Category: Living in Society

The sobering news of the NBC/Marist poll released last week is Hillary Clinton leading the Republican candidate in Iowa by only 4 points (41-37) among registered voters.

In Iowa electing Hillary Clinton president will not be a slam dunk.

If one lives elsewhere in the country, the news was better. Clinton leads the two-way and four-way presidential races nationally and has multiple paths to 270 electoral votes needed to win the election.

Both major candidates remain unpopular. “In Iowa, 36 percent of registered voters have a favorable view of Clinton, versus 58 percent with an unfavorable view,” wrote Mark Murray on the NBC News website. “While Trump is at 31 percent positive, 64 percent negative.”

Clinton is polling well, as she has since announcing her candidacy April 12, 2015. The election is hers to lose, and every indication is she is taking nothing for granted. What mitigates the positives is every conversation I have with voters becomes dominated by how terrible Clinton’s opponent is. He is, and if you feel that way, volunteer or donate to Clinton’s campaign, even if you don’t like her.

Of Iowa’s 1,937,225 active voters, only 615,357 (32%) were registered as Democrats on Aug. 1, 2016, according to the Iowa Secretary of State. Republicans aren’t doing much better at 649,579 (34%). Based on registrations, it should be a fair fight for either party to build a constituency to elect a candidate in Iowa.

It’s not a fair fight, one made worse by the quadrennial Iowa Caucuses. Where to begin about that?

Let’s start with the quote attributed to Albert Einstein, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

Who wants to be insane? None of us who volunteer to work for political campaigns.

I want something that doesn’t exist any more. When my father canvassed for JFK before the 1960 election he used mimeographed sheets made at the union hall. There was a diagram of a generic neighborhood where he recorded the names of voters to help him (and presumably others) keep track of where the election stood. When Kennedy won, we felt our family had contributed significantly to the victory even though he did not win Iowa’s 10 electoral votes.

Deviation from this inclusive, local technique has long been a practice. I associate it mostly with Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign, although others perfected it. Targeted canvassing has been my bone of contention with the Iowa Democratic Party. The practice has broken down neighborhoods in favor of demographic dissection. It isn’t healthy for working together with neighbors to improve our lives, something that should run concurrently with politics.

It’s no secret a large percentage of people seek to avoid conversations about politics and hide their political leanings behind a no party registration. What matters more to those with whom I’ve discussed it is participation in a society in which politics plays a minor role. More engage in politics during the presidential years, but spend the rest of their time living, working and volunteering. It’s the glue that holds what’s good in society together. The current caucus process with two dozen candidates roaming the state and spreading their minority views works against the warp and weave of a just society.

I believe the Iowa caucuses have seen their best years. Jimmy Carter had the right idea after Democrats changed the nominating process in response to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Carter just showed up and met people, as he famously did during the Iowa State Fair. Today, politics has been co-opted by the media and the state fair is a timely example, with a dedicated political soap box sponsored by the Des Moines Register. It’s not unlike any of the other fair exhibits. The nadir of the state fair soapbox for Democrats in recent years was Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz giving out of touch speeches.

The caucuses are getting too large, making it difficult for organizers to find appropriate venues. In our precinct it was a challenge to hold people’s attention until the delegates were selected, after which they bolted and the caucus chair couldn’t fill committee slots for the county convention. Logistics aside, the Iowa caucuses place an inappropriate emphasis on presidential politics almost two years before the election. There is more to life than who’s president. We survived Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. We will survive whoever the electorate picks in November.

The opportunity to change this year’s process passed with the state convention and the page turns to the 2020 presidential cycle. Political activists want Iowa to be the first caucus in the nation, but they don’t represent our best interests. They are just one more special interest looking out for themselves. Politics is much broader than the people who caucused for Senator Ted Cruz, the Republican caucus winner in Iowa.

It is time for politically active people to get involved in a way that broadens the electorate and is more inclusive. However, if they don’t heed the message, we’ll find something else to do, raising money for our favorite charities, donating garden surplus to the food bank, and advocating with our elected officials for what is right — regardless of party.

People care about who’s president, but not so much they will set everything else aside. No one wants to be the target of political canvasses. Given the opportunity neighbors will join together to resolve pressing issues, including electing a president. This year presidential politics serves more distraction than help.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

This has been a summer of weird normal, especially for people who follow politics.

Given a presidential contest where many, including this author, predicted Hillary Clinton would be our next president before she announced she was running, nothing has happened to change that potential outcome. If anything, we are more confident than ever she will be our next president.

The focus has been on down ticket races… somewhat.

Last week Michael Barone of the Washington Examiner picked Cedar County, Iowa as a bellwether of the presidential race.

“The Washington Examiner has selected 13 key counties to watch in eight target states with 114 electoral votes that have been seriously contested in recent elections,” Barone wrote. “Each county has the potential to indicate who will carry these states.”

Cedar County owes its place on this list to the fact that it has come uncannily close to mirroring the Democratic and Republican percentages of the target state of Iowa in the last seven presidential elections, never varying more than 1.3 percent from average. Thus it voted 52 to 47 percent for Obama in 2012 and 54 to 44 percent for him in 2008; it voted 50 to 49 percent for Bush in 2004; and in the exquisitely close election of 2000, it went for Al Gore over Bush by a plurality of exactly two votes.

Mirroring percentages is one thing, however, based on my personal contacts with voters in Cedar County during the 2012 election, mirroring is not relevant to current races.

The Iowa Democratic Party placed an organizer in Cedar County this cycle, and if 2012 represents the best efforts to turn out votes for President Obama, 2016 will be even better for Hillary Clinton. That also benefits state-wide candidates Dave Loebsack, and to some extent, Patty Judge. Cedar County voters are willing to split the ticket. Expect them to do so in November.

Democrats are running out of time to nominate a candidate in Iowa House District 73, which includes Cedar County. For practical purposes, the clock ran out a week or so ago.

The Iowa Secretary of State filing deadline for state and federal offices is 5 p.m. on Friday, August 19, and in order to nominate a Democratic candidate, the state party would have to call a special convention that included Muscatine, Cedar and Johnson Counties where the district is situated.

There are plenty of potential candidates, however, those who ran in recent cycles are not interested, and no one else has come forward.

While there has been talk of a write-in candidate, the handicap of not being on the ballot will be a long shot in defeating incumbent Rep. Bobby Kaufmann.

The largest group of voter registrations in Cedar County is no party. On Aug. 1, the Secretary of State reported 3,128 Democratic, 3,792 Republican, and 4,414 No Party active, registered voters. Having worked the district, I don’t put much stock in these numbers. A house candidate from either party could win the district because of no party conversions, the City of Wilton, and six precincts in more Democratic Johnson County.

What makes August part of the summer of weird normal is the lack of political talk about almost anything but the Republican nominee for president. It is normal that a lot of voters activate during presidential election years. What is weird is a combination of things including regular people cozying up to Donald Trump; people who would bleed Democratic if cut saying they won’t vote for Hillary Clinton no matter what; and controversial issues, including climate change, abortion, school funding, incarceration rates, water quality and government spending, being sidelined to watch the national political show.

Life is going on, arguably not in a good way.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Kim Weaver believes 2016 is the year to retire Republican Steve King from Congress.

What makes her effort different from those of Jim Mowrer, Christie Vilsack, Matt Campbell, Rob Hubler and others?

The political climate of intolerance and hate people like Rep. King foster has reached its limit, creating a backlash among lifelong Republicans.

Weaver hopes to build a coalition using the unique opportunity 2016 presents.

“The other night I had an interesting conversation with a friend who will no longer be voting for Donald Trump, Steve King or any other Republicans,” Weaver wrote in a fundraising email.

“I watched this lifelong member of the GOP burn his Republican National ID while standing around a bonfire. He told me that he feels betrayed by the party and regardless of the outcome he doesn’t know how we will ease the tensions within nation’s polarized political system. To confront the global crises the world looks toward America for leadership and solutions. He said the divisive rhetoric this year short circuits conversations after a few seconds. From across the fire he looked at me and said, ‘All of this intolerance and hate is crazy. It’s gotta stop.'”

Kim Weaver is a proud native Iowan. Born in Des Moines, she graduated from Roosevelt High School and obtained a bachelor’s degree in communications from Iowa State University. After college she married and later moved to Sheldon where she raised her three children and built a career. Weaver appreciates the value of community and the belief in hard work Iowans hold dear. She is dedicated to taking those values to Congress.

We’ve heard it all about Steve King. Isn’t it time we focused on solutions? That’s what Kim Weaver offers.

Issues most important to Weaver include financial stability for families, student loan debt relief, financial stability for seniors, immigration reform, and making higher education more affordable.

As for King, there is little reason for Iowans to talk about his confrontational and outrageous behavior and statements. In fact, one of my friends had something to say about this.

For more information about Kim Weaver’s campaign for Congress in Iowa’s 4th District, visit her web site.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Republicans have taken the effort to suppress voting rights nationwide, including in Iowa.

Iowa Republicans have done their part, if not as egregiously as in other states.

They would do more to suppress voting rights if they controlled our bicameral legislature and the governorship.

One of the first things Iowa Governor Terry Branstad did in 2011 when he assumed office was to reverse Governor Tom Vilsack’s executive order to automatically restore voting rights to convicted felons who had served their time.

Branstad established an application process for such felons, making it more difficult to regain their voting rights.

“Restoring voting rights to Iowans who have committed felonies is something that I take very seriously as governor,” Branstad said July 11 during his weekly news conference. “To automatically restore the right to vote without requiring the completion of the responsibilities associated with the criminal conviction would severely damage the balance of rights and responsibilities that we all have as citizens.”

“Iowa is one of only three states – alongside Kentucky and Florida – to impose permanent disenfranchisement for all people with felony convictions, unless the government approves individual rights restoration,” according to the Brennan Center for Justice. “On June 30, 2016, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld the state’s disenfranchisement law in a 4-3 split decision in a case called Griffin v. Pate.”

After Griffin v. Pate, State Representative Mary Wolfe (D-Clinton) said the Iowa legislature was presented with an opportunity regarding voting rights.

“In my opinion, the majority ruling seems to invite the General Assembly to amend current Iowa Code to redefine ‘infamous crime’ for purposes of disenfranchisement as something other than all felonies,” Iowa state Rep. Mary Wolfe, D-Clinton said to the Des Moines Register. “I certainly think the average Iowan would not agree that all felonies, every category of felonies, reaches the level of infamous crimes.”

Would such legislation advance in Iowa’s divided legislature? Republicans can be expected to block it in today’s political environment.

Blog for Iowa author Dave Bradley wrote last weekend, “There is no shortage of Republicans in positions of authority who will do nearly anything for their party to win elections, no matter what.”

Iowa native Ari Berman, author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, points to North Carolina as an example of what Republicans have done to suppress voting rights.

Three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated the Voting Rights Act in Shelby v. Holder, the North Carolina legislature toughened its voter ID bill, already the most restrictive in the country, according to Berman.

Quoting North Carolina State Senator Josh Stern, Berman laid out what the bill added:

• Shortened early voting by one week.
• Eliminated same day voting and provisional voting if at wrong precinct.
• Prevented counties from offering voting after 1 p.m. on the last Saturday before the election.
• Prevented counties from extending poll hours by one hour on election day due to extraordinary circumstances like lengthy lines.
• Eliminated state supported voter registration drives and preregistration for 16/17 year old citizens.
• Repealed voter owned judicial elections and straight party voting.
• Increased the number of people who can challenge voting inside a precinct.
• More frequent purging of voter rolls.

On Friday, July 29, a federal court ruled North Carolina’s voting restrictions were “intentionally discriminatory.”

Would Iowa pass such a bill? It’s hard to say.

We can expect the conflict over voting rights to continue in the federal courts as Republican-controlled states attempt to reduce the number of people eligible to vote.

Progressive Iowa Democrats should work to retain our slim Senate majority as a firewall against further Republican voter suppression efforts.

To help retain a Democratic Senate majority, send a check to the Senate Majority Fund (Committee ID #9098), 5661 Fleur Drive, Des Moines, Iowa 50321.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa