John Deeth Blog

Obama top percentage ever in Johnson County

2009-07-10T13:20:00.002-05:00

Obama: top percentage ever in Johnson County

Barack Obama fell just short of my personal goal of 70 percent in Johnson County-- 69.91 to be exact. It rounds up, so I'll take it. Obama broke the LBJ 1964 mark of 68.08 percent--but was it the best presidential result ever in the People's Republic?

The answer, I've found, is a qualified yes.

You can really only compare results back to 1920. For one thing, before that, only men were allowed to vote. For another, those men weren't voting for president. Iowa listed the individual electors on the ballot, and you had to cast a separate vote on each elector. (Alabama did it that way as late as 1960.) Tickets got split, intentionally or accidentally. Woodrow Wilson's 13 candidates for elector in 1916 won between 3,623 and 3,650 votes in Johnson County. So which of those is Wilson's "vote total?"

Iowa was traditionally a Republican state back before Harold Hughes, with a couple brief Democratic interregnums in the Panic of 1893 and the Depression. (Such polarized terms to describe the same phenomenon: Panic and Depression.) But even that far back, Johnson County was a Democratic area and Wilson won twice. Harding and Coolidge coasted through the Republican `20s, but Al Smith made it close as two forces collided: Iowa City's Irish-Czech Catholic heritage vs. hometown boy Hoover. Hoover won the county by less than a point, our closest result ever.

The FDR era was where I though Obama might have been topped. But Roosevelt peaked at 60.5 in 1932. Johnson County stayed with FDR all four times, even as Willkie and Dewey won Iowa in `40 and `44. Harry Truman held on, too (the famous whistle stop tour included a stop in Oxford) as Iowa was one of the farm states that flipped between 1944 and 1948.

Ike set the county's Republican record in 1952 at 58.04, and slipped about a point in `56. And the one that really stands out: Nixon beat JFK, the last time the GOP carried the county for President and the only time we ever backed a losing Republican. The two times Nixon won, he lost Johnson County. When 18 year olds got the vote we luuuuved McGovern with 57.8 percent of our love.

Republicans generally won at least 40 percent through Jerry Ford, but the last to top 40, or even 35, was Reagan in `84. Jimmy Carter dropped below 50 percent in 1980 but still won the county, as John Anderson (NOT Perot) set the modern third party peak at almost 19 percent (Fighting Bob LaFollette was a wee bit higher in 1924).

Interestingly, the third highest Democratic percentage, below Obama and LBJ, was of all people Michael Dukakis. Perot cut into Clinton's percentages and Nader cut into Gore's, but 1988 was a weak third party year (sorry, Ron Paul).

As for Nader, he was at 6 percent in 2000 but 90 percent of that support vanished after Florida as he was at near-identical levels in `04 and `08.

The GOP low water mark was HW's 27.1 in 1992, with Perot at almost exactly one vote in six. But McCain was second worst, in an essentially two-way race, at 28.4. In fact, if you look just at two-party percentages, and ignore the 1964 spike, there's a more or less steady Republican decline from Eisenhower to the present.

So that leaves Obama on top. There were no national landslides bigger than 1920 before 1920, so it's reasonably safe to call it Biggest Ever. Unless, that is, you want to calculate percentages on Abe Lincoln's individual electors.

July Johnson County Democrats

2009-07-09T19:06:00.021-05:00

July Johnson County Democrats

Here we are again, a week late from the holiday: The monthly meeting of the Johnson County Dennis Roseman DFA (Dennis for... something with an A) Democratic Party. We have about 20 people here and only two elected officials: supervisor Rod Sullivan and Rep. Nate Willems. Well, technically three: labor leader Pat Hughes is an Oxford Township trustee. Supervisor candidate Janelle Rettig is also here.

The treasurer reports that the party coffers are... I don't want to say the number but low.

A recent comment sums up the status of the executive board:

2nd Vice Chair (James Moody) - moving away, hasn't been to recent meetings

Treasurer (Scott Smith) - still active from the Flaherty administration

Secretary (Carl Fongheiser) - still active from the Flaherty administration

Affirmative Action (Corey Stoglin) - still in Iraq, last we heard, but expecting and hoping for a return soon

Data (Paul Deaton) - resigned

Platform (Robin Roseman) - his wife

Fundraising (Jean Fallk) - just elected last meeting, post had been vacant for four months

Public Relations (Karen Woltman) - also was empty for a short time

Membership (Caitlin Ross and Hannah Joravsky) - resigned

Candidate Development (Sarah Swisher) - resigned

So, in summary: he has left his wife, two of Flaherty's boys who are still trying to help, and two volunteers who are names on a sheet only.

Local political legend Gary Sanders offers a resolution urging Iowa City Council to condemn infiltration of peace group (via letter to FBI; council member Michael Wright says votes aren't there for a resolution) AND send same to local press. (Apparently last month we forgot the "press" part.) Easily passed.

Caucus arrangements group set up: Roseman, vice chair Chris Forbes, and Sullivan. Anyone you can think of notably not invited to that list? Roseman notes the data and membership chair vacancies. We have a parade tomorrow in Tiffin, Sullivan notes; this is the first Roseman has heard of it and says he can't make it. Carsner and Flaherty note other upcoming parades, notice how the former chairs are the ones who know what's going on?

Dennis gets more engaged with a health care update. "Policy is my thing," he says, as befits one who came up from the platform committee. That's a very different skill set than, say, get out the vote. We may not have anyone at the parades, but we'll get signatures on petitions.

New finance chair Jean Falk announced that the Pioneer/awards dinner is officially off now. BBQ dates and sites still up in the air.

Bone crushingly dull half hour discussion of an audit report -- with no problems found in the finances themselves -- ends with nothing actually being done. Rod Sullivan nails it: "Look around you. See these empty chairs? THIS is why. We've been discussing this for a half hour. We have GOT to do a better job with stuff like this."

My brand new Twitter seems to work here at the school district office but my Facebook is blocked:

This site is blocked by the SonicWALL Content Filter Service.

URL: http://www.facebook.com/

Reason for restriction: Forbidden Category "Personals and Dating"

Nominations for membership and candidate development go begging.

The group breaks into subcommittees for the first time under the Roseman administration (the lack of breakout groups was one of his main criticisms of the Flaherty Administration).

The breakouts took 20 mins. or so; the old hands gravitated to the BBQ group.

Janelle Rettig states her case and wants to start doorknocking right after RAGBRAI. Also notes that July 28 5-7 Senator Becky Schmitz is having a Mill fundraiser.

Rep. Nate Willems has been representing UFCW workers in Muscatine who've been locked out close to a year. "The company's trying to starve us into submission." Dems weren't able to get 51 votes to get the big labor bills passed. "The impact of all our wins haven't trickled down to that picket line in Muscatine," but he's nevertheless staying optimistic. He's also throwing a 30th (!) birthday event July 20, 6-8 at Palisades-Kepler.

John Deeth on Twitter

2009-07-09T14:00:00.000-05:00

I'm officially a Twit

I'm still not sure if it's a trend or just a fad, but I'm on Twitter. For now I expect to use it mostly just to promote posts from this site, or maybe to pass on some links. But then, 6 1/2 years ago I didn't know what I was going to do with this blog, either.

Republicans target Senator Beall

2009-07-08T13:36:00.000-05:00

Republicans target Senator Beall

The Iowa Republican reports/announces that Ft. Dodge contractor Chris McGonegle is running against Democratic Sen. Daryl Beall next year in District 25.

The turf is roughly Webster, Calhoun and Greene counties. Beall took over the seat in 2002 when one-term Republican Mike Sexton (who beat Democrat Rod Halverson in 1998) didn't run. Beall expanded his winning margin from 58% in 2002 to 67% in 2006.

Steele Passes Westwood Line

2009-07-08T06:14:00.000-05:00

Steele Passes Westwood Line

Lost in the news shuffle of Michael Jackson, Al Franken and Sarah Palin is a significant Republican milestone that I only noticed when Michael "no relation to my in-laws" Steele alienated his own base yet again saying Palin is out for `12:

Michael Steele has officially passed the Westwood Line, exceeding the 149 day tenure as party chair of Jeanne Westwood. She was George McGovern's choice to head the DNC in 1972 and got whacked right after the election.

Never thought he'd make it past the Westwood Line, especially after that special election loss in New York for Gillibrand's seat that was supposed to be make and break for Steele.

Now the only question: Will Dennis Roseman last until August 1?

McKinley In for Governor

2009-07-07T18:29:00.006-05:00

Iowa Republican Senate Leaders or Spinal Tap Drummers?

Well, Paul McKinley is in making four official Republican candidates for governor and Rod Roberts and Jerry Behn in the wings. Logistically, this increases the chances for my pet theory: Vander Plaats nominated at a convention. But it leaves Iowa Senate Republicans with another issue.

"I wonder when he will step down as the Senate leader," writes commentator 'jerry' at the BeanWalker post that broke the story. "It’s only fair to them that he do it quickly."

Fair to other candidates and to Senate Republicans; the legislative session's January to April season is poor timing for a member, particularly a leader, running in an early June primary.

But if McKinley does step down as leader (his term in the Senate itself runs till `12), it makes Iowa Senate Republicans, down to a few but proud 18 out of 50, look like a certain fictitious English heavy metal band that's just now making a comeback.

End of 2006 session: Leader Stew Iverson is squeezed out by Mary Lundby in a palace coup. Iverson quits the Senate completely; Landslide Rich Olive wins his seat for the Dems that fall, part of a five seat gain that breaks the tie and leaves the Dems ahead 30-20..

2007: Lundby steps down, planning to run for county supervisor back home in Marion. (Sadly, her health didn't let her do that.)

2008: Ron Weick takes over, but is tossed aside for McKinley after the election costs the GOP two more Senate seats.

So that's four different leaders in four consecutive sessions--five in five sessions if McKinley bails. Dozens of legislative leaders spontaneously combust each year; it's just not widely reported.

CQ Shows Iowa Dems About The Same

2009-07-07T11:59:00.002-05:00

CQ Shows Iowa Dems Voting Scores About The Same

Congressional Quarterly is out with its semi-annual analysis of voting scores, and it shows the three Democrats in Iowa's House delegation lining up with very similar scores.

Match the member with the score:

1. Braley	A. 96% Pres. Support	98% Party Unity
2. Loebsack	B. 96% Pres. Support	99% Party Unity
3. Boswell	C. 96% Pres. Support	94% Party Unity

Answer at the bottom of the post, but the distinctions are really fine. What's interesting is that Blue Dog Boswell is lining up with Braley and with Progressive Caucus member Loebsack.

On the Republican side, there's more of a difference. Tom Latham, in a dead-even district and perhaps anticipating a redistricting face-off with Boswell in 2012, is at 46 percent Obama support and only 85 percent party unity. Steve King, playing to a solid base in a safe district, is only at 19 percent Obama support (putting him in the bottom 10 percent of the House) and a 99 on party unity.

A couple caveats: Unlike most interest group scoring which selects a few key votes, CQ counts everything. If Obama takes a position in favor of National Gopher Day and it passes unanimously, that counts as Steve King supporting Obama. And CQ weighs everything equally; Gopher Day counts as much as the stimulus package.

It also doesn't take into account the reason for a vote. If Dennis Kucinich votes no on Gopher Day because he also wants to honor groundhogs and gerbils, while Walt Minnick votes no because his big campaign donor Carl Spackler says gophers are destroying Idaho's golf courses, both get counted as anti-Obama and anti-party unity.

But in the meantime it's numbers and that's fun (for me anyway). CQ has fun interactive widgets to play with, and the really interesting thing is to look at the outliers who don't fit any pattern, the Gene Taylors and Joe Caos and Ron Pauls.

Answers: 1=B 2=C 3=A.

Can Palin Still Do Retail?

2009-07-07T07:07:00.000-05:00

Can Palin Still Do Retail?

There is so much Palin commentary out there from so many angles that the mind boggles, and I wan't planning on piling on even more. But this comment from Walter Shapiro stands out:

White House dreamers whom nobody has ever heard of like, say, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, need years to build a national fundraising network and to visit all of Iowa's 99 counties. But the joy of being Sarah Palin is that she never has to feign enthusiasm while talking to 14 elderly Iowa Republicans in a cafe in Sac City. When you are the celebrity candidate, you do not deign to speak in a venue smaller than a high-school gymnasium unless it is a real-people photo op.

Ah yes, the strategy that worked so well for Hillary Clinton in Iowa.

I remain absolutely convinced that the resignation is a 2012 move and that Palin is not only a significant contender, she's a plausible nominee. (Not a plausible president or an electable general election candidate, but it's not my job to save the GOP from its mistakes.)

What else have they got? Huckabee and Romney are undamaged, but my Grand Unifying Theory remains: The Money Republicans veto economic populist Huckabee and the Jesus Republicans veto "cult member" Romney.

So scratch them (Jindal does a second term and runs in `16) and all the Republicans have left is anti-Obama. And Palin, the second top tier national figure to emerge from my generation (she may yet prove to be a Ferraro-esque footnote) is a virtual antithesis of Obama: Rural where he is urban, state college vs. Ivy League, Wal-Mart vs. Whole Foods... I could go on, but if anti-Obama is what they want, well, there she is.

So Sarah -- can I call ya Sarah? Good, because I practiced some zingers where I call ya Sarah -- we'll be seeing you in Iowa. We've seen you here before, but that was rallies at airport hangars. That's not Iowa. Iowa is that Pizza Ranch in Pole Bean or Courthouse Center where people actually expect to meet you and talk with you at length. They have questions and expect specific, detailed answers, and they grumble if the event was scheduled at 5:30 and you aren't there at 6:20.

Parachuting in as a regal celebrity candidate won't work. It didn't work for Hillary, it didn't work for Fred or Rudy on your side (and speaking of Rudy, remember that farm family in Anamosa that he stood up? No? Well, they remember in Anamosa.) No, it was Mike Huckabee, the little engine who could, and Barack Obama, who drew the crowds as a rock star but won the thing as the ultimate community organizer, who prevailed.

We know you can do retail. You wouldn't have gotten to be a small-town mayor or a small-state governor if you couldn't. But if you want to get past Iowa, you have to do it all over again. Question is, after this ten month sled ride, can you still do it? Do you still want to do it? If you don't want to do it, can you force yourself to anyway?

Al Franken Decade Begins

2009-07-07T06:00:00.000-05:00

Al Franken Decade Begins

As the Al Franken decade begins, I must ask, how will Michael Jackson's death affect him, Al Franken?

Answer: The funeral TOTALLY steps on Franken's long-awaited swearing in.

Also: Since Obama is in Russia negotiating arms treaties, and the soon to be unemployed Sarah Palin can see Russia from her house, I think we have our verification problem all solved.

Gingrich Raiding Democratic Primaries

2009-07-06T22:31:00.002-05:00

Gingrich Raiding Democratic Primaries

My tirade about the evils of Republicans crossing over to vote in Democratic primaries just. won't. go. away. Just to make me mad, who should be encouraging this bad behavior but the Newt himself:

In his interview with The Washington Times, Mr. Gingrich sketched out a vision for conservatives and Republicans to block what he considers the Obama-Democratic march to socialism by thinking outside the party-label box. That includes building a center-right majority in Congress and the state legislatures — regardless of party identification — even if that means the heretical idea of Republicans actively promoting and backing conservative Democratic candidates in selected races where a GOP candidate would have little chance of winning.

"I would urge conservatives in California to find a Democrat to run in every Assembly and Senate seat in California that can't be contested by Republicans, and then to run a Republican in every seat they could possibly win, and then have an overt goal of creating a bipartisan conservative coalition," Mr. Gingrich argues. "I'd do the same thing nationally."

Can't wait to see how "Endorsed by Newt" plays in a Democratic primary...

NRCC Targets Braley

2009-07-06T07:57:00.003-05:00

NRCC Targets Braley--Does That Mean An Opponent?

Steve Singiser at Kos has a followup thought on the NRCC's campaign spots targeting House members who backed the American Clean Energy and Security Act. My first thought was that his Energy and Commerce membership prompted the spots, but Singiser has another theory:

Some of the representatives targeted by this ad make sense. They include a group of potentially vulnerable freshmen... Others are a bit more curious, because they are incumbents in swingy districts who cakewalked to wins in 2008. This might be a tipping of the hand by the NRCC, a sign that they think that they have legit candidates at the ready for 2010:

1. Baron Hill (IN-09)

2. Zack Space (OH-18)

3. Bruce Braley (IA-01)

Names, anyone?

Franken to Iowa in September

2009-07-06T07:41:00.003-05:00

Why Not Him: Franken to Iowa in September

Senator Al Franken FINALLY gets sworn in ~~today~~ Tuesday, and just to give conservatives even greater fits, I'll note (behind the curve since I was off the grid all weekend with nothing but intermittent smart phone reception to follow the Palin story) that he'll be in Iowa at the Harkin Steak Fry on September 13.

Franken's been a Steak Fry speaker before -- my 2007 research doesn't get the exact year -- but of course not as a Senator. Looking back to 2006, it was the beginning of Obama's long march... can we say Franken 16? Can we see Rush's head exploding?

Palin quits

2009-07-03T15:35:00.001-05:00

Ya know, quittin' your job and bein' a full-time presidential candidate for three years is kinda like bein' a small state governor -- except you don't have Actual Responsibilities.

Update: in an insane way this almost makes sense. Alaska is in the way of the ambition and the day job doesn't help in any way. It actually hurts; stuck six time zones away dealing with trivia like a state budget.

Palin as Conservababe

2009-07-03T08:08:00.003-05:00

The Conservababe

One of the most popular parodies of Campaign 2008 was a photoshopped image of Sarah Palin's head onto the body of a woman wearing an American flag bikini and brandishing a gun. Enough people found this image of Palin plausible that Snopes had to debunk it.

Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum hit the streets this week with a lengthy Palin piece. Seemingly in response, though the timing is a coincidence, Palin appears in Runner's World. The takeaway quote is her complaint that Team McCain didn't schedule enough time for her morning jogs.

But what's really interesting is the photo gallery. Palin poses in tight workout shorts, with better hair and makeup than one would normally have for jogging. Baby Trig is a prop in a couple shots. There are no shots of Palin actually exercising, the way they show Obama shooting hoops and sweating. Instead, she's stretching and posing. One pose has her hand on hip in front of a flag, and there's almost no way not to think of the bikini-gun picture.

Physical fitness is of course a good thing. Palin and I are almost exactly the same age and she looks to be in better shape than I am (my workouts have slipped lately). But wouldn't baggy sweats have sent that message just as well as a Maxim lite layout?

Middle-aged male candidates since JFK have had the tanned and blow-dried anchorman archetype to follow (see: Romney, Mitt and Edwards, John). Female politicians have no equivalent, so Palin is on uncharted ground. Purdum writes:

"Another aspect of the Palin phenomenon bears examination, even if the mere act of raising it invites intimations of sexism: she is by far the best-looking woman ever to rise to such heights in national politics, the first indisputably fertile female to dare to dance with the big dogs. This pheromonal reality has been a blessing and a curse. It has captivated people who would never have given someone with Palin’s record a second glance if Palin had looked like Susan Boyle. And it has made others reluctant to give her a second chance because she looks like a beauty queen."

Dangerous ground for a male writer. But he says in prose what the woman who parodied Palin said in punch lines.

Fierce feminist Tina Fey backed Hillary Clinton in the primary with the rallying cry "Bitches get stuff done," yet played heavily on the Palin as Conservababe image from her very first impersonation, the famous "I can see Russia from my house" appearance.

Hillary Clinton: But, Sarah, one thing we can agree on is that sexism can never be allowed to permeate a American election.

Sarah Palin: So, please, stop Photoshopping my head on sexy bikini pictures!

Clinton: And stop saying I have cankles!

Palin: Don't refer to me as a MILF!

Clinton: Don't refer to me as a "flurge" -- I Googled what it stands for, and I do not like it!

Palin: Reporters and commentators, stop using words that diminish us! Like "pretty", "attractive", "beautiful"...

Clinton: "Harpy", "shrew", and "boner shrinker".

With 1:36 remaining in the clip, Fey actually strikes the bikini-gun pose. Her later parodies usually touched on the Conservababe image: flashing some leg or doing some "fancy pageant walkin'" in front of Palin herself. Of course, parody was difficult when Palin was winking at us in the debate.

Meanwhile, Amy Poehler's long-suffering Hillary Clinton touches on one of the big reasons that a moderately attractive middle-aged pageant contestant was greeted in the world of politics like Jessica Alba on a red carpet: Women still generally wait until after they've had kids to run for office, and often abandon their own ambitions in favor of their husband's.

Bill Clinton was 28 when he made his first run for office. Hillary was 53. One of the interesting things about Nancy Pelosi's rise to power wasn't just the first woman thing--it's that she rose to the top when she didn't win elected office until age 47, a decade or two older than most other recent Speakers.

One would think, as the baby boomers approach Social Security, that our culture's notions of what's considered attractive would have aged accordingly. Instead, we've become more youth-obsessed than ever. A still-beautiful Jamie Lee Curtis is stuck at age 50 in yogurt ads because 60 year old leading men get to play opposite 25 year old starlets as love interests. Catherine Zeta Jones, meet Michael Douglas. Saturday Night Live played the idea of sex with 62-year-old Susan Sarandon for laughs in May. Faith Hill gets photoshopped into a Barbie doll, and Nicole Kidman has disfigured her 40something face until she looks like the Stepford Wife she once played.

They say Washington is Hollywood for ugly people, and that sets the bar low enough that the physically fit but relatively ordinary Palin stands out. There simply aren't very many women in their 30s or early 40s in public office, and our society doesn't acknowledge female beauty past that age. Thus Palin's main achievement -- if you call being plucked out of relative obscurity an achievement -- is merely to have climbed so high at a young enough age that she's still seen as a woman and not an "old lady."

Local races may ripple through Iowa primary

2009-07-02T05:56:00.004-05:00

All Politics is Local - or is it Statewide?

I've ranted recently about crossover voting in primaries. As anyone who reads a site like mine should know, Iowa is a "closed" (sic) primary state, meaning you have to be registered in a party to vote in a primary, and you vote only in one party's primary at a time. You can't for example participate in a Republican primary for governor and a Democratic courthouse primary.

It's a soft version of "closed," because you can change party on the spot, and a lot of people do. Leaving aside my opinion on that law, let's look at how it can impact a statewide race. In a sense, Vander Plaats and Rants and Fong aren't just running against each other--they're running against the interesting local Democratic contests.

The People's Republic of Johnson County, you'll be surprised to know, is among the top ten in the state in number of registered Republicans. Even though they're outnumbered by Democrats roughly 2.5 to 1 (in both party registration and the 2008 presidential results), that still leaves a lot of Republicans just on sheer population.

Locals call our Democratic primary the "real election" for courthouse jobs. But in 2002, Johnson County Democrats had their only uncontested primary in county history. Incumbent vs. write-in, from Tom Vilsack on down to county treasurer Tom Kriz. But 2010 is likely to see contested Democratic courthouse races, with Janelle Rettig already up and running for supervisor.

1998 was a more typical gubernatorial year: a moderately interesting Republican governor's race with Jim Ross Lightfoot heavily favored over Paul Pate and Dave Oman, and white-hot open seat recorder and supervisor races on the Democratic side. And oh yeah, incidentally, governor too. How much is the Johnson County Democratic primary a local race? 800 more votes for recorder than for governor, as (I'm generalizing about secret ballots here, but it's not much of a stretch) crossover Republicans left the Tom Vilsack vs. Mark McCormick race blank.

(Tangent: That one was closer than people remember, just over 3000 votes statewide; Vilsack won it by rolling up Kim Jong Il sized margins in his senate district.)

With no local excitement on the Democratic side, more Republicans actually stayed in the Republican primary in 2002. Turnout jumped to 3,386, half again more than `98, and (generalizing again) those 800 people who skipped the governor's race in 1998 were probably a big chunk of that.

The more moderate 2002 candidate, Doug Gross, carried Johnson with 1341 votes and 40 percent, with Vander Plaats last at 941 votes and 28 percent--exactly 400 votes apart. With competition for voter interest on the Democratic side in 2010, lower turnout in a moderate county means a lower numeric margin for a moderate candidate.

Let's apply the 2002 candidate percentages to the 1998 turnout totals in Johnson County. Gross's margin over Vander Plaats drops from 400 to 232, a net loss of 168 in one county. That's significant when you consider that Gross was only 1,746 votes away, statewide, from a convention.

And that's even assuming that the relative percentages between conservatives and moderates stay the same. My hunch is that the most committed Republicans would care more about governor than the courthouse.

There are a million such stories in the naked city of Iowa politics. How will, say, the primary for Christopher Rants' open House seat boost Republican turnout, and which of the Sioux City Two will it benefit? How many other things like that are lurking? All we need is someone to crunch the numbers and analyze the lay of the land in 98 more counties, 125 legislative races and five congressional districts.

Iowa Republicans Face Possible Convention

2009-07-01T12:55:00.001-05:00

The Convention Scenario

It's now three Iowa Republicans officially in the governor's race, with newcomer Christian Fong of Cedar Rapids joining the Sioux City Two, Christopher Rants and Bob Vander Plaats. Mentioners are mentioning several others including Rod Roberts, Jerry Behn, Paul McKinley and even blast from the past Terry Branstad. (Seriously.)

It's unlikely all of these guys will get in, or even stay in. Fong's rollout is being dogged by the same "donated to Democrats" issue that was probably critical in Peter Teahen's narrow (120 votes) loss to Mariannette Miller-Meeks last year. But it's clear that we're not going to see a one on one Vander Plaats vs. Not Vander Plaats race. Maybe one candidate consolidates support and becomes the consensus Anyone But, but the differing geographic bases of the potential contenders makes that less likely.

The big field means the Iowa GOP could be faced with a post-primary nominating convention next summer if no one gets to the 35 percent required by state law to win the nomination outright.

The convention scenario was in Ed Fallon's plans on the Democratic side in 2006, as he urged supporters to go to the sparsely attended off-cycle caucuses and split into gubernatorial preference groups. At the time it looked like a four-way race, five if you count Sal Mohamed. But Chet Culver annexed rival Patty Judge as a running mate, which made the brokered nomination less likely. (Still, Culver only won the primary with 39 percent.)

But even in a three-way race a convention is possible, and indeed almost happened to the Republicans in 2002:

Gross	71,478	35.88%
Sukup	64,490	32.37%
Vander Plaats	63,077	31.66%

1,746 votes less and Gross would have been under 35 percent.

The convention scenario, of course, did happen that same year in the 5th congressional district, where the four candidates all landed between 21 and 31 percent in the primary. Steve King went into that convention with two big advantages. He had the most votes in the primary (which may have been the last time Steve King could claim the moral high ground) and he was the most conservative candidate. In a setting where the core of the core of the activists control the process, ideological intensity matters, and with the safe district, Republicans weren't constrained by worries about winning in the fall.

Thus a convention scenario is favorable to Vander Plaats. Looking at the 2002 results he has a base close to, but just short of, 35 percent, and the question is how much room does he have to expand on that. (He also, unlike 2002, has to share his regional base with Rants.) 31 percent was last place in a three way race, but might be the top of a five candidate field.

BVP also seems like the most likely candidate to get his people to an obscure January caucus with no presidential race at stake. At least no IMMEDIATE presidential race; with BVP and Mike Huckabee on board with each other, this could become a presidential proxy war.

The 2006 Democratic caucus-convention period was a breakthrough for the Iowa Democratic blogosphere, the first big story we collectively covered in detail beyond the traditional media. The Republican caucuses will be harder to track because Republicans don't break into preference groups. They just elect their delegates to the next level, which means tracking gubernatorial preferences will be an intense exercise in inside baseball and Republican Kremlinology. All sorts of other agendas will be mixed in; with the low turnout, you'll have a disproportionate number of people who care more about the platform or who gets to be county chair than they care about governor. (Same thing's true on our side.)

It should be good theater, but in the end might not be good democracy or good for the Republicans. (Not that I'm all of a sudden in charge of what's good for Republicans.) They could easily see their least electable candidate nominated by a low-turnout convention process, even though 70 percent or more of the primary voters favored someone else or ANYone else. This is the kind of scenario that instant runoff voting was born to address.

Coming up: how local factors in one county (mine) can ripple through the race.

Republican Ad Targets Braley

2009-07-01T00:24:00.006-05:00

Republican Ad Targets Braley on Energy Vote

The National Republican Congressional Committee is launching a round of ads bashing Democrats who voted for last week's energy bill -- and CNN reports, surprisingly, Bruce Braley is on the list.

Braley's spot on the list is probably due more to his position as a key ally to House Energy and Commerce chair Henry Waxman than to any perceived vulnerability in the 1st CD, where he easily beat Dave Hartsuch last year and where no names have surfaced as possible 2010 opponents.

Here's a sample spot, aimed at Virginia freshman Tom Perriello:

The rest of the list: Ohio Rep. John Boccieri, Virginia Rep. Rick Boucher, Tennessee Rep. Bart Gordon, Florida Rep. Alan Grayson, Illinois Rep. Deborah Halvorson, Indiana Rep. Baron Hill, Ohio Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, Colorado Rep. Betsy Markey, Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton, Arkansas Rep. Vic Snyder, Ohio Rep. Zack Space, and New Mexico Rep. Harry Teague. Mostly freshmen and red-staters, and the perpetually endanngered Baron Hill. I'm actually surprised that in Iowa they went after Braley, rather than Boswell, who wavered before voting yes on the bill.

Iowa Greens Sue Davenport

2009-06-30T17:20:00.000-05:00

Greens Sue Davenport Over Petitions

The Iowa Greens (joined for some reason by the Wisconsin Greens) have filed a federal lawsuit over petitioning rights against the city of Davenport, reports the always interesting Ballot Access News.

The Greens tried to get signatures to get presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney on the ballot during last year's Bix Street Fest, but that event bans petitioning. "The city lost a similar case in 1999 over the same issue," writes Richard Winger.

Obradovich and the Objective Paradigm

2009-06-30T16:44:00.001-05:00

Obradovich and the Objective Paradigm

I haven't yet commented on the big changing of the guard at the Register, with Kathie Obradovich taking over the old Yepsen job. But once she was up and flying, it only took me a couple days.

Obradovich replies to reader responses to her first column, ans one reader writes:

I was troubled by your comment “I skip the primaries and register as no-party.” In my opinion the primaries are the most important part of the election process.

Obradovich responds:

The primaries are important and I plan to pay a lot of attention to the winnowing process and encourage voters to do likewise. What I plan to avoid is registering as a Republican or Democrat, which is required to actually cast a ballot in a primary.

I don’t like having to refrain, but as a journalist I choose to give up some opportunities for direct participation in order to avoid sending mixed signals about my party preferences.

It's that kind of self-disenfranchisement, opting out of primaries in a journalistic form of priestly celibacy, that was Yepsen's tradition, a tradition that's clearly continuing. That was also what led me to quit journalism in the first place in 1992, staying out of the business until a new paradigm grew and pulled me back. But to each her own.

But Obradovich continues:
Most voters can switch parties or return to no-party status after a primary without having to explain it.

As I noted at great length last week, if you're not a Democrat, you shouldn't choose the Democrat's candidates. If you're not a Republican, you shouldn't choose the Republican's candidates. On this point Obradovich and I find both agreement and disagreement: she opts out of primaries herself, yet condones "switching back."

It's fully within your legal rights, of course, but if you're asking "how soon can I switch back" when you're getting your primary ballot, you shouldn't be voting in that primary in the first place.

More Iowa Republican Trial Balloons

2009-06-30T12:37:00.001-05:00

More Iowa Republican Trial Balloons

The Iowa Republican leads their story with Cedar Rapids wunderkind Christian Fong, but also floated some more trial balloons for downballot state candidates yesterday, including some great understatements:

George Eichhorn "will need to really step it up after his last performance running for the U.S. Senate" if he hoped to become Secretary of State. No kidding: the guy was the de facto insider choice, recruited to the race late to head off the embarrassing Steve Rathje and Christopher "Not Tom Harkin" Reed.

In case coming off two losses in a row is a bad way to start a statewide race, the mentioners also mention Matt Schultz of the Council Bluffs council.

Either way it's a tough race. Dems have held the office almost continuously since 1986, except for the four year Paul Pate interregnum. The last three people in the job seem to have used it mainly as a stepping stone: Elaine Baxter for two congressional bids and Pate and Culver for governor. But for Mike Mauro, who came out of an elections background as Polk County auditor, it seems to be the dream job. The 2008 general election went down with much less strife in Iowa than 2000 and 2004, though in fairness Culver's two presidentials were much closer than Mauro's first.

Iowa Republican also looks at the 2nd congressional district, notes Rathje and Reed, and offers, again, brilliant understatement:

Neither Reed nor Rathje ran great campaigns the last time around but with a smaller geographic to cover, we’ll hopefully see a more intense primary. If the fundraising isn’t better this time around, we’ll have a repeat performance. Benchmarks by both men need to be set and met before they are seriously looked at as candidates.

IR also throws the names Teahen and Miller-Meeks out there. MMM has a bit higher profile, blogging semi-regularly. She's also been mentioned for state senate, but the "Doctor's Notes" are focused on federal issues. The name Loebsack appears nowhere.

My bet is that the doctor keeps her name out there, but sits out 2010 and waits to see the map in 2011.

Over in the 3rd CD, 1996 candidate Mike Mehaffey has already been mentioned as a potential Boswell opponent, but IR adds: "Dave Funk has been talking with key individuals about taking on Boswell this time around. Dave Funk is a former military man with good conservative views. He’s also the Safari Club’s Iowa Chapter President. The Safari Club is dedicated to protecting our freedom to hunt and wildlife conservation worldwide."

So that brings guns into the mix -- an issue on which Boswell has always leaned rightwards.

Also, Story County Treasurer Dave Jamison is mentioned for state treasurer, joining Sen. Randy Feenstra in the mix.

Ten Years since Stanley Election

2009-06-29T13:22:00.003-05:00

Blast from the Past: Ten Years since Stanley Election

History lesson: It was ten years ago today that Iowans went to the polls in a statewide special election, as Republicans overplayed their hand in the dawning days of the Vilsack Administration.

The GOP still controlled both halves of the Legislature, despite Vilsack's win, and the governor plays no role in the constitutional amendment process. So they rushed through the second passage of two constitutional amendments backed by Iowans for Tax Relief, that took caps on taxation and spending that were already in the law and locked them into the Constitution. Colloquially, these were known as "the Stanley Amendments" after Iowans for Tax Relief leader, and former U.S. Senate contender, David Stanley.

But rather than putting them on the 2000 presidential ballot, the Republicans scheduled a hurry-up statewide special election for June 29, 1999. It was the first statewide special since we voted on liquor by the drink in the Harold Hughes era. Two ideas: 1) They wanted to get the spending caps in place immediately for Fiscal Year 2000 2) a special election the Tuesday before the holiday weekend equals low turnout.

The GOP geared up a presidential-level vote by mail campaign, but Democrats and labor were quick to respond. The special election itself, and its cost, became an issue. To everyone's surprise, both amendments went down to narrow defeats.

Calendar Commission Continued

2009-06-29T07:32:00.003-05:00

Calendar Commission Continued

A few blogs with lots of detail from Saturday's DNC "Change Commission" meeting. No Iowa bashing detected, with superdelegates emerging as the hot topic.

Here's the highlights:

Demrulz liveblogged. The discussion ended with a look at caucuses from Mitch Stewart of Team Obama. Bullet points:

Some states have a good process, or at least Iowa does ; unclear how many other states share that commitment. (Deeth notes: that may have been a shot at the total meltdown in Nevada)

States should be allowed flexibility.

Caucuses can be an excellent voter registration and party building tool.

Problem of difficulty of participation, e.g., by those in military will be hard to address in an unassembled caucus. (Deeth acknowledges: Hillary had a good point here)

Serious organizational problems at some caucuses in 2008 – largely due to record attendance. (Deeth says: DEFINITELY talking about Nevada... your caucus may not have been perfect, I know I didn't do a perfect job running mine. But Iowa's problems were 99.99% either simple misunderstandings or limits on physical space.)

DNC should develop some optional, standardized rules and procedures for caucuses.

DemConWatch (an excellent source last year for the delegate count) has multiple posts and notes the underlying contradiction: "If a state knows its delegates will be eventually restored in the name of party unity no matter what rules are broken, why should the states worry about breaking the rules in the first place?"

Commission member Suzi LeVine of Washington State discusses one incentive for late states: "It’ll be very difficult without incentives to get the states to voluntarily change their dates, spread the map or move to a same day primary. Two ideas raised were: bonus delegates for later states and allow later states to do a winner take all strategy."

The Republicans still allow winner take all, but Dems banned it after 1972. I'd say chances are slim that the process and diversity obsessed Dems will go along.

The Frontloading HQ blog has some interesting graphs of how delegate allocation has moved earlier from 1976 to 2008.

Linux Distributions and the Paralysis of Choice

2009-06-29T02:04:00.001-05:00

Linux Distributions and the Paralysis of Choice

Linux advocates like to brag about the number of choices people get with open source software. Windows offers very few choices, beyond dropping to your knees and begging "please, PLEASE let me keep XP! How much is a downgrade from Vista?" And Mac World even locks you into the hardware.

Linux offers literally hundreds of niches, a distribution for every need. But is that so much of a good thing that it's scaring people away?

Too often, someone dipping their toes into the waters of Linux is met by enthusiastic geeks who, in an over-eagerness to show off their knowledge, move too fast into debates over the merits of Arch vs. Mandrive vs. Slackware vs. Damn Obscure Linux. (I've been guilty myself and I promise this post will be command line free.) The newbie (n00b in 733+speak) gets overwhemed and retreats.

Sheena Iyengar of Columbia University studies consumer choice and finds that too MUCH choice can be de-motivating. (See full paper or nice summary by Derek Sivers). Iyengar went to the grocery store to get her data. Customers were offered jam samples, and the people who chose between six kinds of jam were ten times more likely to buy jam than those who had two dozen flavors to choose from.

Or, as Sivers writes, "if you ask your customers if they want extensive choice, they will say they do – but they really don’t."

It's pretty much the same problem with Linux, although the jam aisle may be the wrong place to look. "The tortilla chip is a perfect comparison, because the basic chip is always the same: it is made of corn," writes Carla Schroder. "Every brand has its own variation on this basic chip: more salt, less salt, more grease, less grease, more crispy, less crispy, thicker, thinner, different shapes, white, blue, yellow corn, different flavorings. Underneath all Linuxes are pretty much the same; the differences are things like bundled software, user interfaces, configuration tools, and customized functionality."

Clearly she's an experienced geek, because as we all know the tortilla chip is one of the primary geek fuels along with pizza and caffeine. She know that each chip, micro or tortilla, has its purpose. But the analogy shows that we cope with greater numbers of choices all the time, whether it be foods or even other large-ticket items like cars.

We're able to do this in part because we can categorize. Sivers says we can handle a menu of about three to six choices, so we cope better if our choices are clustered. We choose the breakast menu or the lunch menu or the kids menu, then we choose within that menu.

But with open source, there's no one person in charge, so the menu gets jumbled. Since I'm just as qualified as anyone else, I'll offer my own menu. I assume that if you're here, you're a relative beginner.

I've never run a server, never run a netbook, never done extensive system recovery, never set up a full-blown media center.I've set up general purpose desktops, and I've run some distributions designed to run on old, low-resource desktop machines.

My preferred distribution is Ubuntu, currently the most popular. But if I were recommending something for the absolute beginner, I would go with Linux Mint. It's based on Ubuntu, and thus the new release schedule runs about a month behind, but the functionality is almost identical so the online help that's available applies to both.

Why Mint over Ubuntu? The Ubuntu project leaves a few things out for assorted legal and copyright reasons. Most of those are related to media playback. There's many variations of this 10 Things to do After Installing Ubuntu Linux post. And they aren't hard things. But Linux Mint does a lot of them for you. Erlik at From Windows To Linux explains the advantages of Mint over Ubuntu in a bit more depth.

If you have an old machine that you want to make functional, the leaders are Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux. I found Puppy just a little bit easier and have it running on one machine.

And if you have kids, Qimo is very good. It's also Ubuntu based, but it installs with a kid-friendly interface: large icons and lots of educational games. It also works well with older low-resource machines, a smart move since the kids often get the hand-me-down computer.

Calendar Commission Off To Low-Key Start

2009-06-28T11:16:00.002-05:00

Calendar Commission Off To Low-Key Start

It flew mostly below the national radar this weekend, but the first meeting of the Democratic Party's "Change Commission" got started on its review of the nomination process and calendar yesterday.

The commission was part of the peace deal between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton at last year's convention. Iowa is represented by Attorney General Tom Miller, an early Obama backer.

Iowa's first place, and use of a caucus instead of a primary (a key criticism from Clinton forces), don't seem to be in immediate danger yet. "Considering President Barack Obama’s victory in the leadoff caucuses last year, it is unlikely Iowa will face the aggressive challenge to its position it normally does," writes Tom Beaumont on a brief blog note.

The biggest change may be the demise of the superdelegates, elected officials and party leaders who have gotten automatic delegate seats since the mid-80s.

"We can probably let go of the superdelegates," former superdelegate Elaine Kamarck told ABC (one of the few outlets to mention the meeting). "Their deliberative role has in fact been supplanted by a very, very public process."

As I've noted before, dumping the superdelegates puts top officials in an awkward spot. I'm thinking of my own district convention, where four Obama national delegate seats were available, and 84 people ran for those spots. And that was with the party's top officials out of the mix. Get rid of the superdelegates, and those congressmen have to run against the apple-cheeked newcomers. I don't have a good answer here.

The commission is supposed to push the calendar back a month, writes The Hill, with most states allowed to start in March and the "pre-window" states (which were us, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina last time) going in February.

"Already, key RNC members David Norcross and Bob Bennett have spoken with the DNC's (James) Roosevelt as the two sides seek to work together" on the calendar, writes The Hill.

Perhaps anticipating a later calendar, Iowa Democrats have moved their gubernatorial cycle caucuses later, to a currently scheduled Monday, Jan. 25, 2010. That's nine days later than in 2006 and also avoids, by one week, the conflict with the Martin Luther King holiday that we had in 2004 and 2006. Some activists were unhappy that they had to choose between MLK commemoration events and the caucuses, and here in Johnson County we passed resolutions opposing the schedule conflict.

Last Thoughts on Michael Jackson

2009-06-27T06:55:00.006-05:00

Last Thoughts on Michael Jackson

I've spent much of my adult life arguing for the importance and significance of pop culture. So I have no choice but to address the legacy of Michael Jackson. No, not the grotesque collapse that accelerated over the latter half of his life, other than to note that before all the surgery and skin treatments he was a very handsome young man.

I want to look at the art itself.

And as I do that I find it hard to connect to Michael Jackson's legacy outside the context of the sheer popularity. That's probably my bias toward people who were primarily writers, like Lennon and Dylan. Jackson was more like Elvis, primarily a vocal interpreter (though he did write some, where Presley only "wrote" as a way to pocket royalties). And he was a masterful interpreter with unique phrasing, so good that even one line, dropped into someone else's otherwise mediocre record, made a hit, made a connection so solid that it's an ad hook today. So much paranoia and energy in just seven words: "I always feel like (perfect pause) somebody's WAAA-ch'n me-eeeeeee..." You could smell the smoke from the paparazzi flashbulbs.

In the immediate wake of his death, much was made of Jackson's career longevity, his first number one at age 11 in 1970. But he hadn't had a major hit since 1995, so the last 14 years of his career was simply being famous for being famous. (Quick: Name one song off his last record, Invincible from 2001.) So that's 25, 26 years, similar to a lot of his peers. Springsteen, Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Prince... argue about the cutoff dates of their viability as vital, major artists as you will, but all are in the ballpark. Hey, next year's the 20th anniversary of Mariah Carey's first album.

Skip ahead 1:20 or so unless you really want to see Bill Cosby's lame setup.

It seems so much longer because Jackson was so small when we met him, the little boy who danced and phrased like a pro of many years--which he already was. They weren't his words, "The Corporation" wrote them, that's the actual songwriting credit they used. Best pros on the Motown staff. But little Michael owned those words forever:

"OH! Bay-b' give me one more chaaaance..." yeah, we've all been there, but he brought you to that empty place where she used to be but wasn't anymore. This little kid made you believe, suspending all disbelief, HE'd been there, and he sounded so joyous singing it, yet with just enough anguish on the yelps and pleas, you KNEW there was no WAY she could resist coming back to him or, he made you hope just for three minutes, to you.

He was ELEVEN and it was his FIRST RECORD. His second and third both knocked the Beatles out of number one. That amazing start, the four number one hits in a row in less that a year, is the most unique music he ever created. No child sang like that before, or since, not even Stevie Wonder. And the dancing. No one could move like Michael, except maybe James Brown on a really good night at the Apollo.

But from there, Jackson was just very, very good at genres others created: Philly soul and session pop. But the real R & B trailblazer of 1979 wasn't Off The Wall, it was "Rapper's Delight" (a genre Jackson never embraced).

Rock guitar in a dance context in 1982? Yeah, "Beat It" was great. But Prince did the same thing on "Little Red Corvette" at the same time--and played the solo himself.

Breaking the race barrier at MTV? "Billie Jean" was great, but that was a marketing triumph and corporate hardball: CBS threatened to pull the rights to the label's entire roster (which would have deprived us of a lot of bad pseudo-concert lip-synching by REO Speedwagon and Journey; that was how low the bar was set pre-Jackson) if MTV wouldn't add him. And as much as "Thriller" every hour on the hour was the peak of his reign, it was also about the time we first began to wonder "hey, isn't this a little overkill?"

The legacy as I see it, as summed up in that Christmas of Thriller, is that Michael Jackson may have been the last pop music star who transcended the bounds of pop music itself, the barriers of age and class and race, in more than just a tabloid way. Well, MAYbe Madonna at moments, but she was always a polarizer, which Jackson didn't become until the end of his viable career and for reasons other than the music.

Much was made in retrospect out of the symbolism of Nirvana knocking Michael Jackson out of number one in late 1991, and indeed, Cobain was a new breed of star: a niche star. As big as he was, grandma didn't know or care who Kurt Cobain was, and Cobain wasn't trying to speak to everyone. (What does "alternative" mean when you're bigger than Michael Jackson? Cobain never figured that out, and it killed him.)

Now, the popular music market, the media market as a whole, is micro-fragmented more that it was back before "Billie Jean" and the MTV color line. It may just be my age showing, and seeing the biggest star of my era die makes my age show. Or it may just be the technological changes that make everyone with an iPod their own DJ, their own station with one listener. Perfect micromarketing. When there was only one MTV, everybody damn sure knew who Michael Jackson was. Now the TV channels have jumped from the low dozens of the early 1980s to the mid-hundreds of today, with more music channels than there were channels period.

White adult popular music has retreated to the big hair, big hats, big boobs alternate universe that's misnamed "country" but is really rock with a slight twang and a narrative song structure, or given up on staying current entirely (too old to be cool and old enough to not care) and hiding in the nostalgic netherworld of classic rock where "new" means you might hear the new Motley Crue reunion song that sounds like the ninth best track from "Girls Girls Girls."

Current hit music, if that can be defined in the download era, is of, by, and for the kids and exclusively for the kids. A quick scan of the top ten finds me familiar with only the Black Eyed Peas. My daughter tried to tell me who Lady Gaga was the other day and I had no idea. I manage to catch up a year or so behind the curve, but only because I make an effort.

But I was a top 40 nerd as a kid and I remember the radio randomly shuffling genres, the bizarre back to back segues determined by Casey Kasem's math. (As he famously complained in Negitivland's banned single "U2", Kasem had to come out of uptempo records to do dedications about dead dogs.)

As late as 1979-80, the beginning of Jackson's adult career, look at the chart toppers that surrounded "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" and "Rock With You." The "phoney Beatlemania" of the Knack. The pure pop sap of Robert John's "Sad Eyes" and Tennille wanting the Captain to Do That To Her One More Time. The last hurrah of the Eagles (endless reunions don't count, just ask Mojo Nixon). Styx with proto-power ballad "Babe." Queen playing ROCKABILLY. The ahead of its time video cynicism of one hit wonder M and "Pop Musik." Herb freakin' Alpert. And weirdest of all, ultimate album act Pink Floyd with a children's choir and a number one hit.

All that stuff was on the radio and the charts next to each other. Maybe you couldn't relate to every single record, maybe your parents couldn't relate to every single record, but it was all in the same approximate universe.

And that was the world where Michael Jackson ruled, providing brief We Are The World cultural unity in a world that's gone.