Category: Living in Society

Theresa Greenfield is a Democrat running for U.S. Senate and appears ahead in the money game.

She got positive press after third quarter fundraising numbers were released. She raised $1.1 million in Q3 compared to Joni Ernst who raised less than $1 million. Ernst had $4 million on hand.

Greenfield was bullish, saying to The Hill, “It’s clear that the momentum and energy is on our side to flip this Senate seat, and I’m so proud of what our grassroots campaign has already been able to accomplish to lay the groundwork to win this race next year.”

Not so fast.

Campaign money is not the only money in the 2020 elections. Greenfield’s campaign eschews donations from corporate political action committees and secured 92 percent of donations at $100 or less. These are positive things. Even so, millions of dollars will be spent on this election by both major parties, political action committees, and others. Not all of it will be from donations that meet a candidate’s criteria, because legally, the campaign can’t coordinate activities with outside groups. The Democrat will benefit from big money spending regardless of how donations to their campaigns are filtered. A significant source of money, the DSCC, has backed Theresa Greenfield to take on Ernst. There will be others.

Underlying the last paragraph is a notion that in 2020 the Iowa U.S. Senate election will be a fair fight. It won’t. Brian Slodyko of Associated Press posted a story yesterday titled “‘Dark money’ ties raise questions for GOP Sen. Ernst of Iowa.” The author opens,

An outside group founded by top political aides to Sen. Joni Ernst has worked closely with the Iowa Republican to raise money and boost her reelection prospects, a degree of overlap that potentially violates the law, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.

As we’ve seen in the results of the Russia and Ukraine investigations of the president and his campaigns, Republicans appear to be a lawless bunch. Ernst has repeatedly demonstrated there is little daylight between the president and her. What you see is what you get.

After hearing three Democratic senate candidates speak at Iowa events and taking a phone call from a fourth, I found each to have positive qualities. In this race money matters as much as any other aspect of a campaign. Sure we’d like to overturn Citizen’s United in an effort to take money out of politics. Public financing of campaigns might also be good. Democrats have to win elections under the current rules before there is an opportunity to change campaign financing laws. Or we could break the law as Ernst and her cadre of close supporters may have done. Democrats have become the party of law and order and I don’t see Greenfield or the others breaking the law.

We want and need to flip the U.S. Senate to a Democratic majority so if our presidential candidate wins, they have a chance to govern. Republicans want to hold this seat for similar reasons. With 33 U.S. Senate seats on the ballot, there are enough to flip control, but only so many competitive races in which big money could make a difference. The Iowa seat is one of them.

Each of the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate has asserted they are best to unseat Joni Ernst. Which is accurate? Answering this question assumes playing by rules of logic that simply aren’t being used by Republican and right wing Ernst supporters.

A winning quarter of fundraising may not be enough to stand down the challenges of the influence of third party money in our elections. It is a positive start, but only part of the picture.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

A plumber arrived yesterday at our home to repair the leaking water heater. I asked for permission to watch him work.

He removed the cover panel, turned the water back on ever so slightly, and a pinhole in the copper tubing feeding the household showed itself. He turned the water back off.

The model and serial number of our water heater is printed on its side, with a phone number to the manufacturer. He called them and sadly, the replacement part, a heat exchanger, is no longer being manufactured. The technician on the telephone suggested some parts houses who might have one in stock and identified a newer model with the same footprint as our current unit. He provided pricing and an estimate of the time to replace the heat exchanger if one could be found in a parts house.

Next the plumber called a recommended parts supplier and asked them to see if a part could be found. If they can’t find one, we’ll install the new unit, what else would we do? He patched the leak with a section of high pressure water hose and buttoned things up. The whole process took less than an hour.

While he worked I told him I work at the home, farm and auto supply store the next couple of days and Friday would be best to schedule the repair or replacement. It turns out his boss’s spouse works there part time as well. He is the plumber the store manager calls to make minor repairs. It is a small world.

Yesterday Kamala Harris suspended her presidential campaign. I received an email within the hour of news hitting the internet that included this:

I’ve taken stock and looked at this from every angle, and over the last few days have come to one of the hardest decisions of my life.

My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue.

I’m not a billionaire. I can’t fund my own campaign. And as the campaign has gone on, it’s become harder and harder to raise the money we need to compete.

In good faith, I can’t tell you, my supporters and volunteers, that I have a path forward if I don’t believe I do.

During Harris’ first trips to Iowa, I felt she could win it all. Her campaign had such organizational strength and energy. She appeared to be doing the right things to secure the nomination and then roll easily toward victory in the general election. Others have opinions of why her campaign failed to gain sufficient traction, I do not.

Elizabeth Warren commented about the presence of billionaires in the Democratic nominating process in an email which arrived eight hours later:

Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand — two women senators who, together, won more than 11.5 million votes in their last elections — have been forced out of this race, while billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg have been allowed to buy their way in.

Our party and our democracy deserve better.

While I didn’t hear Kamala Harris in person, her strength as a U.S. Senator, history as an attorney, and ability to attract some of the best political organizing talent in the state made her a contender. We all realize it takes money to run a presidential campaign. The competition for the nomination is the less for her exit.

I will support Elizabeth Warren during the run up to the Iowa Caucuses on Feb. 3, 2020.

We need a president able to dream big and fight hard for progressive values. Of the candidate’s I met and studied this cycle, Warren is the one.

I had a moment with Warren yesterday, during which I thanked her for introducing the No First Use Act in the U.S. Senate. Her reply was, “I can’t believe we don’t have that yet.“

After hearing her in person for the third time, I’m ready to pick a presidential candidate and dash to the Iowa Caucus finish line.

My support for Warren is no secret. When asked why I support her my answer has been a variation of “I like the work she did organizing the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau in 2011, I followed the progress of Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat and was happy when she got it back from the Republican in 2013, and if she had run in 2016 I would have caucused for her.” My decision to endorse Elizabeth Warren is more complicated than what I say to people.

An epiphany occurred last night when she spoke about forming the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. There was a brief window, she said, before which creating CFPB was not possible and after which it wouldn’t be possible either. In that crack of opportunity she helped push open the door and created the bureau. In many ways our politics has become the art of recognizing what is possible, when it is possible, and then doing it. That’s the kind of president we need in 2021.

I lived long enough to recognize a political mandate. Lyndon Johnson had that after his election to a full term in 1964. Johnson’s work in the U.S. Senate and as president serves as a monument to the art of what’s politically possible. No Democratic president has had such a mandate or accomplished so much since then.

The closest Republicans came to a mandate in my life was the re-election of Ronald Reagan in 1984 when he won 58.8 percent of the popular vote and 49 of the 50 states in the Electoral College. Scandal, the Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives beginning in the 99th U.S. Congress, and Democratic control of both legislative chambers in the 100th Congress held the president at bay. Republicans have had no mandate, even during the Trump administration when they controlled the presidency and both chambers of the legislature in the 115th Congress.

The inherent Republican falsehood of acting as if they had a mandate created a toxic political environment in which the only things that got done were those related to their wealthy supporters and corporations, or stoked their base of support. Such toxicity led the electorate to vote for a Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018. The Republican Senate now delays, obfuscates and fails to hold votes while packing the judiciary with their nominees.

It’s unlikely Democrats will have a mandate like Johnson did in my lifetime. That’s what makes Warren’s candidacy appealing. Absent a mandate, Democrats must move quickly when opportunity for substantial, progressive change presents itself. Based on what I’ve heard from Elizabeth Warren, she’s ready.

The chief executive has a lot of power to act on her own. Yesterday Warren said she would do everything she could to exercise the power of the executive branch. That’s what President Obama did. Without congress working with her, that may be all she can do. As we’ve seen with the cycles of national politics since Johnson, it is not a scenario for curing what’s toxic in our politics. Warren acknowledged that yesterday and asked those present to stick with her during the primary, during the general election, and after inauguration to hold government accountable to the people. If she could inspire the electorate to do that, she’s on her way.

The most important reason I support Elizabeth Warren is her unending commitment to tackle the problem of corruption in our government. Whether or not she is nominated, or elected as president, I expect her campaign against corruption to continue.

I wrote why support for Elizabeth Warren persists in October. We need a liberal as president and Warren is that. She’s also a woman and my response to critics of her gender remains the same, we will never have a female president if we don’t nominate one.

For these reasons and more I endorse Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president. I’ll continue to dream big and fight hard all the way to the general election, and beyond.

The sound of footsteps in the hallway told me something was wrong. There was leaking.

I pulled on my jeans, shut off the main water line, and took a look.

The safety bucket on a table under the tankless water heater was overflowing. I dumped the bucket outside and began mitigating the damage.

Shutting off electricity and natural gas to the unit, I isolated the heater by closing the intake and outlet valves, then made sure the leaking stopped. Once it did, I turned the household water back on. Success! At least we have cold water until a plumber can get here.

This minor trauma occurs just as the political season enters my least favorite part: the final nine weeks before the Iowa caucuses.

Iowans are privileged to get attention in the presidential nominating process. The blessing and curse of first in the nation caucuses is presidential candidates get vetted, a non-standardized process. As new information comes out, media and engaged party members take it in and process it. Sometimes voters switch support for candidates after new information arrives, sometimes they hold fast. We know a lot more about them today than we did last January.

My support for Elizabeth Warren grows stronger with each day. Every new revelation or negative ad or statement evokes a response. She’s thoughtful, persistent and driven. For Warren the key challenge of the next Democratic president is confronting the corruption in our governance. Warren has the background and skills for that task. All of these are qualities I value in a president.

The rock of candidates is Bernie Sanders. His message has been consistent since I first heard him speak in 2014. The only significant campaign change has been his October heart attack. I view him unchanged and he’s back on the trail. I won’t be a fan until Sanders switches his party registration to Democratic.

I haven’t been to a Biden event although he’s leading national polls. He doesn’t seem like the same Biden we got to know in 2008. Some of his most loyal fans from then have found someone else. During an open election Democrats divide into camps to support different candidates. It can become rancorous. If Biden’s the nominee I’ll work hard to elect him.

The biggest surprise has been some of the U.S. Senators in the race haven’t done better. I’m referring specifically to Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, any of whom would have made a fine nominee.

I also heard Julián Castro, Marianne Williamson, Amy Klobuchar, Jay Inslee, John Hickenlooper, Michael Bennet, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, Sherrod Brown, and Pete Buttigieg speak in person. Of these I favor Brown (he decided not to run) and Klobuchar (who is my second choice).

While I’ve been more involved with politics than expected this cycle, the national results matter more than the brief bump someone gets in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada. That California and Texas are holding their presidential primaries on Super Tuesday, makes the 15 jurisdictions and Democrats Abroad voting March 3 more of a decider than the four early states. I look forward to supporting the eventual nominee in the general election.

I’m hopeful of retaining Iowa’s Second Congressional District in the Democratic column. I’d also like to see Joni Ernst defeated in an effort to regain control of the U.S. Senate. Neither of those contests will be easy and my political activism will be figuring out how to help the eventual nominees after the June primary. I feel a need to do more than donate money to them.

There you have it. My view of the election cycle in context of dealing with a plumbing problem. For one of these I need an expert, for the other some tolerance of an as yet incomplete vetting process and common sense on Feb. 3 and beyond.

I’m confident I will find these things. Hopefully the plumber in a couple of hours.

Lightning strikes illuminated a dark November sky as I drove my aging Subaru toward Solon for a debate watch party at El Sol Mexican Restaurant.

El Sol is one of the treasures of our community. Not because they stayed open an extra hour so we could watch the Democratic debate in Atlanta until its end, but because they contribute to the community in countless ways each year.

That the Elizabeth Warren campaign chose to hold a watch party in town, and picked this family-run restaurant, is evidence of how personalized they have become.

Whether Warren will win the nomination is an open question. Based on Saturday’s Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll, winning the Iowa caucuses is within the reach of four and maybe more candidates. Iowa matters less to Democrats than it did during the 1976 cycle, or even in 2008 where Barack Obama did two things: won the delegate count and contributed to dividing the party in a way that persists until today. As I wrote previously, the aggregate of early state caucuses and primaries through March 3 Super Tuesday will be more meaningful in determining who is viable and who has a path to the nomination. It could be Warren. It could be another.

The politically correct way to post about a chosen candidate on social media is to assert a best-picture narrative about them without reference to other candidates. Coralville political activist and Kamala Harris supporter Nick Westergaard stated it succinctly in a post promoting Harris on his Facebook page. “If you have a candidate already,” he wrote, “write your own post like this and talk about them there.” Such political correctness has to do with getting through the time until the Feb. 3 caucuses without fracturing the party further on social media. Social media means a lot less than its denizens, the author included, assert. What matters more is the statements people make in-person and off line.

I knew half of the attendees at the Warren debate watch party and half I met for the first time. It was hard to hear the television set so we couldn’t catch every sound bite. We talked more generally about the community, politics and our shared experiences. I spent most of the evening chatting with a local activist I’ve known for decades.

Two issues about the general election process won’t go away.

Will the 2020 electorate pick a woman as president? Among Democrats, nominating a woman as our candidate to face the Republican nominee can be done. Elizabeth Warren is in the top tier of candidates and I believe both Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris could be within striking distance, at least in Iowa. Based on conversations within my precinct, I believe Klobuchar and Warren could both be viable. The general election is where doubt arises about electing a female president. There continues to be resistance to electing a woman, especially once one gets outside the privileged liberal centers of the state. Johnson County, where I live, voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. We were the only county in the state to do so. The other edge of this sword is we won’t have a female president unless we nominate one.

Giving up private insurance in favor of Medicare for All will be a non-starter, especially for people who were covered by private insurance during an illness. I hear this everywhere, including at the Warren debate watch party. This objection cannot be overcome through policies, snappy arguments or well-crafted verbiage. A significant, nonpartisan slice of the electorate wants government out of their health care insurance decisions. As we are painfully aware, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was lauded by many Democrats but fell flat among people who felt it was an intrusion into their personal lives to be mandated to get insurance or face a penalty. Because “Medicare for All” is weighted with diverse meanings in the electorate, it seems unlikely to go anywhere as presented by some Democratic presidential candidates.

When Medicare was signed into law in 1965, it was possible only because Lyndon Johnson had a broad mandate to make bold, progressive change. The same mandate of the 1964 election is not replicable today after the rise of conservatives, right-wing talk radio, the Moral Majority, cable news, and dark money institutions like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. There is also substantial division among Democrats. Even if Democrats retain a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and gain a slim majority in the U.S. Senate, the time after Obama’s election when Democrats controlled the executive and legislative branches of government is a reminder of how little can get done in an age of political obstruction.

Even though our debate watch party was small in comparison to those in the county seat, I was glad for the chance to meet new people and talk about politics. I’m not sure of the value of the actual debates. Certainly news media outlets benefit by having stories to write, yet the short responses and interactions of candidates don’t serve the electorate well. Even though the staging makes it look like an even competition, it’s not. What mattered more was conversations at our table as the talking heads faded to the background.

I look forward to the ultimate presidential nominee, something we won’t know until spring at the earliest. I left two bucks in the boot near the restaurant door to support a new fire station as I returned to my vehicle.