I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the $700 billion bailout bill failed in Congress today on a truly bipartisan vote: 140 Democrats for, 95 against; 65 Republicans for, 133 against.

In the House, Bruce Braley, Tom Latham and Steve King voted no, while Dave Loebsack and Leonard Boswell voted yes.

The full statement from Braley’s office is after the jump. I will update this post with full statements from Iowa’s other members of Congress as they become available. The Des Moines Register has excerpts from each representative’s statement here:

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

Senator Tom Harkin spoke out against the bailout several days ago.

UPDATE: I encourage those of you who support this bailout to read these notes from a conference call Treasury had with about 800 Wall Street analysts. If you click the link you can even download a recording of the call and listen yourself. The notes at that site are plenty for me. All of the “concessions” the Democrats got were meaningless:

1. The tranching is a mere formality, and the Treasury boys as much as said so. They could take the $700 billion max as soon as the bill has passed,

2. However, they do not plan any action immediately, will wait a couple of weeks. They want to focus their efforts on stronger companies but also made noise about protecting the financial system. This, by the way, is the Japanese convoy system all over.

[…]

5. The exec comp provisions sound like a joke, They DO NOT affect existing contracts, they affect only contracts entered into during the two years of the authority of this program and then affect only golden parachutes. More detail on that point, but I don’t need more detail to get the drift of the gist.

Regarding that second point about Treasury planning to wait a couple of weeks before doing anything, I totally agree with this analysis:

Waiting a couple of weeks because no one has any idea when or where the next bomb will blow up. In other words, all their doomsday scenarios about Black Monday were B.S. They screamed the check had to be written by Monday, but now they’re saying they actually have a few weeks before they need to cash it. Plus, this will allow them to “seek guidance” from GS, JPM, and other selfless public servants about where the money should be funneled.

Remember, a Treasury official admitted to Forbes last week that they made up the $700 billion number. There was no analysis supporting that number.

I think Jerome Armstrong is right on target:

It’s almost as if, the administration thought this election through already, and decided that if they could bust the budget wide enough, then Democrats, incoming with 60 votes in the Senate, 250 in the House, and a President, would be able to do nothing but cut costs.  Try to spend anything in ’09, and the Republicans would be re-born as fiscal deficit hawks running against the spendster libruls.

I don’t pretend to know the solution here, other than taking the fiscal downer now, which is admittedly trite. I also have to wonder about the tact to ‘own’ this thing as well, making it a Democratic bill that takes on Bush, which has its own set of problems. Its become so poisoned that to let the Republicans off the hook would seem to be handing them a gift. At the end of the day, I am doubtful that this “no” sticks, and won’t be at all surprised to see a dozen votes flip to pass this behemoth budget buster pass as is. We win it all, and are able to do nothing but raise taxes and cut spending.

Folks, this is a trap that will enrich a bunch of people while doing little to help the overall economy.

Final point: I totally disagree with Nate Silver, who said this about retiring members of Congress who voted for the bailout:

The congressmen who are retiring this year — and who therefore can perhaps be described as the most neutral arbiters of the public good — voted overwhelmingly for this measure.

Neutral arbiters of the public good?

A lot of retired members of Congress go work at lobbying firms, “consult” with investment banks or get paid to serve on corporate boards. I reject the premise that their support for the bailout means it was a good idea.

I wrote this piece primarily for readers outside Iowa, but since Bleeding Heartland has some of those too, I’m posting it here as well as at several national blogs.

Growing up liberal during the Reagan years taught me to go into elections expecting to be disappointed. Watching high-ranking Democrats in Congress fail to challenge the premise behind the dreadful and unnecessary proposed bailout of Wall Street, I share thereisnospoon’s concern that Democrats will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory yet again.

But looking at the polling trends in the presidential race and in key Senate races, even a pessimist like me has to admit that a big Democratic wave seems quite possible.

Currently Democrats seem poised to pick up 12 to 18 seats in the House and five to six Senate seats. If we are on the verge of a wave, Democrats could win more than that, including a few districts where the Republican incumbent never saw it coming.

Waves can drag down well-funded incumbents with tremendous clout. Democratic losers in 1994 included House Speaker Tom Foley and my own 18-term Congressman Neal Smith.

This is a thread for discussing House districts and Senate seats that may seem likely Republican holds today, but which could shock us on November 4.

I’ll get the ball rolling by telling you about Iowa’s two House districts currently held by Republicans.

In the fourth district (D+0), Becky Greenwald faces Tom Latham, who has remarkably little to show for his seven terms in Congress. I went over many reasons I think Greenwald can win this race here.

Latham understands that it will be a big Democratic year in Iowa, judging from his first television commercial (which glosses over his lockstep Republican voting record). David Kowalski noticed that Latham’s campaign website avoids mentioning that he is a Republican (see, for instance, this bio page). Aside from the odd newspaper clipping on his site that refers to him as R-Iowa, you would never be able to tell which party he belongs to.

IA-04 shows up as “likely Republican” on House rankings, in part because Latham sits on the House Appropriations Committee and in part because he has been re-elected by double-digit margins in the past. However, 2002 was the only time Latham faced a well-funded challenger, and that was a bad year to be a Democrat running for Congress. Greenwald had raised more by June 30 than our 2006 candidate against Latham raised during his whole campaign, and she’s fundraised aggressively since then. She is already up on television and recently got the endorsement of EMILY’s list.

Whatever pork Latham has brought back to his district is nothing compared to what Neal Smith brought to central Iowa during his 36 years in Congress, and that didn’t stop voters from giving Smith the boot in 1994.

Now let’s look at Iowa’s fifth district (R+8), where Rob Hubler is running against one of the most atrocious House Republicans, Steve King. I laid out my case for why Hubler can win this race at Bleeding Heartland, but here are the highlights.

Hubler is the first Democrat to run a real campaign against King, who does not have a big war chest and has not been campaigning actively. Although Republicans maintain a voter registration edge in IA-05, Democrats have made big gains since 2006, putting Hubler in position for an upset if he wins independents by a significant margin. King’s extreme views and tendency to make bigoted, embarrassing statements are a turn-off to moderates.

Also, an internal poll of the district for Hubler’s campaign showed the generic ballot for Congress virtually tied at 36 percent for the Democrat and 38 percent for the Republican.

Nearly three months ago, the editor of the Storm Lake Times newspaper wrote:

Republican despondence also may be a threat to incumbent Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron. Scoff if you will, but again recall that Harkin defeated incumbent Bill Scherle and Bedell knocked off incumbent Wiley Mayne in the post-Watergate landslide. The atmospherics may be similar this year.

Like I said at the top, upsets happen in wave elections. After winning in 1974, Tom Harkin represented most of the southwest Iowa counties now in IA-05 for five terms, until his election to the U.S. Senate in 1984. Berkley Bedell represented most of the northwest Iowa counties now in IA-05 for six terms, until he retired because of health problems caused by Lyme’s disease.

Despite Sarah Palin’s presence on the ballot, I do not believe Republicans in western Iowa are going to be fired up to turn out this November. During the past month five separate polls have shown Barack Obama above 50 percent in Iowa and leading John McCain by double digits. McCain has never campaigned much in Iowa, skipping the caucuses in 2000 as well as 2008. He’s against ethanol subsidies, which causes him to underperform in rural Iowa. Certainly McCain lacks the appeal George Bush had to conservatives here in the last two elections.

Harkin is cruising against a little-known Republican challenger for the U.S. Senate, and King is not giving his supporters any reason to believe he’s concerned about Hubler. Why should the western Iowa wingnuts put a lot of effort into getting their voters out?

Meanwhile, Obama’s campaign has at least half a dozen field offices in both IA-04 and IA-05 to drive up turnout among Democrats and other Democratic-leaning voters.

Clearly, Greenwald and Hubler go into the home stretch as underdogs. But who thought Dave Loebsack was going to beat Iowa Congressman Jim Leach two years ago? Democrats put tons of money and effort behind a strong challenger to Leach in 2002 and came up short. As a result, Loebsack got no help from the DCCC or outside interest groups in 2006, and just about everyone viewed IA-02 as “likely Republican.”

Carol Shea-Porter’s amazing victory in New Hampshire’s first district seemed just as improbable two years ago. She was massively outspent by the Republican incumbent and got no help from the DCCC. By the way, NH-01 is D+0 and mostly white, as is IA-04.

The partisan lean and demographic profile of IA-05 (mostly white and largely rural) is similar to KS-02 (R+7), where Nancy Boyda came from behind to beat a Republican incumbent in 2006. The DCCC did get involved in that race, but it didn’t appear to be a very likely pickup before the election.

Two weeks ago Stuart Rothenberg mocked the DCCC for putting “absurd races” (including the Hubler-King matchup) on its list of “Races to Watch” and putting long shots on the “Red to Blue” and “Emerging Races” list. James L. already took down Rothenberg in this great post for Swing State Project, so I won’t pile on.

I will say, however, that I have put my money where my mouth is by giving as much as I can afford to Hubler and Greenwald.

Somewhere, somehow, some unheralded challengers will give House or Senate Republicans the surprise of their lives on November 4. So, Bleeding Heartland readers, who’s it gonna be?

I’ve written before about why Democrats should support Rob Hubler, who’s running against Steve King in Iowa’s fifth Congressional district.

We can all agree that Hubler is a good Democrat with a compelling biography, while King is among the worst of the worst House Republicans.

But when I talk to Democrats about this race, I’ve noticed that too many people assume King cannot be beaten because Iowa’s fifth district is too Republican (its Cook Partisan Voting Index is R+8).

In fact, ten Democrats currently represent Congressional districts with a partisan index of R+8 or higher, and another 14 Democrats represent Congressional districts that have a partisan index between R+5 and R+8. In 2006, Democrats came close to winning several districts that tilt far more strongly to Republicans than King’s.

2laneIA and DemocracyLover in NYC have written good pieces on why Hubler is a solid contender in IA-05. Click those links to read about Hubler’s active campaign, King’s strangely dormant campaign, and an encouraging poll of the fifth district (which among other things showed the generic Congressional ballot virtually tied). King has faced only token opposition in past elections, but Hubler and his staff have been working in all of the 32 counties.

I want to step back and examine the partisan lean of IA-05 and how it relates to other red districts represented by Democrats.

As I mentioned above, IA-05 has a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+8. That means that averaging the results from the last two presidential elections, the Republican candidate received about 8 percentage points more than the national average in Iowa’s fifth district.

The partisan index number reflects only the presidential vote. However, plenty of Congressional districts lean Republican for president while electing Democrats to represent them in the House. Such ticket-splitting has occurred in western Iowa. During the 1970s and 1980s, Tom Harkin represented many of the southwest counties now in IA-05 for five terms, and Berkley Bedell represented most of the northwest counties in the district for six terms.

It’s worth noting that Harkin and Bedell were first elected in the Democratic wave election of 1974, but they were able to hold their seats even in strong Republican years like 1978 and 1980 (and in Bedell’s case 1984; Harkin ran successfully for Senate that year).

Also, remember that this year’s Republican presidential nominee is not nearly as popular in the fifth district as George Bush was in 2000 and 2004. On the contrary; some polls have shown Barack Obama leading John McCain even in western Iowa. McCain has little field operation here, while Obama’s campaign has at least a half-dozen offices in IA-05 to help maximize Democratic turnout.

Democratic voter registration has greatly increased in all parts of the state. While Republicans still have a voter registration edge in the fifth district, the growing ranks of Democrats can put Hubler in position for an upset if he beats King among independent voters by a significant margin.

Certainly the Republican candidate has to be favored in a district with an R+8 lean, but it is by no means unprecedented for a Democrat to overcome that partisan slant. Here’s a list of the Democrats who represent Congressional districts that are at least R+5 (please correct any omissions in the comments):

Dan Boren in Oklahoma 2 (R+5)

Melissa Bean in Illinois 8 (R+5)

Bill Foster in Illinois 14 (R+5)

Charlie Melancon in Louisiana 3 (R+5)

John Spratt, South Carolina 5 (R+6)

Collin Peterson, Minnesota 7 (R+6)

Zach Space in Ohio 18 (R+6)

John Salazar Colorado 5 (R+6)

Bud Cramer in Alabama 5 (R+6)

Ben Chandler in Kentucky 6 (R+7)

Nancy Boyda in Kansas 2 (R+7)

Baron Hill in Indiana 9 (R+7)

Heath Shuler, North Carolina 11 (R+7)

Don Cazayoux in Louisiana 6 (R+7)

Chris Carney in Pennsylvania 10 (R+8)

Brad Ellsworth in Indiana 8 (R+9)

Travis Childers, Mississippi 1 (R+10)

Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, South Dakota at-large (R+10)

Ike Skelton, Missouri 4 (R+11)

Earl Pomeroy, North Dakota at-large (R+13)

Nick Lampson, Texas 22 (R+15)

Gene Taylor, Mississippi 4 (R+16)

Chet Edwards, Texas 17 (R+17)

Jim Matheson, Utah 2 (R+17)

You would think that all of these Democrats would be skating on thin ice, representing such Republican territory. However, if you look at lists of competitive House districts (for instance, at Swing State Project, Open Left or the Cook Political Report), you will notice that many of these seats are considered safe for the Democratic incumbent.

Boyda, Herseth-Sandlin and Pomeroy are among the Democrats representing deep-red districts with demographic profiles similar to IA-05 (mostly white and largely rural).

Another notable fact is that Democrats seem to pick up several deep-red seats in good years for the party across the country. So, Boyda, Space, Shuler, Carney and Ellsworth all won their seats for the first time in the 2006 election. Cazayoux, Foster and Childers all won their seats in special elections during 2008.

I also want to mention several districts where Democrats lost narrowly in 2006 despite a massive partisan advantage for the Republicans. Those include Wyoming’s at-large seat (R+19), Idaho’s first district (R+19), Ohio’s second district (R+13), and Colorado’s fourth district (R+9). This year Colorado’s fourth and Alaska’s at-large seat (R+14) are both considered tossups.

My point is that it would not be unprecedented for a Democratic challenger to defeat a Republican incumbent in a district like IA-05. King is still favored to win here, but there are good reasons the DCCC put this seat on its “Races to Watch” list.

If you live in the fifth district, I encourage you to sign up to volunteer for Hubler’s campaign. This Saturday is a district-wide volunteer day. You can also help by telling your friends and neighbors about Rob and encouraging them to vote for “a servant, not a King.”

Whether or not you live in the district, I hope you will donate to Rob’s campaign. King’s war chest is not particularly large for an incumbent. Strong fundraising for Hubler by the September 30 deadline will help persuade the DCCC to become more actively involved in this race.

With your help, Iowa’s west can be won.

Note: I have included information about a couple of upcoming public events featuring Congressman Steve King. If you have a videocamera and some free time, please consider going to see if he has anything particularly offensive to say.

If you would be willing to show up outside the event wearing a chicken suit representing King’s refusal to debate Rob Hubler, please e-mail me at desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com. There may be a chicken suit you could borrow.

Fewer than 50 days remain before the election. If you haven’t done so already, contact the campaign offices of your local statehouse candidate or Congressional candidate, or one of the Obama field offices in Iowa (http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/iaoffices) to find out what kind of help they need from volunteers.

Remember, if you are not comfortable calling strangers on the phone or knocking on strangers’ doors, there are many other ways volunteers can help.

Post a comment or send me an e-mail if I’ve left out any important events.

Friday, September 19:

From the Obama campaign in Iowa:

Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner to Campaign in Iowa on Behalf of Obama Campaign

Governor Minner will hold events in Knoxville and Ames to talk about the Obama-Biden plans to bring America the change we need

Des Moines, Iowa – On Friday, September 19th, 2008, Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner will visit Iowa to talk to Iowans about the Obama-Biden plans to ensure fairness and economic security for Iowa’s working women.   Gov. Minner will hold a brown bag lunch in Knoxville and a meet and greet in Ames.

Since taking office in 2001, Gov. Minner has worked to get things done in Delaware by improving schools, preserving and protecting the environment, improving health care and fighting cancer, and creating and keeping jobs.

Beginning her political career in 1974, Gov. Minner served four terms in the state House of Representatives (1974-1982), and served three terms in the state Senate (1982-1993). She served as Delaware’s Lieutenant Governor from 1993 until 2001. Gov. Minner became the 72nd governor and the first female governor of the state of Delaware on January 3, 2001.

The details of the events are:

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH, 2008

12:00 PM CDT

Women’s Brown Bag Lunch with Governor Ruth Ann Minner

Coffee Connection

213 E Main St., #2

Knoxville, Iowa

6:00 PM CDT

Women’s Meet and Greet with Governor Ruth Ann Minner

Legend’s American Grill

119 Stanton Ave

7th floor in the Legacy Suite

Ames, Iowa

Saturday, September 20:

A little bird told me:

Green Plains Renewable Energy, Inc. will host a grand opening celebration at its ethanol plant in Superior, Iowa, on Saturday, September 20, 2008. The festivities will run from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and include food and refreshments courtesy of local livestock producers. Congressman Steve King will speak at a dedication ceremony, which begins at noon. Attendees will also have the opportunity to take guided tours of the plant.

Superior is between Spirit Lake and Estherville.  If you are in the area, you might want to pack up your video camera and show.

The Iowa Citizen Action Network is participating in a nationwide canvassing effort to knock on a million doors for peace. MoveOn.org is also involved with this effort. If you’ve got two hours to spare on Saturday, you can sign up to get a list of 40 new or infrequent voters in your neighborhood. You can do this individually wherever you live, or sign up to join groups that will be meeting in Des Moines, Ames and Waterloo. More details are after the jump.  Contact ICAN Organizer Sue Dinsdale at sdinsdale@iowacan.org or 515-277-5077 ext. 14 or go to milliondoorsforpeace.org

From the Obama campaign:

Des Moines, Iowa – On Saturday, September 20th, 2008, Congressman Leonard Boswell will hold an event in Newton as part of the Obama Iowa Campaign for Change’s “Iowa Economic Security Tour.”

The future of our nation’s economy is a focal point in this election, and Congressman Boswell will highlight the differences between the Obama-Biden and McCain-Palin economic plans. This week, Governor Culver and economist Dean Baker kicked off the tour with events in Davenport, Ottumwa and Des Moines.

On the very same day Lehman Brothers collapsed and our stock market was in a freefall this week, John McCain once again declared, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.”  Really?

“This statement ignores the realities Americans are facing every day,” said Obama Iowa state director Jackie Norris.  “Our country has lost more than 600,000 jobs this year and is averaging nearly 10,000 foreclosures a day.  The fundamentals of our economy are anything but strong, and we need a president who understands that fact.  Barack Obama will cut taxes for middle class families by three times as much as McCain, create good paying jobs by investing in Iowa renewable energies and end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.”      

Over the coming weeks, the campaign will host events across Iowa where elected officials, community leaders and policy advisers will talk about Senator Obama’s plan to make our economy work for middle class families and Senator McCain’s plan to give Americans four more years of Bush economic policies that favor big corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

The details are:

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH, 2008

4:00 PM CDT

Economic Security Tour event with Congressman Leonard Boswell

Obama Iowa Campaign for Change office

207 1st Ave. W

Newton, Iowa

 

From the Sierra Club:

Why our Modern Food System is Not Sustainable

September 20, Ames area

Join us on Saturday, September 20, as we celebrate together the efforts and achievements of fellow Iowa Sierrans and conservation activists at the Story County Conservation Center in McFarland Park north of Ames. Frederick L. Kirschenmann, a Distinguished Fellow, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture will be the featured speaker. His presentation, “Why our Modern Food System is not Sustainable,” will offer Fred’s unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities we face in balancing an agricultural economy with the protection of our natural heritage. The banquet begins with a social time and silent auction at 11:00 a.m. followed at noon by lunch, Dr. Kirschenmann and an awards ceremony. There are also opportunities to hike the many trails in the park. The event will be catered by renowned Lucallan’s Restaurant, featuring local foods. The cost is $35 per person.

Please RSVP to Neila Seaman, 3839 Merle Hay Road, Suite 280, Des Moines, Iowa, 50310 or Iowa.chapter@sierraclub.org or 515-277-8868.

The Latino Heritage Festival runs Saturday and Sunday in Blank Park on SW 9th by the Zoo in Des Moines. The Polk County Democrats need volunteers to help with the booth, especially anyone who speaks Spanish.  Ideally, we would like to have at least one Spanish speaking person on every shift. The hours are 11am to 7pm Saturday, September 20th and 11am to 7pm Sunday, September 21st.  Any time you are available to help during those hours would be appreciated.  To volunteer, please call Tamyra at 515-285-1800.

Johnson County Heritage Trust Autumn Celebration

The 2nd annual “Under a Cider Moon . . . a Celebration of Autumn with the Johnson County Heritage Trust” fundraising event will be held Saturday, September 20, at 6 p.m at Dick Schwab’s round barn located at 2501 Sugar Bottom Road near Solon, Iowa.  There will be a live and silent auction, live music and local food and beverages. Proceeds will assist JCHT identify, preserve and manage land with significant environmental value in Johnson County.  For additional information visit www.jcht.org or call 1-319-857-4741.  RSVP today by mailing your check or donation to Johnson County Heritage Trust, P. O. Box 2523, Iowa City, Iowa 522440-2523 or by calling credit card information to 1-319-857-4741.

This would be a good place for someone in a chicken suit to stand outside with a sign asking Steve King why he’s afraid to debate Rob Hubler:

Gov. Pawlenty is headed to Iowa this weekend to keynote the Polk County GOP Dinner. Here’s the release from the Iowa GOP:

Pawlenty to headline GOPfest ’08

(Des Moines) — The Polk County GOP has released details for GOPfest ’08, their annual informal fundraiser. This year’s event will be headlined by  Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

GOPfest ’08 will take place on Saturday, September 20th at 7 Flags Event Center, 2100 NW 100 St in Clive. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. with dinner service beginning at 6 p.m. Entertainment will provided by the Sunny Humbucker Band.

Speakers for GOPfest ’08 will include Polk County Chairman Ted Sporer, U.S. House candidate Kim Schmett, U.S. Senate candidate Christopher Reed and 5th District Congressman Steve King. Governor Pawlenty is expected to make his keynote remarks at 7:30 p.m.

“We are very pleased to have Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty come to Polk County for GOPfest ’08,” Sporer said. “Governor Pawlenty is one of the nationally recognized figures in the new generation of Republican leadership and GOPfest is a great opportunity for the people of central Iowa to see and meet him.”

The event is open to the public and tickets can be reserved by email at  ExDir@polkgop.com or by calling 515-280-6438. Cost is $25 for adults, $15 for students and children five years or under admitted free.

On September 16, the House of Representatives approved the Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act. The vote split 236 to 189, mostly along partisan lines. Iowa Representatives Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack and Leonard Boswell all voted with the Democratic majority in favor of the bill. Tom Latham and Steve King voted with most Republicans against the bill.

You can read the bill summary here.

In essence, this legislation was designed to give Democrats cover on the offshore oil drilling issue. The Democratic majority caved by allowing for more drilling between 50 and 100 miles of the shore. This will do nothing to reduce our reliance on foreign oil or lower the cost of gas, but it will give Democratic incumbents a response as Republican candidates hammer them on how we need to “drill here, drill now.”

To give Democrats cover for caving on offshore drilling, the bill also contains lots of good things, like renewed tax credits for wind and solar power, more investment in public transportation, better energy-efficiency standards, a federal renewable electricity standard (which would require 15 percent of electricity generated in the U.S. to come from renewable sources by 2020). In addition, it would end tax subsidies for large oil and gas companies and ban the export of Alaskan oil.

The Oil Drum blog noted,

It is not too surprising that the oil and gas industry is not in favor of the legislation. The legislation provides for a whole host of benefits, and a big piece of the cost would be paid for by new taxes on oil and gas companies. The off-shore drilling provision could best be described as window dressing.

Unfortunately, these benefits will not happen, because Republicans don’t need to pass a compromise energy bill in order to clear the way for more offshore drilling.

They can just wait for the current ban on offshore drilling to expire on September 30. In past years, Democrats in Congress have fought to extend the ban on offshore drilling, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew she did not have the votes to accomplish that this year. So, the bill will die in the Senate:

The bill faces a very uncertain future. The Senate is set to take up three separate energy bills, which differ sharply from the House measure. The White House issued a veto threat Tuesday, saying the House bill “purports to open access to American energy sources while in reality taking actions to stifle development.”

Senate Republicans may choose to block action on any energy bill and allow the moratorium to expire on Sept. 30. If the drilling ban lapses, the Bush administration could begin the process of preparing oil and gas lease sales in new areas as close as 3 miles offshore.

Pelosi and others talked about their big victory in getting this bill through the House, but that so-called victory won’t amount to much besides allowing Democratic incumbents to tell constituents they voted for offshore drilling.

The hypocrisy of Republicans on this issue is even worse.

Remember when a bunch of House Republicans demanded a special Congressional session this summer to deal with energy policy? Remember when Republican delegates to the GOP national convention chanted, “Drill, baby, drill!”

The Republican majority proved that they are not in favor of a comprehensive energy policy that would reduce oil consumption, promote renewable energy, and take tax breaks away from companies posting record profits this year.

Not only that, some Republicans tried to pass a motion to adjourn to block passage of this bill.

I totally agree with this statement from Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope:

Today, Republicans in the House were given a chance to pull America out of its energy crisis, and they refused. Majority leadership reached across the aisle to offer a package that includes both clean energy provisions and expanded offshore drilling. But supporters of Big Oil dug their heels in, refusing to support a truly comprehensive energy package because it did not do enough to help the oil industry and instead attempted a stunt to force a drill-only approach.

If House Republicans were honestly interested in clean energy, consumer protection, or a crackdown on ethics at federal agencies, they would have supported this package wholeheartedly. Instead, they fought it, proving beyond a doubt that their single, narrow aim is to increase profits for the oil industry.

For months, they have held up clean energy legislation, instead calling for a drill-only policy which will do nothing to lower gas prices, protect consumers, or solve our energy crisis. They have continued to demand that we open more of our nation’s coasts and public lands to drilling, which will lock us into a future of dependence on oil. They have maneuvered to undermine any bill that doesn’t put the oil industry first and hardworking Americans last.

With their latest failed trick, many Republicans in the House confirmed without a doubt that they will not be satisfied until the oil industry has an even tighter grip on our economy.

The full text of Pope’s statement is after the jump.

Though I find this whole episode depressing, it should motivate us to elect Barack Obama and more and better Democrats to Congress. Doing so won’t necessarily bring us a perfect energy policy, but we will certainly see some improvement on the charade we have now.

I learned today that in addition to receiving help from the Patriot Corps, Rob Hubler just got another big boost in his campaign against jackass award-winning incumbent Steve King.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put Iowa’s fifth district on its list of “Races to Watch.”

Daily Kos user 2laneIA wrote a great diary about what that designation means, along with other reasons that Hubler is poised to retire Steve King.

I encourage you to click over and read that piece, which includes data from an fifth district poll showing that King is vulnerable. Here are a couple of my favorite passages in 2laneIA’s piece:

Steve King seems to be barely running.  He has no campaign organization, has made fewer than ten town hall appearances in August, (where he was haunted by an infestation of giant chickens for refusing to debate), and is relying on the same old tired wedge issues such as immigration and gay marriage to get the electorate worked up.

By contrast, Hubler has opened campaign offices across the district and has a good field campaign running.   He has been campaigning for months, appearing at county fairs and chamber of commerce meetings in 32 counties.

[…]If Rob makes some significant gains before the end of September, the DCCC will open their wallets in time for some effective media.  This race is a two-fer.  Defeating King isn’t just taking away one more GOP congressional vote and electing a great progressive Democrat.

The DCCC may become more actively involved in this “race to watch” if they like what they see over the next few weeks.

You can help convince them to get involved by donating to Hubler’s campaign today. Then ask a few of your friends to donate as well.

If you live in Iowa’s first, second or third Congressional districts, you are already represented by safe Democratic incumbents. Put some of your money behind a strong challenger trying to turn IA-05 blue.  

Senator Russ Feingold’s Progressive Patriots Fund just announced the last group of U.S. House challengers who will receive help in the form of a “Patriot Corps” organizer assigned to work for the campaign.

Rob Hubler, who is taking on Steve King in Iowa’s fifth district, made the cut. (The full list of Democratic candidates receiving Patriot Corps help is here.)

Make no mistake: this district is winnable. It does lean Republican, but Democrats hold 10 House districts that are at least as Republican as IA-05, and another 14 districts that are almost as Republican in terms of the partisan voter index.

I have a longer post coming soon on Hubler’s path to victory, but for now I recommend that you read this excellent piece on the race by DemocracyLover in NYC.

You can contribute to the Progressive Patriots Fund here or directly to the Hubler campaign here.

Come meet Rob at one of these upcoming events:

Friday, Sept. 12

2 p.m Atlantic Town Hall Meeting, Atlantic Public Library, 507 Poplar Street, Atlantic, IA

6 p.m Carroll Office Opening,

225 W. 4th St Carroll, IA

Saturday, Sept. 13

5 p.m. Rural Roundtable Discussion with Rob Hubler and Congressman Brad Carson, Pizza Ranch , 119 Albany Ave NE, Orange City, IA

Sunday, Sept. 14

Harkin Steak Fry, Indianola

Monday, Sept. 15

Union County Democrats

Farmer’s Market Dinner, McKinley Park, Creston, IA, 4 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 20

Creston Balloon Parade

Sunday, Sept. 21

Monona County Democrats Annual Fall Rally

Onawa Community Center, 4:30 p.m.

Iowa Republicans have reason to be very afraid. Time/CNN released an Iowa poll yesterday:

(828 RV, 3.5%)

Obama 55, McCain 40

Obama 51, McCain 38, Nader 4, Barr 3, McKinney 2

The top line is probably closer to the real state of play. Election-year polling usually overstates support for third-party candidates. There is no way Ralph Nader will win 4 percent in Iowa this year when he barely got 2 percent in 2000 and couldn’t even manage 1 percent in 2004. I highly doubt Bob Barr or Cynthia McKinney will win even 1 percent of the vote combined.

Getting back to the really scary news for Republicans,

“Obama is winning in all regions of the state, even in the western counties, where George W. Bush beat John Kerry by 17 points,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. “Obama is winning rural voters in Iowa, not something you see in many other states.”

This poll was in the field from August 31 to September 2–that is, after John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate, but before the Republican National Convention.

Even if McCain gets a bump out of this week, he will still be well behind Obama in Iowa. I predict that this poll will cause McCain to throw in the towel here so that he can focus on his must-win states, such as Virginia, Ohio, Nevada and Colorado. (Any one of those states would put Obama over the top if he holds the states John Kerry won and picks up Iowa and New Mexico, where he leads comfortably.)

In 2004 George Bush had a huge volunteer base in Iowa, and he and Dick Cheney visited this state several times in the final two months of the campaign. Even so, an incumbent president during wartime barely beat Kerry here.

What chance is there for John McCain, who has never built a strong organization in Iowa? Kerry’s GOTV operation was not on the same level as Obama’s is now. The Obama campaign has organized canvassing in dozens of Iowa towns almost every weekend since mid-July.

Down-ticket Democratic candidates have a huge opening, with big gains in voter registration all over the state and a superior ground game.

Time to open your wallets for Becky Greenwald and Rob Hubler, and volunteer for their campaigns if you live in the area. Also, drop by the fun ReplaceTomLatham.com site launched by the Greenwald campaign this week.

I’ll write more in the next few days on why Iowa’s fourth and fifth Congressional districts are winnable.

As always, please send me an e-mail if I’ve left out any important event.

UPDATE: I found out that Kathleen Sebelius will do several events in Iowa on Thursday and added them to the calendar below.

Monday, August 18:

The Obama campaign is holding a Rural Roundtable Discussion with Gary Lamb, a member of the Agriculture and Rural Policy and Action Committee, at the Charles City Public Library (Zastrow Room), 106 Milwaukee Mall St in Charles City at 12 pm.

From the Center on Sustainable Communities:

Iowa Home Crafters is hosting a COSC member open house at 1571 P Avenue in Madrid, IA, Monday, August 18th from 4-7pm.

Free to COSC members and those interested in membership.

Carpool with at least two others and you will be eligible for a door prize.

Visit www.icosc.com for more details.

Representative Steve King will appear at a fundraiser for Mariannette Miller-Meeks at The Drake in Burlington at 6 pm. Bring your sign and/or chicken suit to ask why King won’t debate Rob Hubler, Democratic candidate in Iowa’s fifth district.

Tuesday, August 19:

The Obama campaign is holding a Rural Roundtable Discussion with Lt. Governor Patty Judge at 4:15 pm in the Formal Dining Room at Gentle Student Center, Ellsworth Community College, 1100 College Avenue in Iowa Falls.

The Rebuild Iowa Advisory Commission will hold its fourth meeting to discuss the state’s disaster and rebuilding efforts at the Holiday Inn Cedar Falls – University Plaza, 5826 University Ave., Cedar Falls, from 2 to 5 pm.

Steve King is holding four town-hall meetings:

8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.

King to host Council Bluffs Town Hall Meeting

Iowa Western Community College Aviation Center

211915 Cessna Avenue

Council Bluffs, Iowa

10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

King to host Red Oak Town Hall Meeting

US Bank, Community Room

323 Reed St

Red Oak, Iowa

1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

King to host Creston Town Hall Meeting

Supertel Inn and Conference Center

800 Laurel St.

Creston, Iowa

4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

King to host Denison Town Hall Meeting

Cronk’s Restaurant

812 4th Ave. S.

Denison, Iowa

Wear your chicken suit outside the event, or bring your video camera inside in case there are any “macaca moments”!

Wednesday, August 20:

The Obama campaign will hold a Rural Roundtable Discussion with Gary Lamb, a member of the Agriculture and Rural Policy and Action Committee, at 10 am in the Benton County Library, 510 2nd Ave. in Vinton.

A second Rural Roundtable with Gary Lamb will take place at 3 pm at the Farley Fire Station, 202 1st St. NE in Farley.

An Obama campaign Rural Roundtable Discussion with state Representative John Whitaker will be held at 6:30 pm at the White Buffalo Restaurant, 100 Hwy 34 E in Albia.

Tom and Ruth Harkin will attend a fundraiser for Becky Greenwald at the home of David and Loree Miles, 1402 Tulip Tree Lane in West Des Moines at 5:30 pm. To RSVP or for further information, call Eric Dillon at (515) 987-2800 or e-mail dillon AT beckygreenwald.com. The minimum suggested contribution level for this event is $100.

Democracy for America is holding another “Night School” session:

Join us on Wednesday, August 20th as DFA Night School returns for an hour with one of the pioneers of the Netroots movement: Zack Exley.

DFA Night School: Online Organizing w/ Zack Exley

Wednesday, August 20th

8:30pm Eastern Daylight Time

CLICK HERE TO RSVP NOW!

http://democracyforamerica.com…

Zack Exley was an early player in the Dean movement and later went on to work as Director of Online Organizing for the Kerry-Edwards campaign. We’ll be talking about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to organizing online as well as what are some of the new technologies poised to revolutionize campaigns of the future.

Night School is DFA’s interactive online training program. Every month Night School brings top campaign experts right to your home at absolutely no cost to you. Simply visit www.democracyforamerica.com/onlineorganizing and sign up to learn how to listen to the call live on either your home computer or over the telephone.

The training will last approximately one hour and will be accompanied by a slideshow you can view online or download and print out ahead of time.

From One Iowa:

Join other political, civil rights, business, religious and civic leaders to learn more about the Campaign for Marriage Equality in Iowa.  You are invited to join One Iowa and members of our Kitchen Cabinet to discuss our current campaign to ensure that all Iowa families are protected equally!

Campaign for Marriage Equality Briefing

August 20

11:30 AM – 12: 45 PM (Lunch Provided) or

5:00 PM – 6:15 PM (Refreshments Provided)

Davis Brown Law Firm

Board Room – 13th Floor

215 10th Street, Des Moines

Kitchen Cabinet

Lt. Governor Sally Pederson

Mary Middleton

Eric Tabor

Senator Matt McCoy

Alicia Claypool

Rich Eychaner

Gordon Fischer

Marcia Nichols

Mike Simonson

Suzi Alexander

Connie Ryan Terrell

Ben Stone

Mark Daley

RSVP by August 19 to Brad Clark, Campaign Director at brad@oneiowa.org or 515-783-5950

Thursday, August 21:

The Obama campaign will hold a Rural Roundtable Discussion with Congressman Bruce Braley at 12 pm at Luigi’s Restaurant, 1020 S. Frederick Ave in Oelwein.

Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas will campaign for Obama in several places on Thursday:

1:00 PM CDT

Governor Sebelius to speak at a women’s brown bag lunch about pay equity and Senator Obama’s plan to strengthen economic security for America’s women

Scottish Rite Consistory

519 Park St.

Des Moines, Iowa

2:45 PM CDT

Governor Sebelius to hold a community gathering

Funaro’s Deli and Bakery

201 N Buxton St.

Indianola, Iowa

4:00 PM CDT

Governor Sebelius and Becky Greenwald to hold a meet and greet with voters

Obama Iowa Campaign for Change Office

144 E Laurel St.

Waukee, Iowa

5:30 PM CDT

Governor Sebelius to kick-off a volunteer phone bank

Obama Iowa Campaign for Change office

1408 Locust St.

Des Moines, Iowa

Richard Leopold, director of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, is holding a public forum at Lake Wapello State Park Lodge in Drakesville. The public forum begins at 6 p.m. with Director Leopold outlining the department’s top 10 priorities, work being done to develop environmental indicators for the state, providing an update on sustainable funding for natural resources and discussion of local issues. Another hour-and-a-half will be devoted to answering questions from the public.

Friday, August 22:

The Obama campaign will hold a Rural Roundtable Discussion with Chuck Hassebrook, a member of the Agriculture and Rural Policy and Action Committee, at 10 am at Lakeshore Family Restaurant, 1520 Lake Avenue in Storm Lake.

A second Rural Roundtable featuring Hassebrook will take place at 3 pm at the Boone Historical Center, 602 Story Street (Use South Entrance) in  Boone.

Steve King is holding two more town-hall meetings:

9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

King to host Spencer Town Hall Meeting

Spencer Library Meeting Room

21 E 3rd St

Spencer, IA

11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

King to host Storm Lake Town Hall Meeting

City Council Chambers

620 Erie St.

Storm Lake, Iowa

2laneIA posted a great diary at Daily Kos with photos of activists in chicken suits outside one of Representative Steve King’s recent town-hall forums. Do click over, not just for the pictures. I love this line:

We used to think King was a chicken hawk.  Now he’s just plain old chicken.

I also enjoyed the way 2laneIA referred to the recent publicity stunt by King and other House Republicans as “the Exxon Sleepover Camp on the House floor.”

Background on King’s excuse for not debating Rob Hubler is here.

Hubler staff and volunteers will be out canvassing in more than a dozen towns today. Go here for more details.

Go to Hubler’s campaign website to get more involved in his effort to send Steve King into early retirement.

UPDATE: Anyone in southeast Iowa have a chicken suit? Apparently King is doing a fundraiser with Mariannette Miller-Meeks, the GOP candidate against Dave Loebsack, on Monday, August 18 at 6 pm at The Drake in Burlington.

As always, post a comment if you know of any important event I have left out.

Democratic candidates, send me your public schedules (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) so I can include your events on my calendar.

The Iowa State Fair runs through Sunday. Admission is half-price on the last day. We were there yesterday, and my kids really liked the dog frisbee-catching and stunt show, the Animal Learning Center (where you can see animals with very young babies), the “Little Hands on the Farm” demonstration/play area, and the butterfly exhibit, which I think is new to the fair.

Thursday, August 14:

From the Obama campaign:

Dana Singiser, the campaign’s Senior Adviser for the Women’s Vote, will campaign for Senator Obama in Iowa on Thursday, August 14th and Friday, August 15th, 2008.  On Thursday, Singiser will hold a Women’s Coffee in Sioux City and a Women for Obama event in Council Bluffs.  On Friday, she will hold a Women’s Coffee in Clive and a Women’s Lunch in Boone.  Singiser will discuss Senator Obama’s plan to provide economic security for America’s working women.  

Singiser serves as Senior Adviser to the Obama for America where she advises Senator Obama on the national political landscape for women and leads the campaign’s efforts to reach women voters across the country. Most recently, she served as Director of Women’s Outreach for the Hillary Clinton 2008 campaign.

The details of the events are:

THURSDAY, AUGUST 14TH, 2008

1:00 PM CDT

Women’s Coffee with Dana Singiser

Sioux City Art Center

255 Nebraska St

Sioux City, Iowa

7:00 PM CDT

Women for Obama event with Dana Singiser

Council Bluffs Library

400 Willow Ave

Council Bluffs, Iowa

Also, the Obama campaign will continue its series of “rural roundtable discussions” across Iowa to highlight Senator Obama’s plan to strengthen rural communities and support rural economic development:

THURSDAY, AUGUST 14TH, 2008

Atlantic

6:15 PM CDT

Obama Iowa Campaign for Change Rural Roundtable Discussion with Senator Ben Nelson

Farmer’s Kitchen

319 Walnut Street

Atlantic, Iowa

At 3:30 pm, Senator Nelson will speak on Senator Obama’s behalf at the Des Moines Register’s Soap Box at the Iowa State Fair.

Becky Greenwald, candidate for Congress, will appear at the Wing Ding event at the Surf Ballroom, 460 North Shore Drive in Clear Lake. The Wing Ding starts at 5:00 pm and is a Democratic fundraiser for three northern Iowa counties, Cerro Gordo, Winnebago and Hancock. If you hear Becky’s speech, please post a diary here afterwards to let us know how the event went.

Congressman Leonard Boswell, who represents Iowa’s third district, will be speaking at the Des Moines Register’s Soap Box (outside the Register’s Service Center on the Grand Concourse) at 1:30 pm. As part of this new Iowa State Fair tradition, the Congressman will be speaking on the challenges facing our country in these uncertain times and about his work to put us back on the road to peace and prosperity.

Friday, August 15:

The Obama campaign’s Senior Adviser for the Women’s Vote is holding two more events in Iowa:

10:00 AM CDT

Women’s Coffee with Dana Singiser

Home of Sue Simons

1433 NW 105th St.

Clive, Iowa

12:30 PM CDT

Women’s Lunch with Dana Singiser

Home of Becky Lyon

1416 SE Linn St.

Boone, Iowa

Also, Senator Tom Harkin is holding an Obama campaign “rural roundtable” event at 4:00 pm in Carroll at Depot Plaza, 407 W 5th St.

Dr. Steven and Jill Kraus will be hosting a reception at their home for Tom Harkin in Carroll on Friday at 5:30 PM.  Hors d’oeuvres and refreshments will be provided and valet parking is available.  For the full details on this event, please click here.

Also on Friday, Congressman Steve King is holding two town-hall meetings. Bring along your camera to capitalize on any “macaca moments”:

9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

King to host Sioux Center Town Hall Meeting

American State Bank – enter through West entrance (town hall meeting is downstairs)

525 North Main Avenue

Sioux Center, Iowa

4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

King to host Sioux City Town Hall Meeting

Main Library 529 Pierce St. – Gleeson Room

Sioux City, Iowa

Saturday, August 16:

Rob Hubler will be at AtlanticFest. Contact his campaign HQ at (712) 352-2077 for more details.

Senator Harkin and Mayor Jerry Sullivan, candidate for Statehouse (HD-59), will attend a fundraiser for Sullivan’s campaign from 3:00 to 4:30 pm at the Great Midwestern Café, 1250 NW 128th St in Clive. Catering provided by Great Midwestern Café. Suggested donation $50 (host levels higher). Checks can be made payable to Sullivan for State Representative, 7018 Franklin Ave, Windsor Heights, IA  50322. RSVP to Mike at mmccall@iowademocrats.org or call (614) 561-9117.

1000 Friends of Iowa is holding its 10th anniversary celebration and annual meeting at the Griffieon family farm near Ankeny. The event starts at 9:00 am and runs all day. Click here to register for the meeting or find more details about the event, including a schedule and directions to the farm. Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey will be the keynote speaker. Registration costs $30, and that includes an “Iowa grown lunch.” Other events of the day include:

Presentation – Connie Mutel author of The Emerald Horizon: The History of  Nature in Iowa  Mutel will describe her new book, which offers an opportunity to understand,  reconnect with, and nurture Iowa’s precious natural world. She’ll also discuss  the functions (such as flood-resistance) provided by healthy native communities,  and offer a challenge to restore these functions through reintegrating nature into  Iowa’s working landscape.      1:30     Presentation – Erv Klaas  Dr. Klaas will discuss how reserving valuable cropland for growing corn and  soybeans creates difficult challenges to livestock owners who use riparian zones  for pasture. He will use the Griffieon pasture to illustrate problems livestock  owners face, the technique LaVon is using to remedy the problem and how  improvements to water quality and to our streams depends on a total watershed  approach.       2:00     Tour de Sprawl – Guides: LaVon Griffieon & Stephanie Weisenbach  In the past decade development has encroached upon the farmland next to the  Griffieon’s farm.  We will tour the neighborhood by bus to see the changes made  upon some of the world’s most prime soils.

I am involved with 1000 Friends of Iowa and will attend this meeting, but not in my capacity as desmoinesdem, so don’t expect any talk about partisan politics!

Sunday, August 17:

The Hubler campaign is organizing canvassing all over the fifth district:

Sunday marks our first large door-to-door operation and we need your help to talk to friends and neighbors about Rob’s vision for the future.  Nothing is more effective than having a neighbor drop-by their door with a piece of literature about Rob.  King will be pushing the same tired messages- but with your help we can show Iowa that there is a clear choice in this election and that Rob Hubler is the candidate who will best represent us in Washington; but we can’t win without your help!

Please contact Beth at our Council Bluffs office (712) 352-2077 or email her at beth@hublercongress.com to meet up with supporters near you. Don’t forget to bring two friends to join you!

We will be having canvass parties in the following towns:

Council Bluffs                                   Creston              

Clarinda                                           Sioux City

Spencer                                           Spirit Lake

Onawa                                             Storm Lake

Le Mars                                           Lamoni

Carroll

If you don’t see your town listed, we will be coming your way soon; contact us to help set up a joint canvass in your area.

Rob Hubler, Democratic candidate for Congress in the fifth district, will speak at the Iowa State Fair on Wednesday, August 13. You can catch him at the Des Moines Register’s soap box on the Grand Concourse at 2:30 pm. According to an e-mail I received from the campaign, “Rob will be talking about our changing energy needs, his plan to strengthen our economy, and our continuing commitment to our veterans.”

The e-mail adds:

If you can’t be there in person join us by listening to Rob at 11 o’clock [on August 13] on Jan Michelson’s radio show on WHO-1040AM broadcast live from the State Fair.

I won’t be at the fair on Wednesday, and I may not be near a radio that morning, but I want to welcome Hubler to Des Moines by reminding Bleeding Heartland readers of five things you can do to help him send Steve King into early retirement.

1. Donate to his campaign. King has more money than Hubler, as most incumbents do, but his cash on hand as of June 30 was only about $243,000–hardly an intimidating war chest by Congressional standards. The grassroots should be able to help Hubler narrow the money gap substantially.

2. Sign up for one of the 11 canvasses Hubler’s campaign is organizing for this Sunday, August 17:

Sunday marks our first large door-to-door operation and we need your help to talk to friends and neighbors about Rob’s vision for the future.  Nothing is more effective than having a neighbor drop-by their door with a piece of literature about Rob.  King will be pushing the same tired messages- but with your help we can show Iowa that there is a clear choice in this election and that Rob Hubler is the candidate who will best represent us in Washington; but we can’t win without your help!

Please contact Beth at our Council Bluffs office (712) 352-2077 or email her at beth@hublercongress.com to meet up with supporters near you. Don’t forget to bring two friends to join you!

We will be having canvass parties in the following towns:

Council Bluffs                                   Creston              

Clarinda                                           Sioux City

Spencer                                           Spirit Lake

Onawa                                             Storm Lake

Le Mars                                           Lamoni

Carroll

If you don’t see your town listed, we will be coming your way soon; contact us to help set up a joint canvas in your area.

I just came across this research paper on why canvassing is such an effective tool for reaching voters. Haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but it looks interesting.

Incidentally, Hubler will be at AtlanticFest this Saturday, August 16, so spread the word if you have friends or family nearby.

3. Kick in a few more bucks to Hubler’s campaign.

Every dollar you give now is worth several dollars in October. Even if you gave recently, can you afford another ten bucks?

$10 buys a canvass packet (clipboard, literature, etc) that volunteers need to get Rob’s message to voters.

4. Keep your eye and your camera on Steve King. Douglas Burns listed King’s town hall meeting schedule at Iowa Independent. Click the link for details about events in Sioux Center and Sioux City on August 15, Council Bluffs, Red Oak, Creston and Denison on August 19, and Spencer and Storm Lake on August 22.

August 11 marked two years since the notorious “Macaca moment”, which started to turn the tide against Virginia Senator George Allen in his race against Jim Webb. It couldn’t have happened if S.R. Sidarth hadn’t caught Allen on tape trying to bully and humiliate him with a racist slur.

The “Macaca” story launched a media narrative about Allen’s racial insensitivity, and blogger Mike Stark pushed the ball further down the field a couple of weeks later by shouting out a question no journalist would have dared to ask the senator (click the link for details). The Allen campaign’s denials led to a wave of news reports about the way Allen had casually used racial slurs before holding public office.

We all know King likes to shoot off his mouth. He appears to be incapable of feeling embarrassed by his ravings, but the broader public may not be so forgiving.

If you don’t have a camera, ask to borrow a friend’s camera or simply go and take detailed notes of any offensive comments. (You might need a large sheet of paper.)

5. Talk a few friends or relatives into donating to Hubler’s campaign. Tell them about this race and send them the link to Hubler’s website. We’ve got a strong candidate and need to get more Democrats engaged in the fifth district contest.

The U.S. House is in its summer recess, but a bunch of Republicans are giving speeches in the chamber calling for a special session to deal with energy policy.

When there’s an opportunity to score political points without accomplishing anything on behalf of constituents, you know Steve King will be on the scene. Rob Hubler, Democratic candidate to represent Iowa’s fifth district, was rightly dismissive:

Hubler accuses King of grandstanding rather than working to find a “real” resolution. “This is another example of how it is better to go before the camera and try to make some kind of a show out of something,” Hubler says.

Hubler opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, something King supports, as Hubler says there’s a less than six-month supply of oil there and that wouldn’t dramatically reduce the price of gasoline. “I think we need to have a comprehensive approach. We need to understand that we have gotten to where we are because of bickering and because of arguing and because of a lack of congress — Republicans and Democrats — to really look at the future and say, ‘What do we need to be doing?,'” Hubler says. “We need to be looking at alternative, green answers. We need to get nuclear power onto the discussion table.”

Personally, I believe expanding nuclear power is too expensive and too risky, but by all means make it part of a comprehensive discussion on energy policy. I believe its shortcomings will be exposed when compared to less costly options for generating more power or reducing our electricity usage.

But getting back to the point of this diary, it’s typical of Steve King to seize any chance for a monologue as opposed to engaging in real dialogue. Last week King refused an invitation from the Sioux City Journal and the League of Women Voters to debate Hubler. King’s letter to the editor of the Sioux City Journal is after the jump, along with Hubler’s statement on the importance of public debates.

I was amused by King’s excuse for not participating in this debate. He blamed the Sioux City Journal and its “attacks on my character,” adding:

If there are to be Congressional debates, they will take place in a neutral environment.

I wonder what kind of “neutral environment” would satisfy King. He was willing to spend at least an hour answering friendly questions from his fans on a constituent conference call, but his staff screened out SW Iowa Guy’s efforts to ask him about debating Hubler.

I predict that King will find excuses for rejecting all invitations to debate, unless they come from some group like the pro-corporate Club for Growth, which gave King a 98 percent rating on its latest scorecard.

UPDATE: I missed this hilarious passage from John Deeth’s write-up at Iowa Independent:

King spoke Monday on a darkened House floor, next to a giant photo of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with the words “I am trying to save the planet” underneath.

King said Pelosi has decided that “saving the planet is worth more than saving the Homo sapiens.”

You’ll never catch Steve King trying to save the planet, that’s for sure!

By the way, Representative Tom Latham is echoing the House Republicans’ talking points on energy policy. Becky Greenwald got it just right in her response:

Greenwald suggests Latham should be embarrassed by his fellow Republicans who are staging a sort of sit-in in the U.S. House of Representatives. “I just look at it more as an election year prank and we have serious work that needs to be done and compromising and discussion that needs to happen and not be trying to pull stunts to garner attention,” Greenwald says.

Greenwald would support drilling for oil along a greater expanse of the U.S. coastline if oil companies prove they’ve fully explored the 68 million acres of ocean ground they’ve already been awarded leases to tap for oil.  “When you think about it, that’s two times the physical size of the state of Iowa and so I’d like to understand why we don’t make use of those lands and that offshore drilling that’s already available,” she says.

If she’s elected to congress, Greenwald says she’ll back greater federal support of alternative energy industries like wind energy, which she says puts Iowans to work in good-paying jobs that cannot be outsourced. “We absolutely need a comprehensive energy policy that’s going to take us into the next several decades,” she says. “We need to be addressing it from all angles.”

Latham went up on the radio last week with an ad touting his support for more offshore oil drilling in the U.S. His rhetoric is consistent with a new Republican strategy document calling on Congressional candidates to put energy issues front and center in their campaigns.

Let’s improve Iowa’s representation in Congress. Get involved in Hubler’s campaign or in Greenwald’s campaign if you have time or money to spare.

Douglas Burns has the story at Iowa Independent: Joe Trippi’s consulting firm will be raising money and crafting media messages for Rob Hubler, the Democratic candidate running against Congressman Steve King.

The fifth district is the most Republican in Iowa, but by no means is it out of reach for Hubler.

Big upsets happen in big landslide years, and that’s what this year is shaping up to be.

Hiring Trippi will help Hubler put this race on the map for Washington, D.C.-based groups that could help defeat King, who is reviled by many progressives.

UPDATE: Don’t miss 2laneIA’s diary on this development at Daily Kos.

I’ve added a press release from the Hubler campaign after the jump.

When I suggested yesterday that Steve King is not an effective representative of his constituents in the fifth district, I failed to consider that from time to time he holds telephone town-hall meetings.

SW Iowa Guy suffered through one of those on Tuesday and provides a humorous account of the experience. Callers were screened so that King was able to field only friendly questions during an hour or so on the line.

One passage in Iowa Guy’s post jumped out at me:

Health Care: King stated that he opposes universal access to health care. He advocates Health Savings Accounts and said that families can deposit over $5,000.00 per year to such an account and by the time they are ready to retire they will have over one million dollars. This is all well and good, but most working families can ill afford the necessities, let alone save for health care. This also fails to address the unemployed and under-employed and uninsured.

Do Republicans expect Americans to buy into this Health Savings Account concept? If my husband and I had donated the maximum amount to those accounts for several years, we would still be in the hole without our health insurance (and we are reasonably healthy people).

A typical, complication-free pregnancy with no medical interventions in the hospital cost us around $3,500 each time for prenatal care and delivery, plus about $5,000 each time for the normal hospital stay of less than 48 hours. If I had given birth to either of my children by cesarean section, the hospital bills would have been in the $10,000 to $20,000 range, even without any complications such as baby spending time in the neonatal intensive care unit.

I had a flukey infection this winter that sent me to the hospital for a week and ended up costing somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000 (considering not just the hospital stay, but also the various tests and procedures). That would wipe out years of deposits in a Health Savings Account if we had to rely on one of those instead of health insurance.

If anyone in our family ever got a really expensive illness to treat, such as cancer, you can forget about any private savings account covering the cost.

It’s not realistic to think that families will be able to build up Health Savings Accounts worth a million dollars by the time they retire. Only a small fraction of Americans could afford to do that, and even then they’d have to be lucky and stay healthy in the meantime.

As Iowa Guy notes, a single-payer system modeled on Medicare makes a lot more sense.

WITNESS! Vincent Bugliosi, former LA prosecutor, pulling no punches in accusing the administration of murder. “I am fully aware that the charge I have just made is a very serious one, but let me just say that at this stage in my career, I don't have time for fanciful reveries. I'd never in a million years would propose a murder prosecution of Bush administration officials if I didn't believe there was more than enough evidence to convict them and that I was standing on strong legal ground.”

BEHOLD! House Democrats shamed by an old public servant who, if they had half this guy's balls and refreshing disrespect for politesse in their own due diligence and oversight in the last two years, much less the last eight, we wouldn't even be talking about poll numbers in the presidential race right now and McCain would be shopping for a “Sunset Condo.” 

MARVEL! At Steve King (SS-Iowa) professing to almost suffering an “aneurysm” after being told, finally, by anyone, how his linear-thinking sociopathic rationalizations and hamfisted justifications of the worst presidential administration in history are “wrong” in no uncertain terms.

THE BIGGEST HIT OF THE SUMMER! NOW PLAYING ON A YOUTUBE NEAR YOU! 

I got a press release yesterday from Representative Bruce Braley’s office about the National Highway Bridge Reconstruction and Inspection Act, which the U.S. House approved by a vote of 367-55. This bill includes language authored by Braley “to establish a pilot program to monitor structural flaws in highway bridges.”

The full text of the press release is after the jump. Braley was working on creating this pilot program before this summer’s flooding damaged even more Iowa bridges. That’s an example of how a forward-thinking representative can serve constituents, and not only Iowans living in the first district.

Compare this to Representative Steve King’s record. When the Sioux City Journal tried to answer the question “How effective is Steve King?”, they learned that

Of the 44 bills King has sponsored according to www.GovTrack.us, three have made it out of committee and only one has been acted. The piece of legislation? House Resolution 847: Recognizing the importance of Christmas [in] the Christian faith.

Keep in mind that Republicans controlled the U.S. House during King’s first two terms in Congress. What’s his excuse for not getting more accomplished? He points to helping expand a tax credit for small ethanol and biodiesel producers as well as securing some funding for widening Highway 20. But even King admits that in a Democratic-controlled chamber, he is mainly hoping to block Democratic bills:

“That very well may be the best contribution that I have made in this 110th Congress, is slowing down, sometimes stopping” Democratic-sponsored bills,” he said.

King said the extended 2007 funding debate for reauthorization of the federal State Children’s Health Insurance Program was a key moment. The measure was initially written for an increase of $35 billion, but was scaled back before being signed by President Bush in December.

King took to the House floor last fall with a sign that said the SCHIP acronym should instead stand for “Socialized Clinton-style Hillarycare for Illegals and their Parents.”

“I do believe if you took me out of the equation, there would have been a different (funding) result,” King said.

With the Democratic Party leading the GOP by nine points on the generic Congressional ballot, and the Republicans defending more than two dozen open House seats, it’s clear that the Democrats are poised to expand their majority.

Do Iowans in the fifth district want their representative to set his sights on blocking bills, disrupting the legislative branch’s oversight of the executive and being the loudest anti-immigration voice in the room?

Rob Hubler has a solid grasp of the issues and would be able to get things done for Iowans as a member of the majority party. Click here to get involved with Hubler’s campaign, or head out to meet him in person at a county fair this weekend.

If you’d like to meet Rob Hubler, the man trying to spare Iowans two more years with Steve King in Congress, you’ve got plenty of chances on the county fair circuit this weekend:

Thursday, July 24

1:30 p.m.  Harrison County Fair, Missouri Valley

4:30 p. m. Page County Fair, Clarinda

7:00 p.m.  Union County Fair, Afton

Friday, July 25

12 noon   Adair County Fair, Greenfield

2:15 p.m. Audubon County Fair, Aubudon

      (Aububon fundraiser in evening)

Saturday, July 26

12 noon   Sac County Fair, Sac City

3 p.m.     Plymouth County Fair, LeMars

6 p.m.    Pottawattamie County Fair (Westfair), Council Bluffs

        (Council Bluffs fundraiser in evening)

Sunday, July 27

12 noon    Cass County Fair, Atlantic

5:30 p.m.  Clarke County Fair, Osceola

If you want more details about either of the fundraisers, you can call the Hubler campaign headquarters for information or to RSVP: 712-352-2077

For your reading enjoyment, I give you Texas Nate’s latest diary: King embarrasses Iowa, self again

This guy is all class.

According to the Des Moines Register, about 160 immigrants face deportation “because their U.S. citizen spouses died less than two years after their marriages and before the survivors’ permanent residency applications were approved.”

A bipartisan group in Congress, including some conservative Republicans, is trying to change the law so that these widows’ and widowers’ residency applications can be reviewed individually. Otherwise these unfortunate people are forced to fight deportation while also dealing with a bereavement and in some cases looking after children.

Who’s the one person loudly objecting to this law? None other than fifth district Representative Steve King. In addition to being generally concerned about our “runaway immigration policy,” he has specific problems with the bill:

King also said more protections were needed to ensure immigrant spouses have good moral character or that they planned to come to the United States prior to the spouse’s death.

“A soldier, man or woman, could get drunk in Bangkok, wake up in the morning and be married, as will happen sometimes in places like Las Vegas or Bangkok, be killed the next day, and the spouse who was a product of the evening’s celebration would have then a right to claim access to come to the United States on a green card,” King said.

Remember, this bill would have U.S. immigration officials review applications on a case-by-case basis. I doubt a marriage of drunk people who barely knew each other would be deemed legitimate.

Anyway,

He said he agreed with the sentiment in the bill but Congress cannot take care of “every sad story that we have and if we do that, we are going to create a lot more sad stories in the United States from the people that will take advantage.”

His position has befuddled advocates of changing the penalty […].

“I’ve never come across anybody who actually voiced opposition,” said Brent Renison, an Oregon immigration lawyer […].

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who sponsored the bill in committee, said the “widow penalty” is one of the top reasons for private relief bills in Congress.

But why do something humane that will also save members of Congress the time they spend on passing these private relief bills?

Better to continue making a name for yourself as the guy who can always think of a reason not to help immigrants.

If Congressman Steve King hadn’t already won the “jackass award,” someone would need to give it to him for the way he behaved at a House Judiciary Committee hearing this week.

It’s no secret that King isn’t interested in the Congress serving as a check or balance on executive power. As we saw just a few weeks ago, King believes former White House spokesman Scott McClellan could have “done this country a favor” by keeping his mouth shut about alleged lawbreaking and lying in the Bush administration.

Apparently not satisfied with his efforts to sidetrack the McClellan hearings, King used one parliamentary trick after another on Tuesday to prevent Democrats on the Judiciary Committee from effectively questioning Douglas Feith, the former number three Pentagon official.

You really have to click over to Dana Milbank’s story for the Washington Post and read the whole thing to fully grasp how disgracefully King behaved. He and Congressman Darrell Issa (the wallet behind the recall of California Governor Gray Davis a few years back) were so disruptive that, according to Milbank, “Three and a half hours later, Feith had become but an asterisk at what was supposed to be his hanging.”

Not that it’s any big deal–Feith was only a key architect of the Bush administration’s policy on torture and false claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

As usual, King appears to be proud of his outrageous behavior. I learned from this piece by Douglas Burns that King’s campaign has prominently featured Milbank’s article on the incumbent’s website.

Incidentally, as far as I can tell, King’s campaign site ripped off Milbank’s whole article, rather than posting a link to the Washington Post site with an short excerpt. Are members of Congress subject to copyright law?

Anyway, King is proud to stand in the way of meaningful Congressional oversight of the executive branch. But don’t get the wrong idea. He doesn’t believe Congress should be powerless. Iowa Guy 2.0 recently reminded me that King went on record three years ago saying Congress could abolish federal courts, cut their funding or instruct the Department of Justice not to enforce court rulings if judges didn’t behave.

Separation of powers seems to be too difficult a concept for King to grasp.

Getting rid of King would not only benefit the residents of Iowa’s fifth district, but would also further the cause of proper Congressional oversight. Please kick in some cash to Rob Hubler, the Democratic nominee to represent Iowa’s fifth district.

It’s a Republican-leaning district (R+8), but we just won Mississippi’s first Congressional district, which tilts even more strongly to the GOP.

King has a money advantage, but his cash on hand of $251,000 is not a dominating war chest compared to what other incumbents have at their disposal.

Also, the Iowa wingnuts may be crazy, but they aren’t crazy about John McCain. The GOP presidential candidate will have a much weaker turnout operation in Iowa than Barack Obama, and the editor of the Storm Lake Times thinks King may be vulnerable given the atmosphere of “Republican despondence.”

If I haven’t convinced you with this post or my previous work highlighting King’s more embarrassing moments, take it from Texas Nate, who declared King to be “the worst Congressman of them all” in this MyDD diary. That’s quite a statement coming from Nate. They’ve got some really bad ones representing parts of Texas.

UPDATE: Ted Mallory, who lives in King’s district, has drawn a cartoon about King’s behavior in the Feith hearing:

http://tedstoons.blogspot.com/…

On Tuesday the House overrode George Bush’s veto of a bill that stopped planned cuts in the Medicare reimbursement rate for doctors. It’s the fourth time Congress has voted to override Bush’s vetoes. This is the bill that just barely cleared the Senate because of Ted Kennedy’s return.

This diary by noweasels has the story and links to the roll-call votes, along with a lot of comments about how this law will affect people. TomP has some background on Medicare and how it was adopted.

The House vote was 383-41. In the Iowa delegation, Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack and Tom Latham voted yes on the override. Steve King voted no. Leonard Boswell was among the 11 representatives who missed the vote.

The Senate vote was 70-26, with Tom Harkin voting yes and Chuck Grassley voting no. Barack Obama and John McCain were among the four senators who missed the vote.

Late last week the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee took the unusual step of releasing detailed information about where they plan to spend $34 million on television advertising this fall. Click the link to read how much the DCCC says it will spend in each of 31 districts, only 12 of which are currently held by Democrats.

As you can see from the comment thread under this post at Swing State Project, a lot of people are unhappy about winnable seats left off this list. What about netroots hero Darcy Burner, who fell just short in Washington’s eighth district in 2006? Shouldn’t Dan Seals get some help in Illinois’s tenth? Are we really going to give “Mean Jean” Schmidt a pass in Ohio’s second?

I was disappointed not to see Iowa’s fourth district listed. Most of its 28 counties are covered by Des Moines or Mason City television, which is not that expensive. But keep in mind that this is just time reserved by the DCCC, and it could change if the situation on the ground changes.

If some of the Democratic districts targeted now appear safe by September or October, the DCCC could shift money elsewhere.

I also think Todd Beeton is right to note that

There are plenty more GOP seats that should be on this list, CA-04 and WA-08 come immediately to mind. I look forward to seeing more seats added to this list as we get closer to November. What should be remembered is that this list is simply what the DCCC was comfortable making public and putting the GOP on notice.

It’s up to us Iowans to give Becky Greenwald a boost against Tom Latham in the D+0 fourth district. We already have a registration advantage in the district. We need to help Greenwald raise money and generate excitement around the race. When the DCCC reassesses the field later this year, it won’t be too late to get involved.

Clearly, the DCCC is not going to spend much money supporting Rob Hubler in Iowa’s fifth district, but we should keep our focus on that race too. It’s a terrible district to cover with television commercials, because the 32 counties are located in so many different media markets. But we can still give our time and money to Hubler’s campaign. King is an embarrassment, and he will get little top-of-the-ticket help from John McCain, who has no organization in Iowa.

The fifth is the most Republican district in Iowa with a partisan index of R+8, but we just won Mississippi’s first Congressional district, which tilts even more strongly to the GOP. The Storm Lake Times thinks that King may be vulnerable given the current political environment.

UPDATE: DCCC Executive Director Brian Wolff issued the following statement on the ad buy:

“Our initial media buy is the first act of a many act play.  As we have been all cycle, the DCCC is focused, prepared, and organized.  Watch what we do over the next four months and our aggressive strategy to expand the playing field and strengthen the Democratic Majority will become clear.”

Democratic candidate Rob Hubler has sent an open letter to Congressman Steve King inviting him to participate in eight debates before the November election.

King refused to debate challenger Joyce Schulte in 2004 and 2006, but his spokeswoman did not immediately rule out the possibility that the incumbent would debate Hubler.

The sites proposed by Hubler for debates are geographically dispersed around the fifth district: Sioux City, Carroll, Spirit Lake, Red Oak, Storm Lake, Council Bluffs, Orange City, and Osceola.

Speaking of Storm Lake, the editor of the Storm Lake Times wrote in the July 5 issue that

We’re told by the Obama camp that it will push to win the Fifth District. It may sound far-fetched, but Democrats Berkley Bedell and Tom Harkin proved that a progressive with common sense can win in Western Iowa.

The conservative Christian base of the Republican Party that prevails in these quarters is not energized by GOP standard bearer John McCain as it was with Bush. It’s possible that turnout could be muted in November among this key voting bloc. […]

We could see Obama carrying the Fifth by winning Dickinson, Clay, Buena Vista, Carroll, Woodbury, Pottawattamie and Cherokee counties. That’s where the population is, and that’s where the most independent voters are. He might be able to compete in Crawford and O’Brien counties.[…]

Republican despondence also may be a threat to incumbent Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron. Scoff if you will, but again recall that Harkin defeated incumbent Bill Scherle and Bedell knocked off incumbent Wiley Mayne in the post-Watergate landslide. The atmospherics may be similar this year.

Sorry, no link is available on that newspaper’s website.

Hubler visited all 32 counties in the fifth district last year and has continued to campaign actively this year. He is visiting all the county fairs in the district during July.

The full text of the press release about Hubler’s open letter to King is after the jump.

William J Meyers website states it is sponsored by Demwebs. Who are Demwebs.  It should state sponsored by Dimbulbs.  Meyers position on the Iraq fiasco macthes Steve King.  His position on immigrants matches Steve King.  Hoefully Meyers will take votes away from Latham.

Watch Rob Hubler make his case:

Not only does Steve King embarrass all Iowans on a regular basis, he doesn’t even serve his constituents well. The Sioux City Journal researched the question How effective is Steve King?, and couldn’t come up with many accomplishments.

In fact, only three of the 44 bills King has sponsored even made it out of committee. Keep in mind that for the first two of King’s three terms in the House, Republicans controlled the chamber.

King has managed to get one bill through, according to the the Sioux City Journal. That was a resolution on “Recognizing the importance of Christmas in the Christian faith.”

No, that is not a joke from The Colbert Report.

Commenting on the Sioux City Journal’s article about King, Douglas Burns notes that King has focused on expanding Highway 20 but seems little concerned about Highway 30, which has more traffic and economic development potential.

Do Iowans a favor and give some cash to Hubler’s campaign.

Over at the Washington Independent, Spencer Ackerman has given Congressman Steve King the “jackass award”. Here’s why:

He says first that we can’t trust interrogators who want to “cuddle up to someone” to get the truth, even though that’s pretty close to what professional interrogators actually do to get the truth. And then he says that Bush used the same “aggressive” reasoning to go into Iraq to deal with weapons of mass destruction, because if he hadn’t and “we had been attacked again,” or if we hadn’t waterboarded Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and then we were attacked again, then the critics now would be perhaps impeaching Bush. This is his defense! A mess of counterfactual conditionals, factual misstatements (there, like, weren’t any WMDs in Iraq) and pure, unadulterated politics. God bless Mr. King.

Please help rid our state of this national embarrassment. Support Rob Hubler, Democratic candidate in the fifth district, with a donation before the June 30 deadline.

I went over quite a few reasons to support Hubler against King in this post.

It’s also worth noting that Hubler released a strong statement opposing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that just passed the House last week.

Very demoralized, judging by Steve King’s latest comments to the press:

Iowa 5th District Congressman Steve King said a lack of enthusiasm in the Republican Party will make it difficult for the GOP to regain control of the U.S. House.

Democrats wrested control from Republicans in November 2006, putting lawmakers who had only known serving in the majority into the minority. King said Monday he’s doubtful the House, which now has 236 Democrats and 199 Republicans, can swing back.

“The math doesn’t look good,” King said.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Republican turnout in King’s own district this November is substantially down on 2004 levels, because John McCain has never been popular with hard-core conservatives.

Less than a week remains in the second fundraising quarter–go give some cash to Rob Hubler, who is challenging King.

So the U.S. House races don’t look great for Republicans. What about the Senate?

Well, Senator John Ensign of Nevada chairs the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, and he said two weeks ago that losing only three Senate seats “would be a terrific night for us, absolutely.” He added that Barack Obama is likely to help Democratic challengers in some states, such as Oregon.

Apparently Republican Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon agrees. This commercial tells you a lot about how Smith views the political climate:

Keep in mind that Smith endorsed John McCain early in the presidential contest. Yet clearly Smith believes that in Oregon, the less said about McCain, the better for his own re-election prospects.

Several bloggers have pointed out that this ad is misleading, since it implies that Obama has somehow endorsed Smith. Of course, Obama is solidly behind Smith’s Democratic opponent, Jeff Merkley.

Moreover, this commercial’s claim that Smith “helped lead the fight for a cleaner environment” is not supported by his voting record. Sarah Lane, netroots coordinator for Merkley, notes that Smith has a 29 percent lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters.

It’s not the first time Smith has tried to run away from the Republican Party in this campaign. This earlier tv ad portrayed him as someone who has stood up to President George Bush. I don’t think voters are going to buy this makeover.

If you want to follow the House and Senate races across the country, bookmark this page to read the frequent roundups by Daily Kos front-pager brownsox.

Getting back to our state, leading Iowa Republicans have been pessimistic about the coming election for months. The low turnout in the GOP primary races on June 3 can’t be encouraging for them.

Find a few statehouse candidates you believe in and give them money before June 30. Strong fundraising in the second quarter will help the candidates both directly and indirectly (by driving the media narrative about greater Democratic enthusiasm this year).

Scott McClellan appeared before the House Judiciary Committee today to testify about the exposure of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent.

McClellan recently published a book called, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.”

According to Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, Republicans on that committee “worked feverishly to discredit the former White House press secretary who had turned against his patron and former boss, President Bush.”

I don’t have a transcript of the hearing, but Milbank reported that Iowa’s own Congressman Steve King asked McClellan, “Couldn’t you have taken this to the grave with you and done this country a favor?”

That’s just what I try to teach my kids–when you see other people committing crimes and lying about it, do the country a favor by keeping your mouth shut.

If you are tired of King embarrassing our great state on a regular basis, please donate to Rob Hubler, the Democrat seeking to represent Iowa’s fifth Congressional district.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall put up this video clip from C-SPAN at Talking Points Memo:

SECOND UPDATE: Daily Kos user 2laneIA posted a good and funny diary about this too.

Steve King likes nothing better than to stake out a conservative position on a hot-button social issue. I learned yesterday from the One Iowa advocacy group that this week Congressman King “has introduced a Federal Constitutional Amendment to codify discrimination and ban same sex marriages nationwide.”

Please consider donating to Democrat Rob Hubler’s Congressional campaign. Even though Iowa’s fifth district has a partisan index of R+8, turnout among hard-line conservatives may be depressed this November. John McCain has little organization in Iowa, and he is not popular with the anti-immigration wingnuts. Many moderate Republicans are embarrassed by King, so perhaps they would be open to ticket-splitting.

It’s not as if King has been effective in bringing money home to his district, which would give people a reason to vote for him even if they disagreed with some of his antics.

Need more reasons to support a good Democrat taking on this horrible Republican?

King received a perfect 100 rating from the American Conservative Union in 2007, and has a near-perfect 98 rating from that organization during his three terms in Congress.

King wrote Iowa’s English-only law when he was in the legislature and successfully filed suit to prevent the Secretary of State’s office from providing voter information in languages other than English.

He thinks it’s fine for pharmacists to refuse to prescribe the morning-after pill.

He has sponsored a constitutional amendment to ban the federal income tax and has warned against creating a “condom culture” in Africa.

And of course, he said a few months ago that terrorists would be dancing in the streets if Obama were elected president.

Click that last link for more of King’s “greatest hits,” including his defense of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his characterization of torture at Abu Ghraib as “hazing.”

Hubler deserves our support for taking on this challenge. I’ll be writing more about this race in the coming months. Click here to get involved in his campaign.

The full text of the e-mail I received from One Iowa about the newly proposed federal constitutional amendment is after the jump. You can donate to that organization’s Fairness Fund PAC at this ActBlue page. They have a matching gift pledge that runs through July 14.

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?

Noneed4thneed noticed that Steve King (who represents Iowa’s fifth district in Congress) spoke at the GOP’s second district convention last weekend. He wonders whether King might be weighing a run for governor in 2010:

http://commoniowan.blogspot.co…

All I can say is, may it be so.

I’ve been hoping that King would get bored with being in the minority party and retire from Congress. In all likelihood the GOP would hold on to the seat, but maybe they would elect someone less embarrassing.

If Chet Culver running for an open governor’s seat beat a Congressman from eastern Iowa by 100,000 votes, I’m guessing that as an incumbent running against a Congressman from western Iowa, Culver would win by 200,000 votes or more.

I learned from the Iowa Voters blog that Steve King (IA-05) and Tom Latham (IA-04) were among the 85 percent of Republicans in the U.S. House who voted against New Jersey Democrat Rush Holt’s bill encouraging verifiable elections on Tuesday.

For details on the bill, click here. Here’s the gist:

H.R. 5036, as reported to the floor by the committee, would authorize funding to reimburse states with paperless jurisdictions that convert to paper-based voting systems in 2008 or provide emergency paper ballots that would be counted as regular ballots in the event of machine failure. The reimbursements would cover the cost of equipment conversion (from paperless touch screen machines to paper-based systems, such as optical scanners or computers with printers) and the cost of developing procedures for conducting hand-counted audits using independent, random selection of at least 2 percent of the precincts for audits under public observation.

Holt noted that two weeks ago, the House Administration Committee unanimously approved this bill. However, after the White House came out against the bill, 176 out of 203 Republicans fell in line.

At his blog, IowaVoter pointed out that the bill King and Latham voted against would have “re-imbursed Iowa for the expense of replacing our touchscreens.” (Two weeks ago Governor Chet Culver signed a law requiring all Iowa counties to use optical scanners and paper ballots.)

But no, King and Latham would rather rubber-stamp the Bush administration’s opposition to a bill that was voted unanimously out of committee.  

A few days ago, Des Moines Register reporter Jane Norman wrote a story about earmarks Iowa’s members of Congress obtained for projects in 2007. The article was based on the 2008 “Congressional Pig Book,” published by Citizens against Government Waste.

The Register notes:

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that takes aim at waste and fraud in government.

To qualify as pork, projects must meet one of seven criteria: a request by just one member of Congress; no specific authorization; no competitive award; no presidential request; a greatly increased budget amount compared with the previous year; serving only a local or special interest; or no congressional hearing.

Norman’s main point was that Iowa’s members of Congress obtained far more earmarks in 2007 than they had the previous year, totaling

$184.6 million in earmarks, or $61.79 in Iowa pork for every man, woman and child in the state.

It’s a major rebound for Iowa, which languished in 37th place in a similar study in 2006. That year, lawmakers obtained $72.2 million in earmarks, or $24.34 per Iowan.

(Note: Earlier this year, the group Taxpayers for Common Sense did its own analysis and came up with somewhat different numbers for 2007: the Iowa delegation was calculated to have obtained about “$152 million in earmarked money from Congress – or $51.10 for every man, woman and child in the state.”)

Norman noted that since Democrats took control of Congress in he 2006 elections, Senator Tom Harkin now chairs a “key appropriations subcommittee.” The “Congressional Pig Book” apparently singled him out for getting “$40 million for 44 projects in his own bill,” according to Norman.

I don’t know why the authors would single out Harkin, when their own book shows that Senator Chuck Grassley obtained more pork for Iowa in terms of total dollar value. Grassley collaborated with Harkin on a large number of earmarks for Iowa projects.

I also get a little tired of self-appointed taxpayer watchdogs expressing righteous indignation about this or that project that got a few hundred thousand dollars from the federal government. The Pig Book shows that the more than 11,000 earmarks in 2007 accounted for about $17.2 billion in federal spending.

Meanwhile, the U.S. spent several times that amount on the continuing war in Iraq in 2007, with little to show for it besides more American casualties.

That said, there’s no doubt that a lot of earmarks are wasteful appropriations for projects of limited benefit to the broader community. The Pig Book contains a ton of information about the earmarks each member of Congress has obtained. You can search all the Iowa earmarks from 2007 on this page of the Des Moines Register’s website, or search for earmarks by any member of Congress at the Citizens Against Government Waste site.

I used that search engine to find the total number of earmarks that each Iowa member of Congress obtained last year. The total dollar amount for each member comes from a table published in the Des Moines Register on April 3 (no link, because I could only find this table in the print version). Note that not every dollar earmarked by an Iowan ends up in Iowa, because some of these projects operate in many states.

Chuck Grassley (R), 155 earmarks, $321.4 million

Tom Harkin (D), 194 earmarks, $302.8 million

Tom Latham (R, IA-04), 63 earmarks, $67 million

Dave Loebsack (D, IA-02), 27 earmarks, $53.5 million

Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03), 27 earmarks, $33.1 million

Bruce Braley (D, IA-01), 26 earmarks, $27.5 million

Steve King (R, IA-05), 13 earmarks, $9.8 million

Why does Latham, a Republican, lead our House delegation in terms of earmarks? He is the longest-serving Iowan in the House (having been first elected in 1994) and serves on several subcommittees of the House Appropriations Committee. Also, his district includes Iowa State University, and a lot of federal funding goes to major research universities.

The data for the Democrats surprised me. How did the freshman Dave Loebsack secure so much more than Leonard Boswell? At first I thought it must be because Loebsack’s district includes the University of Iowa, but only two of Loebsack’s 27 earmarks were for the university.

Looking down the list more carefully, I realized that the dollar amount credited to Loebsack is inflated because he was one of 13 House members to earmark $24 million for the Department of Education’s National Writing Project. Most of that money will not go to Iowa.

Even if we remove that one from Loebsack’s list, he is still left with 26 earmarks (almost as many as Boswell), totaling $29.5 million (almost as much as Boswell). Keep in mind that Loebsack is only halfway through his first term, while Boswell was elected to Congress in 1996.

Braley is not far behind, despite being a freshman as well.

It’s no surprise that King is at the bottom of the list. Not only is he a Republican in a Democratic-controlled chamber, his idea of constituent service seems to revolve around making outrageous statements. Oh, and also suing to prevent non-native English speakers from receiving voter information in other languages. He has no major universities in his district either.

If you dig around in the database and find anything particularly noteworthy, please put a comment in this thread.

Back in 2002, Steve King hadn’t yet become an embarrassment on the national stage; he was merely a crusader for intolerance in the Republican-controlled Iowa legislature. Tom Vilsack was a first-term governor nervously eyeing a midterm re-election campaign under the very popular President George W. Bush.

Seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?

Anyway, King was obsessed with passing a law declaring English the official language of Iowa. Didn’t you know how difficult it had become for Iowans to express themselves without official acknowledgment of English’s status?

Vilsack vetoed one version of the bill, then signed the rewritten bill that came to his desk. Disappointed liberals were assured that Vilsack had made the smart play by taking the issue off the table for the November election. Besides, the new bill contained all kinds of exceptions, so it would be little more than a symbolic measure.

Well, this week a judge in Polk County “ordered Iowa Secretary of State Michael Mauro to stop using languages other than English in the state’s official voter registration forms”, the Des Moines Register’s William Petroski reported. (If you want to read the ruling, click here.)

In 2006 King, by then a U.S. Representative in Iowa’s fifth district, complained that then-Secretary of State Chet Culver had put voting information in Spanish, Laotian, Bosnian and Vietnamese as well as English on the secretary of state’s website.

Attorney General Tom Miller had determined such action was acceptable because the official English law allowed for “any language usage required by or necessary to secure the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, or the Constitution of the state of Iowa.”

King filed suit last year against Culver and Mike Mauro, who was elected secretary of state in 2006.  District Judge Douglas Staskal concluded that voter registration forms in languages other than English are against the law, and voided the “improper exercise of agency power.”

Miller, like Culver and Mauro a Democrat, may appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court:

“Our view is that although the Iowa English Language Reaffirmation Act requires all official forms to be in English, it does not prohibit government officials from providing materials in other languages as well,” Miller said. “We argued that position to the District Court. This principle can be particularly important in the area of voting rights of citizens.”

If this ruling is upheld, it will hamper efforts to register voters whose native language is not English.

I’m with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board, which wrote on Saturday that “it’s time for Iowa lawmakers to repeal this embarrassing law.”

They should do so because the law is mean-spirited and sends an anti-immigrant message. They should do so because it makes Iowa seem xenophobic. They should do so because it’s unnecessary when studies show today’s immigrants are learning English as quickly as their predecessors.

And to lawmakers who may have thought the law was toothless because it included exemptions, Judge Staskal’s ruling tells them otherwise. The law applies to “official action” from government, which is broadly defined. It could have a “chilling effect on speech by causing government employees to refrain from non-English communication all together,” he wrote.

There is still time for legislators to repeal the official English law this session.

Don’t let the ghost of Steve King constrain voting rights in the upcoming presidential election.

The Center for Responsive Politics has ranked the U.S. House and Senate members in terms of their net worth, based on disclosure documents filed in 2007. Jane Norman has the highlights in the Des Moines Register.

Tom Harkin, Chuck Grassley, and Tom Latham are the only members of Congress from Iowa who disclosed a net worth greater than $1 million. Click the link for more details.

It seems as though the last few days the media has done a pretty good job attacking King for his comments about Barack Obama, especially in publishing a number of letters to the editor completely lambasting him — justifiably so.

But can we finally depose the King?

Do his divisive remarks mobilize his base or will they finally send him off the edge of th cliff.  Sadly it seems as though he has enough of a base vote in Western Iowa to be safe. 

 Wit Iowa turning bluer and a sure presidential coattail effect (Obama with Independents and Clinton doing well in Western Iowa, this could become a competitive race.  Keep your eyes on Ron Hubler (excuse the horrific website) or any other Dem who jumps in.  Because like many of the surprising races in '06 this could shock them all and we can finally take the fifth district crown from the King.

We don’t watch Keith Olbermann’s Countdown show on MSNBC, but I wanted to note that according to Blog for Iowa, Congressman Steve King was Olbermann’s “worst person in the world” on Monday, thanks to his embarrassing and bigoted comments about Barack Obama from a few days earlier.

with these pathetic comments picked up by the AP.

As Talking Points Memo notes, the full quotation from the Spencer Daily Reporter is even worse.

Here’s hoping King will get tired of serving in the House minority and leave Congress before too long.

Come on, Steve King, jump in against Tom Harkin! You are clearly thinking about it:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007…

Harkin would trounce King. We wouldn't pick up the 5th CD, but almost any other Republican would be an improvement on King. Getting that bigot out of Congress would take his megaphone away.

In related news, I saw a Rathje bumper sticker in Des Moines the other day. That's a first.