Leonard Boswell’s seat is officially one of the DCCC’s Frontline races for 2008. You can read the full release here from the DCCC’s Stakeholder blog while Drew Miller over at Bleeding Heartland has the full breakdown of 29 representatives included in the program. Already ActBlue and the DCCC have fundraising pages set up. Go give them a bit of cash if you can right now — if you thought 2006 was big, 2008 could be a banner year for Democrats.
Archive for February, 2007
Here is the opening statement by floor manager and Senate President Jack Kibbie (D-Emmettsburg) on SR 15, which had 28 of 30 Democrats as co-sponsors (Rob Hogg and Steve Warnstadt didn’t sign on):
You can read the full text of his statement below the fold.
I admit, I didn’t track the debate or listen to it (one of the problems with being a college student is that you have a lot of stuff to do), but on a voice vote, the resolution passed the Iowa Senate. With a voice vote, there isn’t a total count of supporters or those in the opposition, but it would have passed anyway with at least 28 Yea votes thanks to the Democratic sponsors. Iowa’s Senate is now the third legislative body in the country to pass an anti-escalation resolution.
Continue reading ‘Iowa Senate votes to oppose Iraq War escalation’
Go read this Iowa Progress post. Danny Carroll originally blamed the Grinnell College Democrats for his loss in HD-375, where Eric Palmer beat him in a re-match from 2004. Then Joshua Green sat down with him and helped blame gay people. And Danny Carroll believed him and bought the idea that it was a national gay conspiracy to make him lose. I guess that makes me glad Carroll lost but it makes we worry about what comes across as journalism these days, especially in The Atlantic magazine.
At least we can admit that College Democrats made a difference, particularly in local races like this.
From Bret Hayworth’s Politically Speaking blog at the Sioux City Journal:
“Rob Hubler of Council Bluffs will likely pursue a run for the 2008 Iowa 5th District congressional position. Hubler is touring western Iowa and was in Sioux City this morning to gauge Democratic Party support for taking on three-term U.S. Rep. Steve King, a Republican.”
Beyond the brief bio that Hayworth provides in his post, does anyone know any more about this guy? It seems that a prominent Western Iowan Democrat would be better to take on King (or possibly the open seat he’ll leave if he chooses to challenge Sen. Harkin), at least in my opinion.
Another victory for Democrats, as well as those with ailments, across Iowa! The Iowa Senate, on a vote of 26-24, passed SF 162. A quick Register story on the bill’s passage is here. It’ll be interesting to see the vote breakdown, but I’m guessing that all 20 Republicans opposed the bill and were able to pick up about 4 Democrats who were opposed. My guess is that they were persuaded by bullshit rhetoric, because, as the Register notes in their story, the critics claimed the bill would legalize cloning. As the folks at Iowa Progress have already pointed out, that is pure bullshit. If the Democrats were persuaded by that type of argument, I suggest Senator Gronstal lead a caucus literacy course.
Comedian Al Franken has made it official: He’s running for Senate in Minnesota against Norm Coleman. Watch his announcement video below:
And make sure to check out his campaign site as it evolves over the next couple of weeks. The folks at Blue State Digital have done a great job putting it together.
And consider this post an endorsement.
Former Iowa liberal blogger and ISU student Gavin Aronsen is one of the writers for a new bi-weekly newsletter in Ames, called the Ames Progressive. It looks to be quite the endeavor but also quite interesting. His interview this week is with 2006 Democratic Secretary of Agriculture candidate Denise O’Brien, talking to her about the race and her thoughts on it. As most of us in the blogosphere know, the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation essentially helped buy the election for Bill Northey, and Denise recognizes that:
“Gavin Aronsen (G.A.):You narrowly lost the race for Secretary of Agriculture last November. In a climate that was so forgiving to Democratic candidates, what does this result mean for the progressive movement in Iowa?
Denise O’Brien (D.O.):People have told me, have been very, very supportive of what I did, saying that it wasn’t a loss, that it was a real gain. And, so, even though I only lost by two percentage points – and if you figure it out I lost by 13,000 votes – one of the reasons that I lost what that the Farm Bureau insurance company was able to raise a lot of money to spend. They did not want me elected as secretary of agriculture.
So, I guess I would say that where it puts the progressive movement on notice is that we have a lot of work to do about campaign reform and clean campaigns. I was just really upset, and they did some keeping stuff to the last 72 hours that we were unable to respond to.”
At the end of the interview, Gavin asks her about other important legislative issues to her, and of course she notes local control but it is clear throughout her piece just how important campaign finance reform is, particularly Pam Jochum’s efforts right now. Without a doubt, I expect campaign finance reform in Iowa to become one of the dominant progressive messages by the next campaign cycle.
Today, the Vilsack for President campaign unveiled their new presidential website, full with a blog, individual state pages (with places to sign-up as caucus/primary supporters), and many other features that expand the interactive nature of the campaign while highlighting Governor Vilsack’s accomplishments and his positions.
Yesterday, Vilsack was in California where he gave a speech to the Commonwealth Club about creating a new energy security agenda. You can find the full text of the speech here (PDF), along with a document highlighting components of the plan here (PDF). As part of the energy security agenda, the campaign is asking for your help to make the campaign a carbon neutral activity. You can read about that plan here and here.
I’m excited to see some of the major Democratic contenders leading the way on the important issues. Vilsack is taking the lead on Iraq and energy policy, while Bill Richardson is talking about foreign policy, and John Edwards is talking health care. We’re going to have a plethora of ideas and initiatives coming out from the Democratic candidates, not just platitudes. And that really makes this race feel so fulfilling.
I meant to post about this last week, but I wasn’t able to. Drake University and IowaPolitics.com have teamed together to jointly host a luncheon series throughout the year; each month candidates, party leaders, elected officials, and others will be the featured speakers to Drake faculty, staff, and students, as well as members of the community. You can find the full release about the luncheon series here — it should truly be an amazing opportunity. Drake has a few other projects in the works to expand the scope of Drake’s involvement in the academic and educational aspects of the political life in Iowa, particularly Des Moines, and they will be launched soon to coincide with the beginning of the busiest part of the Caucus season.
Kay Henderson has the news here at the Radio Iowa blog — he was quite good on The Daily Show, hopefully he can be just as good with Jay Leno, whose humor style is just a bit different than Stewart’s. Hopefully this will give him a bit more attention at the national level.
I’m not sure when it will come up for debate this week, but according to this sidebar in the Register the Iowa Senate will be debating a resolution (as asked by outgoing Governor Vilsack) to oppose escalation in Iraq and call on Congress to fight against it as well. From the Register:
“A Democrat-backed resolution declaring the Iowa Senate’s opposition to President Bush’s plan for a buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq is expected to be debated later this week.
A draft of the resolution says that “deploying additional American troops will only escalate the war in Iraq and put more Americans in harm’s way.” Bush, a Republican, is criticized for having “depleted the resources of the National Guard” and “squandered billions of taxpayers’ dollars in Iraq.”
The measure urges members of the U.S. House and Senate to “work to prevent the escalation of the war.”
Democrats outnumber Republicans in the Iowa Senate, 30-20.”
According to Common Iowan, already 28 of the 30 Democrats in the Senate have signed on to the resolution, essentially guaranteeing it passage. Now it is up to the Iowa House to pass it as well. Check out David Sirota for more on other states’ actions against escalation. What will be most interesting is to see if any Iowa Republicans sign on to the resolution as well.
Tonight the Iowa House will begin debating the 4% allowable growth bill which would essentially provide $107 million in school funding for public education in Iowa. The House recessed this morning and will come back to debate at 5 PM. The only bill on the schedule of debate, from the office of the majority leader, is HF 286 the allowable growth bill. Tomorrow, the House will debate HJR 3, which would remove the word “idiot” from the Iowa consitution. For more information on the allowable growth bill, check out this post from the Iowa House Democrats website.
On a related note, their site is in blog format because it truly is the best way to get out information from their office about the accomplishments of Democrats. Unfortunately, they looked into a better CMS or platform for the site but the legislature servers aren’t equipped for MySQL and the other necessary server requirements for WordPress.
Look at what Ted Sporer has started. Rhyming was cool back in elementary school, but I think Sporer’s comments are quite reflective of the current Iowa Republican leadership: we can’t talk about real issues in terms of facts or legitimate debate, so let’s pretend we’re at recess and be childish.
Sen. Mary Lundby, while I respect her and her moderation to some degree, was just babbling and spewing bullshit when she was discussing the stem cell bill that the state senate debated in committee yesterday — and passed out of committee — last week, as quoted here by Iowa Progress. Read their post for more, but its clear that Republicans at both the national and state level are more into fear mongering than debating the actual realities of policy and legislation.
Hat-tip to John Deeth and Popular Progressive for this information: Mark Nolte might be able to tackle the IA-89 again — and win — thanks to the retirement of Sandy Greiner at the end of this legislative session.
To get to know Mark Nolte a bit better — he only lost by 579 votes — make sure to check out his campaign blog here. The campaign site is no longer up and running, but I’m sure if Mark got your words of encouragement and comments at his weblog he might get the idea and the heart to run again, because I’m sure many of us want him to.
