The metaphor Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart used at the June 15 state convention was apt. After saying Democratic candidates had a tough road ahead, she likened the work leading to the November election to clearing rocks from a farm field. Hart talked about her experience farming in Iowa, having to pick rocks from fields with her siblings, reported the Iowa Capitol Dispatch.
“Sometimes, I think we’re in a rocky place right now, right?” Hart said. “And we’ve got to pick up that rock that makes the most sense for us. … Find the thing that you can do, that you can contribute to this effort, and do it in spades. That’s what we’ve got to do from now until November.”
Democratic political operatives are more used to having a specific plan, falling in line, and then working the plan. “Find the thing that you can do…” is counterintuitive. People scratch their head and ask, what does that even mean. I believe Hart is getting at the idea that Democrats must take more ownership of our politics now that the coordinated campaign is in the rear view mirror. There is no presidential campaign to filter down directives on what should be happening on the ground. As individual Democrats, we own this campaign. If we do the work, we have a chance of winning. There will be no more bitching about the coordinated campaign because it’s permanently gone. Simply the work remains.
It will also be challenging for Iowa Democrats to stay on message during the upcoming fall campaign. That’s mostly because the Republican Party is such an unruly, authoritarian mess. Legislation passed in recent sessions obfuscates the legislative terrain and serves as chaff clogging the radar of Democrats getting their bearings.
A case in point is the law passed last session related to immigration. Democrats and everyone with half a brain knew from jump street the law would not pass judicial muster. Republicans didn’t care if they would be sued over it. When U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Locher issued a preliminary injunction, everyone knew the argument that federal immigration law preempted the state law would prevail. As reported by the Cedar Rapids Gazette, “As a matter of politics, the new legislation might be defensible,” Locher wrote in his decision. “As a matter of constitutional law, it is not.”
Whether it be abortion, education, immigration, or whatever, poorly written, Republican-backed legislation is expected to raise a number of political issues this year. Attorney General Brenna Bird will be busy. It will serve as a distraction from Democratic work to focus messaging on women’s health care, abortion policy, and education.
At the convention, Iowa House Democratic Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst had a message for all Iowa Democratic candidates for this fall’s elections: When talking to voters, stay on message, and that message should be about reproductive freedom and education policies.
“Message discipline is critically important this year, every year,” Konfrst said as reported in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. “But this year especially because Iowans are voting on two issues this year: What’s on their mind is public education and abortion and reproductive freedom. And guess what. They’re with us. So that’s what we’re going to talk about. … “(Republicans) are wrong on public education and reproductive freedom. They’re wrong, and Iowans aren’t with them. Iowans are with us. So we’re going to talk about the issues that matter to Iowans, not just to us.”
Democrats own a clear goal for concise messaging. Republicans are all over the map with bad laws, lawsuits, negative reactions to the federal government, and generalized hubris cluttering the campaign battlefields. I don’t know if that creates an electoral environment where Democrats win. It clears the field for a new kind of politics. What do Democrats have to lose?
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