05 fell far short. Nancy Boyda, a surprise winner from 2006 in KS-02, was a surprise loser last night. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee invested millions of dollars in other similarly Republican districts like MN-06 and AZ-03, and our challengers lost those too.

After beating Kim Schmett by 57 percent to 42 percent (about double his margin of victory in 2006), third district Congressman Leonard Boswell immediately vowed to run for re-election in 2010. Can’t some Democratic heavy-hitters who are on good terms with Boswell encourage him to retire? Barring that, is there anyone willing to start fundraising for a 2010 primary challenge who would have some establishment support?

We may have to run against Tom Latham in a redrawn third district in 2012, and it would be helpful to have a new Democratic incumbent in place before that happens.

Bruce Braley was the incumbent re-elected by the largest margin, 64 percent to 36 percent. I agree with John Deeth that Republican moderates are going to challenge Dave Hartsuch in his 2010 state senate primary.

Dave Loebsack won big in the second district, by 57 percent to 39 percent. The hill in this D+7 district is just too steep for a Republican candidate to climb. Mariannette Miller-Meeks would be better off seeking a different political office in the future, although the Iowa GOP may encourage her to run for Congress again in 2010. Loebsack won’t have the Barack Obama turnout machine cranking in Johnson and Linn counties two years from now.

Iowa Democrats are looking at small net gains in the House and Senate. Dawn Pettengill got away with switching to the GOP after the Iowa Democratic Party worked hard to elect her. A couple of races may have a different result once the absentee and provisional ballots are counted. Deeth has more details.

Jerry Sullivan has not ruled out requesting a recount in House district 59, although it seems unlikely to me that there are enough provisional and absentee ballots outstanding for him to reverse Chris Hagenow’s 141-vote lead (out of more than 16,000 votes cast).

UPDATE: Johnson County voters narrowly approved a controversial bond measure. The proposal was designed to generate

$20 million in a 20-year period to conserve open space.

By collecting taxes for two decades, the Johnson County Conservation Board will have the funds to buy and preserve remnant areas of land scattered throughout the county from willing sellers.

Bumped. Don’t forget to enter by Tuesday morning at 6 am!

I am still trying to decide whether to go with my optimistic or pessimistic scenario and will post my final prediction on Monday night.

There are no tangible prizes here–only bragging rights for the winners.

Enter if you dare. Try to come up with guesses for all the questions. Before you complain that these questions are tough, look at the Swing State Project prediction contest.

Your vote percentage guesses do not have to add up to 100 percent if you believe that minor-party candidates or write-ins will pick up a few percent of the vote.

1. What percentage of the national popular vote with Barack Obama and John McCain receive?

2. How many electoral votes will Obama and McCain win? (538 total)

3. What percentage of the vote will Obama and McCain win in Iowa?

4. What percentage of the vote will Bruce Braley and Dave Hartsuch receive in the 1st district?

5. What percentage of the vote will Dave Loebsack and Mariannette Miller-Meeks receive in the 2nd district?

6. What percentage of the vote will Leonard Boswell and Kim Schmett receive in the 3rd district?

7. What percentage of the vote will Tom Latham and Becky Greenwald receive in the 4th district?

8. What percentage of the vote will Steve King and Rob Hubler receive in the 5th district?

9. How many seats will the Democrats and Republicans have in the Iowa House after the election (currently 53-47 Dem)?

10. How many seats will the Democrats and Republicans have in the Iowa Senate after the election (currently 30-20 Dem)?

11. Which Congressional race in Iowa will be the closest (in terms of percentage of vote difference between winner and loser)?

12. Which Iowa House or Senate race will be the closest (in terms of percentage of vote difference between winner and loser)?

13. Nationally, which U.S. Senate race will be decided by the narrowest margin (in terms of percentage of the vote difference, not raw votes)?

14. In the presidential race, which state will be decided by the narrowest margin (again, in terms of percentage of the vote)?

The deadline for entering this contest is 6 am on November 4.

Please don’t e-mail me your predictions. Post a comment if you want to enter the contest. If you’re a lurker, this is an ideal time to register for a Bleeding Heartland account so that you can post comments.

UPDATE: Here are my predictions. I went with my optimistic scenario nationally but my more pessimistic scenario for Iowa, having been emotionally scarred by too many disappointing election nights.

1. National popular vote, rounded to the nearest point: Obama 54 percent, McCain 45 percent

2. Electoral college: Obama 353, McCain 185 (Obama wins all Kerry states plus IA, NM, CO, NV, OH, FL, VA and NC)

3. In Iowa, Obama will win 56 percent, McCain 43 percent

4. Braley 62, Hartsuch 38

5. Loebsack 57, Miller-Meeks 40 (I have no doubt that she will overperform McCain in this D+7 district, but it won’t be enough. She should run for the statehouse someday.)

6. Boswell 55, Schmett 45

7. Heartbreaker in the fourth: Latham 51, Greenwald 49. I expect too many independents to split their tickets. That said, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Greenwald win this race on Obama’s coat-tails. I just don’t see that as the most likely outcome.

8. Again, I wouldn’t rule out a surprise victory for Hubler if a lot of Republicans stay home tomorrow, but my prediction is (sadly) going to be King 54, Hubler 46.

9. The Iowa House will have 56 Democrats and 44 Republicans.

10. The Iowa Senate will have 33 Democrats and 17 Republicans.

11. IA-04 will be the closest Congressional race.

12. My gut feeling is that as in 2004, an Iowa House or Senate district not being targeted by either party will turn out to be closer than any of the targeted races. However, I have no idea how to select that kind of district, so I’m going to guess that the House district 81 race between Phyllis Thede and Jamie Van Fossen will be the closest.

13. The closest U.S. Senate race will be in Georgia.

14. North Carolina will be the state decided by the smallest margin in the presidential race (this was tough for me, because I also think Georgia and Missouri will be very close).

SECOND UPDATE: I forgot to predict that Obama will carry 61 of Iowa’s 99 counties.

Also, do great minds think alike? I find very little to disagree with in John Deeth’s prediction post. Meanwhile, Chris Bowers’ final election forecasts for the electoral vote and U.S. Senate are identical to mine. I predicted a slightly bigger net gain for Democrats in the U.S. House than Bowers did, though.

When you step up to challenge a safe and popular incumbent, you have two options.

You can make a straightforward case for your party and against your opponent’s record. Doing so will earn you the goodwill of your political allies who are grateful to have someone on the ballot they can feel proud voting for (like David Osterberg, who ran against Chuck Grassley in 1998).

If you are young, running a hopeless race with dignity will increase your name recognition and bring useful campaign experience for a future bid for public office.

Alternatively, a candidate with no chance of winning can lash out at his popular opponent in an over-the-top way, while bitterly complaining about his own party not helping him enough. This path will energize partisans who hate the incumbent but will probably limit future political options.

Christopher Reed chose door number 2 in a joint forum with Senator Tom Harkin yesterday. Iowa Public Television will broadcast the debate tonight at 7 pm. Judging from initial reports, I don’t think we need to worry about Reed becoming a rising star for Iowa Republicans.

Radio Iowa had the liveblog first yesterday, and the phrase that leapt out at everyone was “Tokyo Rose.”

The headline of the Des Moines Register’s piece was “Reed Says Harkin Gives Aid to Enemy.” Excerpt:

“We’re taking advice from somebody who has an eight-year history of becoming the Tokyo Rose of al-Qaida and Middle East terrorism,” Reed said, referring to his Democrat opponent. […]

Reed, seeking his first public office, said Harkin’s support for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq on a scheduled timetable was the same as “providing aid and comfort to the enemy.”

“The white flag of surrender, accusing our Marines of torture, voting to defund our troops while they are in harm’s way, those are all records of having an anti-American policy,” said Reed, a Marion businessman.

Opponents of a timetable for withdrawing troops contend that announcing the time frame would allow Iraqi insurgents and Islamic terrorist groups in Iraq to go underground, only to return when the United States is gone.

Reed stopped short of accusing Harkin of treason, when asked by moderator David Yepsen, the Register’s political columnist, to clarify his remarks. “No. I’m accusing him of giving our enemies the playbook,” Reed said.

John Deeth nailed it by calling Reed’s comment “a sure entry” in Keith Olbermann’s nightly Worst Person In The World contest. Deeth also passed along this tidbit from the comments at the blog of Polk County Republican Party Chairman Ted Sporer (UPDATE and clarification: the commenter at Sporer’s place pulled it from this blog post by David Yepsen):

After the cameras were turned off, Harkin calmly told Reed: “you’re a nice young man and I thought you had a political future ahead of you but that just ended your political career right there” and walked away. Reed said nothing.

Harkin’s campaign has already sent an e-mail to supporters denouncing Reed’s “vile” attack. Throwing around words like “Tokyo Rose” against a Navy veteran is the kind of mistake that will haunt Reed if he wants journalists to take him seriously in the future. Yepsen observed, “I’ve covered politics in Iowa for 34 years and I’ve never heard a candidate make that kind of serious charge about an opponent.”

When I watch the debate, I’ll be listening closely for different comments alluded to at The Real Sporer blog. Apparently Reed criticized the Republican Party of Iowa for not supporting him enough. Deeth wrote a good piece recently on the controversy within Republican circles over the party’s support for Reed. Some claim Republican officials have even sabotaged his campaign. During John McCain’s Davenport rally this month, Reed was not invited to speak and not mentioned from the podium. According to Deeth, there weren’t even Reed signs visible at the rally. (I have seen exactly one Reed yard sign in the Des Moines area this year.)

I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for Reed to have party officials ignoring his campaign and perhaps even undermining it. However, a televised debate is not the place to air that dirty laundry. Depending on what Reed said, that’s the kind of comment that could deter leading Republicans from supporting his future political efforts.

All in all, not a successful debate for the rookie. They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but I don’t think Reed helped himself yesterday.

Speaking of debates, I forgot to mention a few days ago that Congressman Dave Loebsack debated his Republican challenger, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, in Cedar Rapids. Here is Essential Estrogen’s liveblog. Deeth liveblogged here and published this write-up later. It was the second debate between Loebsack and Miller-Meeks, but the first included Green candidate Wendy Barth and independent Brian White and had a very restrictive format limiting answers to 45 seconds.

All incumbents should agree to debate challengers, like Harkin and Loebsack did this week. Unfortunately, Leonard Boswell and Steve King have declined all invitations to debate this year. (CORRECTION: Boswell ducked all invitations to debate his primary challenger Ed Fallon but will debate Republican Kim Schmett on Iowa Public Radio on October 29.) Chickens have shown up from time to time at King’s events urging him to debate Rob Hubler.

Tom Latham debated Becky Greenwald twice on the radio but has declined to reschedule a planned joint forum on Iowa Public Television. That forum was postponed while Congress was considering the bailout.

Bruce Braley will debate his Republican challenger, David Hartsuch, on KUNI radio from noon to 1 p.m. on October 27.

Congressional candidates’ third-quarter campaign finance reports were due today (October 15), so I went over to the Federal Election Commission site to see how things stand.

For some reason, I was unable to find reports for Senator Tom Harkin or his opponent, Christopher Reed. I will cover their FEC filings in a separate post when data become available. UPDATE: The National Journal’s Hotline blog published the basic information from all Senate candidates’ FEC filings.

Tom Harkin had total receipts of $635,915 during 3Q, spent $495,136, and had $3,956,998 cash on hand as of September 30.

Christopher Reed had total receipts of $34,956 during 3Q, spent $13,156, and had $22,092 cash on hand left.

All of the incumbents have large cash-on-hand advantages over their opponents going into the final stretch of the campaign.

Bruce Braley (D, IA-01) has given generously to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: $25,000 in July and another $50,000 at the end of August.

I could not find any donations from Dave Loebsack (D, IA-02) to the DCCC. I hope someone from his staff will correct me if I am wrong. He certainly can afford to donate to the DCCC, running in a D+7 district in what looks like a very strong year for Iowa Democrats. On the other hand, the DCCC did nothing to help him two years ago when he was running against Jim Leach, so maybe he is less inclined to support the committee’s efforts.

I also could not find any record of donations from Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03) to the DCCC. Again, I hope someone will correct me if I am wrong. But if this is correct, it’s a disgrace for Boswell. The DCCC has spent heavily on Boswell’s behalf in several previous election cycles. The least he could do would be to help them support other Democratic candidates.

Iowa’s two Democratic challengers had very strong fundraising quarters. Becky Greenwald out-raised Tom Latham during the reporting period, which is phenomenal. However, she spent more than she raised, leaving her with relatively little cash on hand. The DCCC has added her to its Red to Blue list, so she presumably will be getting some help from them as well as from EMILY’s list, which endorsed her last month. She will need that help in order to stay on tv for the remainder of the campaign.

Considering that the fifth district is not widely acknowledged to be up for grabs, Rob Hubler’s haul for the quarter is impressive. No wonder the DCCC put him on the Emerging Races list. He went up on the radio last week and presumably will be able to stay on the radio for the duration of the campaign. It’s not clear whether he will have enough money for tv ads before election day. Steve King just went up on tv today and only went up on the radio a day or two earlier. I’m surprised King waited so long. Latham has been advertising heavily on television for the past few weeks and put up his first radio ad during the summer.

Here is the basic information from the candidates’ FEC filings. Click the links to access the full reports.

IA-01

Bruce Braley: $184,854.12 raised during 3Q, $107,099.90 spent, $402,586.60 cash on hand

Dave Hartsuch: $25,163.00 raised during 3Q, $30,447.28 spent, $7,391.01 cash on hand

IA-02

Dave Loebsack: $110,442.10 raised during 3Q, $116,561.03 spent, $456,656.96 cash on hand

Mariannette Miller-Meeks has not yet filed her report; I will update with that when available. Her report for the second quarter is here. UPDATE: She reported $108,599.26 raised during 3Q, $61,944.50 spent, $83,274.27 cash on hand

IA-03

Leonard Boswell: $133,045.34 raised during 3Q, $198,211.79 spent, $325,757.93 cash on hand

Kim Schmett: $56,294.35 raised during 3Q, $61,306.22 spent, $23,537.30 cash on hand

Note: According to his 3Q filing, Ed Fallon has paid off most of his debt from the third district primary against Boswell.

IA-04

Becky Greenwald: $308,452.01 raised during 3Q, $354,422.07 spent, $24,476.99 cash on hand

Tom Latham: $290,815.32 raised during 3Q, $269,858.03 spent, $774,671.45 cash on hand

IA-05

Rob Hubler: $95,235.42 raised during 3Q, $56,168.81 spent, $64,654.06 cash on hand

Steve King: $191,689.27 raised during 3Q, $91,993.28 spent, $351,239.55 cash on hand

In June I discussed some of the reasons Iowa is one of only two states never to send a woman to Congress or elect a woman governor.

Thomas Beaumont just explored the same subject in this feature for the Des Moines Register. Iowa women have run for Congress 17 times in the last five decades and come up short every time.

I encourage you to click through and read the whole piece, but here are some excerpts:

Iowa State University political science professor Dianne Bystrom said one reason Iowa women have had a hard time is that challengers win roughly 5 percent of the time nationally, male or female.

“The best way to elect a woman to Congress in the state of Iowa is to run a woman in an open-seat race,” said Bystrom, director of ISU’s Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics. “Better yet, run two women against each other.”

Women have waged competitive challenges that often turned out to be ill-timed.

In 2002, Cedar Rapids Democrat Julie Thomas challenged Jim Leach in the 2nd District, after redistricting prompted the longtime Davenport Republican to move to Iowa City. Also that year, Bettendorf Democrat Ann Hutchinson challenged Republican Jim Nussle in the 1st District, which was altered after reapportionment to include the Quad Cities.

Both women were heavily recruited and received the backing of the DCCC and EMILY’s List. But Thomas lost by 8 percentage points, while Hutchinson lost by 14 points in a year all five Iowa incumbents were returned to office.[…]

One [cultural factor] is states that tend to elect women are more urban than rural. Despite the growth in Des Moines’ suburbs, Iowa remains vastly rural.

Likewise, states with younger and growing populations tend to elect women. Iowa is among the nation’s oldest states and grew by the sixth-slowest rate in the nation from 2000 to 2005.

States prone to electing women also tend to be more politically liberal and less religiously fundamentalist. Iowa is a politically balanced state, although voter registration and voting trends have favored Democrats in the past four years.

I agree that Iowa’s urban/rural demographics are relevant here. In fact, I believe Iowa has a larger proportion of small-town and rural residents than any other state (at least that was the case a decade ago when I heard a political science conference paper on rural voters).

In this diary I also mentioned a few points that did not come up in Beaumont’s article.

I think it’s very relevant that Iowa keeps losing Congressional districts following the census. That reduces the number of races without incumbents, and therefore the opportunities for a woman challenger to break through.

Also, many states have sent exactly one woman to Congress, either a widow of a long-serving man or a daughter or granddaughter in a political dynasty family. We haven’t had either of those types of woman seek political office here in Iowa.  

But no matter where you live, women who are not incumbents seem to have a harder time getting elected to Congress.

I can’t find the link now, but after the 2006 elections I read an analysis of Democratic challengers and gender. The author identified 20 “serious challengers” to Republican incumbents in the U.S. House of Representatives. A serious challenger was defined as someone whose campaign had raised at least $1 million by June 30, 2006.

Of those challengers, 13 were men and 7 were women.

In November 2006, 12 of those 13 men were elected to Congress, but 6 of the 7 women lost.

If you want to see Iowa break this barrier sooner rather than later, kick in a few bucks for Becky Greenwald. Mariannette Miller-Meeks is a good person but has virtually no chance of defeating Dave Loebsack in the strongly Democratic second district–not in what looks like a Democratic wave election in Iowa.

I haven’t written much about the race in Iowa’s second Congressional district, not because I have anything against Dave Loebsack. I simply don’t consider this race competitive.

IA-02 has a partisan voting index of D+7, meaning that the presidential vote in the last two elections in the district was seven points more Democratic than the national average. That was before Democrats made massive gains in voter registration in Iowa. In 2004 registered Republicans slightly outnumbered Democrats in this state. Now there are about 100,000 more registered Democrats.

Furthermore, Barack Obama is going to win handily in this district and in its population centers (Johnson County and Linn County). John McCain has reportedly shut down his field office in Iowa City.

As if that weren’t enough, Loebsack’s main opponent, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, faced a tough three-way Republican primary that depleted her cash on hand. As of June 30, she had $16,458 in her campaign account, while Loebsack had nearly $470,000 on hand. (The latest round of Federal Election Commission financial reports cover the period through September 30 and are not yet publicly available.)

What has Loebsack been doing with all that campaign cash? I saw on his website that he is running this television commercial:

It’s a fairly standard positive message about what he stands for, without much detail about what he has accomplished. Bleeding Heartland readers in the second district, are you seeing this ad a lot? Have you seen other Loebsack spots on tv? Is he up on the radio? Does he have lots of yard signs out?

Note: Although Loebsack didn’t get help from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006, I’d like to see him donate at least 10 percent of his cash on hand to the DCCC this fall so that they can get behind more strong challengers.

On the Miller-Meeks campaign website there are several videos on the front page. Two look like positive television spots about the Republican candidate’s background, and one sounds like a 60-second radio ad slamming Loebsack for “not getting the job done.” I’d appreciate comments or private e-mails from second district residents about how visible the Miller-Meeks campaign is in the media.

The great blog about campaigns and elections, Swing State Project, does a weekly roundup of independent expenditures in Congressional races. I noticed in the latest edition that OPHTHPAC, the Political Action Committee of the American Academcy of Ophthalmology, is spending $12,500 on behalf of Miller-Meeks. Has anyone seen or heard these ads, or any other ads by independent groups supporting Miller-Meeks?

Looking at the page on OPHTHPAC at campaignmoney.com, this PAC seems to donate to a large number of incumbents in both parties. I assume they are supporting Miller-Meeks because she is an eye doctor, but I am curious about whether they are promoting her or making a case against Loebsack (and if so what case they are making). They’ve given to dozens of Democratic incumbents this election cycle.

This is an open thread for any comments or observations about the race in IA-02.

Thanks to corncam and John Deeth for pointing out omissions in my earlier diary on this topic.

Last year I bristled whenever Hillary Clinton supporters brought up the fact that Iowa and Mississippi are the only two states never to have elected a woman governor or sent a woman to Congress. I understood that they were trying to lower expectations for Hillary in Iowa, and possibly also trying to goad Iowa Democrats into supporting her to “prove” that we aren’t sexist.

But I didn’t like the implication that Iowa Democrats are to blame for our state’s unfortunate record on electing women. We have nominated two outstanding women for governor: Roxanne Conlin in 1982 and Bonnie Campbell in 1994.

State Senator Jean Lloyd-Jones was the Democratic nominee against U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley in 1992.

In addition, we have tried to send women to the U.S House of Representatives many times.

In fact, thanks to Becky Greenwald’s victory in the fourth district primary last Tuesday, Iowa Democrats can proudly say that there isn’t a single district in which we have never tried to send a woman to Congress.

In IA-01, we chose Ann Hutchinson, the former mayor of Bettendorf, to run against Jim Nussle in 2002.

In IA-02, Cedar Rapids doctor Julie Thomas ran against Jim Leach in 2002.

Lynn Cutler ran against Cooper Evans in IA-03 in 1980 and 1982.

Elaine Baxter, then Iowa’s Secretary of State, faced Jim Ross Lightfoot in IA-03 in 1992 and 1994.

Two women have tried to win IA-05 for the Democrats: Sheila McGuire, who ran against Tom Latham in 1994, and Joyce Schulte, who ran against Steve King in 2004 and 2006.

I’ve discussed some of the reasons these women all lost before. Iowa has had a lot of long-serving incumbents, who are always difficult to beat. We have had relatively few open races for Congress, because we keep losing Congressional districts following the census.

Three Democratic women have run for open seats in Congress here. Cutler came close in 1980, but the Reagan landslide was working against her. Baxter came close in 1992, but the redrawn third district had more of a Republican lean. McGuire not only had to compete in the heavily Republican fifth district, but also ran for the open seat in a non-presidential year (when Democratic turnout is always lower).

Meanwhile, Iowa hasn’t experienced some of the circumstances that give an extra boost to a woman candidate. Of the 245 women who have served in Congress, 46 have been widows who directly succeeded their husbands. Happily, we haven’t had any incumbents die in office for many decades.

Nor have our women candidates benefited from other family connections that have helped women get to Congress in some states. Former Kansas Senator Nancy Kassebaum was the daughter of that state’s legendary politician Alf Landon. Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin benefited from the fact that many South Dakotans had voted for a Herseth before.

Tuesday was a good day for women candidates here, as John Deeth pointed out in this post. Not only did Greenwald win convincingly in IA-04, Iowa Republicans nominated Mariannette Miller-Meeks for Congress in the second district. She is the first Republican woman nominated for Congress in Iowa in more than 30 years. Deeth informed me that Republicans nominated Sonja Egenes to run against incumbent Neal Smith in the fourth district in 1962. Berkley Bedell beat Joanne Soper in Iowa’s sixth district in 1976 (we lost the sixth district after the 1990 census).

Will 2008 be the year Iowa finally leaves Mississippi behind? As challengers facing incumbents, Miller-Meeks and Greenwald go into the general election as underdogs. The partisan lean of the second district (D+7) will be an additional hurdle for Miller-Meeks, especially in a presidential election year. If Barack Obama has coattails anywhere, it will be in the People’s Republic of Johnson County (the Iowa City area).

Greenwald’s district is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans (D+0), but she is facing a seven-term incumbent who sits on the House Appropriations Committee.

What do you think? Will Iowa voters make history this year?

This is just for fun.

For the first time ever, Republicans are not putting a lot of resources into challenging Senator Tom Harkin. Unless a recount changes the outcome of the GOP primary, Harkin will face little-known Marion businessman Christopher Reed, who has not even raised enough money to file an FEC report. Harkin has more than $3 million to spend on this race. More on Reed here:

http://www.iowaindependent.com…

The Real Sporer thinks the GOP Senate nomination could still go to a state convention, if recounts and challenges push Reed’s percentage of the vote below 35 percent. He won with about 35.3 percent of the vote on Tuesday.

Congressman Bruce Braley will face State Senator Dave Hartsuch in Iowa’s first district. Hartsuch has raised less than $6,000 for his campaign, according to the latest FEC report.

Congressman Dave Loebsack will probably face Mariannette Miller-Meeks in the second district, unless a recount overturns her 109-vote victory in the primary:

http://www.iowaindependent.com…

There may be lasting hard feelings among the Republicans in that district, considering the hard-fought primary and Peter Teahen’s very narrow loss.

Congressman Leonard Boswell will face Republican Kim Schmett in the third district. Schmett has raised about $54,000 so far, according to FEC filings.

Congressman Tom Latham will face Becky Greenwald in the fourth district. She had raised about $56,000 as of the last FEC filing. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has targeted this district in its “red to blue” program. Count on pretty much every major Democratic donor in Iowa to contribute to Greenwald too, with Harkin and Boswell presumably out of danger now. EMILY’s list may also get involved on Greenwald’s behalf.

Congressman Steve King will face Rob Hubler in the fifth district. Hubler has raised over $100,000 for this race, but it’s a steep uphill climb for any Democrat in this district.

Take the poll after the jump: which of these incumbents will win in November with the largest share of the vote?

Note: I rewrote this diary after realizing that I omitted several women candidates. Please read the revised version instead.

Last summer and fall I spent too much time arguing with Hillary Clinton supporters at MyDD who kept bringing up the fact that Iowa and Mississippi are the only two states never to have elected a woman governor or sent a woman to Congress. They were trying to lower expectations for Hillary in Iowa, and possibly also trying to goad Iowa Democrats into supporting her to “prove” that we aren’t sexist.

The truth, of course, is that Iowa Democrats are not to blame for our state’s unfortunate record on electing women. We have twice nominated women for governor (Roxanne Conlin in 1982 and Bonnie Campbell in 1994) and nominated several women for Congress.

In fact, thanks to Becky Greenwald’s victory in the fourth district primary on Tuesday, Iowa Democrats can proudly say that there isn’t a single district in which we have never tried to send a woman to Congress.

In IA-01, we chose Ann Hutchinson, the former mayor of Bettendorf, to run against Jim Nussle in 2002.

In IA-02, Cedar Rapids doctor Julie Thomas ran against Jim Leach in 2002.

Elaine Baxter, then Iowa’s Secretary of State, faced Jim Ross Lightfoot in IA-03 in 1994.

Two women have tried to win IA-05 for the Democrats: Sheila McGuire, who ran against Tom Latham in 1994, and Joyce Schulte, who ran against Steve King in 2004 and 2006.

UPDATE: corncam reminded me that I forgot State Senator Jean Lloyd-Jones, who was the Democratic nominee for Senate against Chuck Grassley in 1992.

I’ve discussed some of the reasons these women all lost before. Iowa has had a lot of long-serving incumbents, who are always difficult to beat. We have had very few open races for Congress, because we keep losing Congressional districts following the census. Of all the Democratic women nominated for Congress in Iowa, only McGuire was running for an open seat, and that was in the heavily Republican fifth district.

We also haven’t experienced some of the circumstances that give an extra boost to a woman candidate. Of the 245 women who have served in Congress, 46 have been widows who directly succeeded their husbands. Happily, we haven’t had any incumbents die in office for many decades.

Nor have our women candidates benefited from other family connections that have helped women get to Congress in some states. Former Kansas Senator Nancy Kassebaum was the daughter of that state’s legendary politician Alf Landon. Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin benefited from the fact that many South Dakotans had voted for a Herseth before.

Tuesday was a good day for women candidates here, as John Deeth pointed out in this post. Not only did Greenwald win convincingly in IA-04, Iowa Republicans nominated Mariannette Miller-Meeks for Congress in the second district. (To my knowledge, she is the first Republican woman nominated for Congress in this state.)

Will 2008 be the year Iowa finally leaves Mississippi behind? As challengers facing incumbents, Miller-Meeks and Greenwald go into the general election as underdogs. The partisan lean of the second district (D+7) will be an additional hurdle for Miller-Meeks. Greenwald’s district is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans (D+0), but she is facing a seven-term incumbent who sits on the House Appropriations Committee.

Tell us what you think in the comments section.