Tag: politics

SCHILLER PARK, Ill.— The preliminary election returns for Big Grove Precinct arrived at 10:47 p.m. yesterday from the county auditor’s office. It will be a couple of days before the township trustee write-in votes will be tallied. Once those results are in, I’ll include a more complete analysis of the results and their meaning. For now, suffice it to say that the precinct voters behaved predictably.

Ours is a precinct made up of voters minted in reaction to the firestorm that has been our national media discourse since 2000. They vote on the perceived merits and qualifications of candidates rather than by party alliance. This is highlighted by the straight-party ticket voters: 136 Democratic, 174 Republican and 6 New Independent Party IA (whoever they are) out of 957 voters.

This cycle, they elected Joni Ernst to the U.S. Senate to replace retiring Senator Tom Harkin, 54 to 43 percent (This and all percentages in this post are in Big Grove Precinct only). Finally, Iowa is to send a woman to Washington.

Incumbent Democrat Dave Loebsack was returned to the U.S. Congress 51 to 49 percent. One hopes Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks has now gotten the message after her third attempt—we don’t want her.

We followed the rest of the state on statewide office elections, although more analysis about those races will be forthcoming once I have studied the differences. Terry Branstad gets a chance to serve as governor for the longest time of any American governor, including the ones who bridge the Revolutionary War with their service.

Our state senator, Bob Dvorsky, was uncontested, and is well liked, and he easily won reelection with 97 percent of the vote.

Incumbent state representative Bobby Kaufmann beat challenger David Johnson 65 to 35 percent. More analysis of this race will be forthcoming, but Kaufmann ran the superior ground game, by dominating media and sign advertising, and with his physical presence in the precinct.

Incumbent supervisor John Etheredge was the top vote-getter among the three board of supervisor candidates with 58 percent of the vote. Mike Carberry was next with 46 percent, and incumbent Janelle Rettig trailed with 39 percent. Based on county-wide voting, Rettig and Carberry will be sworn in as supervisors. This race is of particular interest to a discussion of the post 2000 voters, so watch for more on this.

Other uncontested county-wide races had Janet Lyness, Kim Painter and Tom Kriz garnering 99 percent of the vote. We retained judges, voted for people who were on the ballot for minor elected roles, although less than enthusiastically.

As the dateline indicates, I am away from home. More when I return later today.

LAKE MACBRIDE— The general election is 18 days away, and how my ballot will shape up is finally clear. This coming week, the two of us will head into Iowa City and vote at the auditor’s office. The down-ticket races and issues have been challenging to make a reasonable decision.

In particular, the township trustee election has no candidate on the ballot. As chair of the board of trustees, I made the following press release regarding the absence of a candidate on the ballot:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 17, 2014

SOLON, Iowa– DeWayne Klouda is running a write-in campaign for Big Grove Township Trustee in the Nov. 4 election. He currently serves as a trustee and was appointed this year upon the retirement of Elmer Vanorny. He has prior service as Township Clerk, beginning in 1998. He is familiar with the roles and responsibilities of the township, which include managing the township budget and the Tri-Township Fire Department, operating Oakdale Cemetery, custodian of the pioneer cemetery at Fackler’s Grove, and resolving lot line disputes.
Klouda’s filing paperwork was delayed by the U.S. Postal Service, so his name is not on the ballot.
We seek to make voters aware of this campaign and hope voters in Big Grove Township will consider writing in DeWayne Klouda for township trustee on their Nov. 4 ballot.

Late breaking situations like this are why I don’t like voting early. This year, I will be in the Chicago area in early November, so won’t be around to vote on election day.

The U.S. Senate election is garnering a lot of media attention, and the Republican advertising campaign has been thorough, well crafted and abundant. Counting how many impressions of Joni Ernst have filtered into my no-television lifestyle would be tough. Suffice it to say her name is everywhere I go. This last week, her sign advertising has begun to crop up, along with new radio ads I hear on my way to work. There are web ads everywhere, and bumper stickers. She will have no problem with name recognition.

Bruce Braley’s name is also most places I go, although there have been less impressions of Braley than his opponent. My sense is that because Ernst and her third party supporters appear to be outspending Braley in an attempt to buy this senate seat, the outreach of her messaging has been effective, the way anything that is well capitalized can be. The benefit for Braley, is many voters that matter most don’t seem to like what they are hearing from Ernst.

When I talk about “voters that matter most,” I refer not to polling subjects, but to people I meet and know who are less partisan in their approach to elections. It seems clear to me that neither candidate has cracked the code to get these votes, other than to work hard at it. It’s hard to tell because people don’t want to talk about the election the way they did during the 2006 and 2008 cycles. As I work my network to turn out votes, people plan to vote for Braley or one of the less well known candidates, but not Ernst. My network has a Democratic bias.

I proofread our local paper and there have been very few letters to the editor supporting one candidate or another. Because I read the stories from text files, I’m not sure who is buying ads in the paper, and can’t provide a meaningful evaluation there.

My state representative is bringing Senator Rand Paul to a fundraising event at his political family’s farm. His challenger is publishing an ad with a photo of himself with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. There is talk that these two senators are evaluating a 2016 presidential run—key word is evaluating. I suspect they are here more to help Ernst and Braley and other candidates. Neither one of them seems likely to pull in the less partisan voters, although Paul has moderated some of his views in a way that will appeal to some of them.

October will soon turn to November when we’ll know the result. In the meanwhile, there is work to be done in the ground game Democrats are counting upon to win.

LAKE MACBRIDE— “Only 15 percent of Americans are paying very close attention to the midterm elections—a number that is both very low and, apparently, significantly lower than the midterms in 2006 and 2010,” according to the Washington Post. Sounds about right. One of eight people are paying attention.

While my friends and family are engaged, the vast majority of people with whom I interact are not. When it comes down to Nov. 4, many seem unlikely to make the trip to the polls and vote, and won’t without prodding in a meaningful way.

In Iowa, the race most are watching, including folks inside the Washington beltway, is the Braley-Ernst contest. Along with my activist friends, we are doing everything we can to support Bruce Braley’s candidacy. It may not be enough to win, and the senate majority hangs in the balance of this and a half dozen similar races around the country.

“I think we have a wonderful opportunity this year to do something that I’ve only had a chance to have four of in thirty-four years have happen to me, and that’s to have a Republican colleague,” said Senator Chuck Grassley last June. “Bottom line, our chances are a lot better now than a year ago. It looks like now we’ve got a chance of winning six out of ten, some people would say six out of fourteen seats that are in play. I don’t know, but the chances are good.”

According to Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com, Republicans have a 56.4 percent chance of winning the senate majority, so Grassley had a point, there is a reasonably good chance. In the Iowa race, the 538 forecast is a 65 percent chance of a Republican victory, with a two point lead. While Ernst is leading, Braley’s chances are also good, as the 90 percent probability range includes the potential for a Braley win. With low interest, the election will hinge upon voter turnout.

Predicting voter turnout is challenging at best. Already a record number of early ballots have been cast, with most being Democratic. There is no recent comparable election, at least in the survey done by Pew Research Center, which shows interest in the 2014 midterms well behind both 2006 and 2010. “Perhaps Americans have gotten used to the idea of partisan control of at least one chamber of Congress being on a knife’s edge,” wrote Seth Motel in an article for Pew titled, “For Many Americans, a ‘meh’ Midterm.”

What does the lack of interest in the 2014 midterms mean here?

Where they exist, it favors incumbents. People who have represented me in the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislature seem likely to be the same next year. My state senator is running unopposed, but for the other challengers, gaining traction against an incumbent, where there is low voter interest, has proven difficult. People outside political activists and operatives truly are not interested in the midterms.

Because the retirement of Senator Tom Harkin created an open seat, what happens in the U.S. Senate election doesn’t have a recent precedent in Iowa. We live in a state ranked fourth in the nation in health, safety, housing, access to broadband, civic engagement, education, jobs, environment, and income according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This is good news for incumbents, however, how it will play in the senate race is an open question.

Joni Ernst will get an updraft from the governor’s race, where Branstad leads Hatch in recent polls by some 22 points. Democrats counter that they have a superior ground game and the ability to make up substantial ground before the polls close because of it. But Jack Hatch is no Tom Vilsack, and the times have changed since Vilsack won his come from behind election for governor in 1998 by overcoming a similar polling deficit. Ernst’s two point lead over Braley indicates she does not appeal to no-preference voters the way the incumbent governor does, and people I meet are willing to split the ticket. In addition to lack of interest, the outcome of no-preference voters will be more important than partisan registrations to either party’s victory.

For now, it’s a horse race, more than in previous years. One that will go to the finish line. It may not be a photo-finish as the polling within the margin of error suggests, but all there is left to do is work to increase interest and make sure that more than one in eight voters go to the polls.

LAKE MACBRIDE— With yesterday’s top of the ticket U.S. Senate debate between U.S. Representative Bruce Braley and State Senator Joni Ernst, the Iowa political season moves into the final stretch. For those who don’t recognize it, that’s a horse racing metaphor, and at this point, Ernst looks to lead by a nose, although based on the aggregate of polling, it is still neck and neck.

A lot can happen between now and Nov 4. Braley is leveraging the existing ground organization of the Iowa Democratic Party, comprised of the usual cast of characters plus a contingent of out of state organizers. Ernst is doing a “full Grassley,” which means talking to the faithful in all 99 Iowa counties. Both candidates are raising every nickle they can.

Both have third party groups, financed by people we know, advocating for their respective campaigns. Based on the candidate comments last night, Charles and David Koch are causing the most trouble for Braley, and NextGen Climate, financed by venture capitalist Tom Steyer, is hitting Ernst’s campaign hard enough for her to omit from her comments the other groups backing Braley. The playing field is not equal between the Koch Brothers and Tom Steyer, but there is a tendency to depict it as such. There are other groups supporting both candidates, but they didn’t get a mention during the debate.

The race will be won by whoever secures the largest number of so-called “no-preference” voters. If the truth will out, and one hopes it does, Braley will win. Whether it will is an open question. Both Braley and Ernst confirmed who they are in their responses last night, something that is not news to those of us paying attention. The trouble is it will be a couple of weeks before most people, no preference voters particularly, start engaging. Most that I know with this registration have not begun to engage in the race.

Ernst was asked, “what do you believe about climate change? What would you do about it?” Her response began, “I grew up drinking well water on a farm. My dad is a conservationist. Most Iowa farmers are phenomenal conservationists.” The head scratching began.

“I don’t know the science behind climate change, but I cannot say one way or another whether it is man-made or not,” she continued.  “I have heard arguments on both sides.”

In framing up a well worn climate denier argument, Ernst affirmed her relationship with the oil and gas lobby. More importantly, she revealed that she does not have the intellectual capacity to evaluate what many believe is the most important issue of our time. This has larger consequences when applied to issues of war and peace, helping the needy, controlling our national budget, nuclear disarmament, and many others.

Her statements about the relationship between recycling, conservation, the Environmental Protection Agency, Cap and Trade, farming and well water would not stand up to the light of day if people could hear what she said. Whether the Braley campaign will effectively get the word out to likely voters remains another open question.

For those of us in the working class, this is pretty theoretical. We have bills to pay and a reality in which to live, one that is not always pleasant, as this news story indicates.

BIG GROVE— Early voting for the Nov. 4 general election begins on Sept. 25, and I’m in no hurry. I’m also willing to bet that I’ve given more thought to the entire ballot than most voters in the precinct.

The top of the ticket is easy, with votes for Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack almost foreordained. Given the views of their competition, there is no contest.

We were sick of Terry Branstad the last time he gave up the governorship. He has done nothing to endear us enough to vote to retain him in office. There are four other gubernatorial candidates, and the only reasonable alternative is a vote for Jack Hatch and Monica Vernon, the Democratic candidates for governor and lieutenant governor.

Tom Miller for attorney general and Mike Fitzgerald for state treasurer are solid and expected to win. Based on everything they do for the state, they merit our vote. I particularly appreciate Miller’s help during the 2012 campaign I managed, and Fitzgerald’s College Savings Iowa, which made a significant contribution to college affordability in our household.

Brad Anderson will get my vote for secretary of state. I met him, I like him, and going backward to Paul Pate or the minor party candidates would be the wrong direction. Secretary of state is an important job, and making life easier for small businesses and including as many voters as possible in elections represents what should be the foundation of our society. It hasn’t been that way under the current Republican’s tenure.

The other statewide races need study. I’m not sure what qualities to seek in a state auditor, and while I lean toward Democrat Jonathan Niederbach, and will likely vote for him, I’m not quite ready to say yes.

Secretary of Agriculture is a key race in our household, and the Democrats fielded a candidate with weak credentials in Sherrie Taha. I met Bill Northey and have heard him speak several times. I don’t feel a need to vote the strait ticket, and this is a race where I might vote for the Republican. Jury is still out on that.

State Senator Bob Dvorsky is running unopposed, and I have been communicating with him about the needs of our precinct, especially with regard to Lake Macbride, since we moved to Big Grove two decades ago. Another easy vote, even if there were a challenger. The same holds true for the court house races: Tom Kriz for treasurer, Janet Lyness for county attorney, and Kim Painter for recorder are all running unopposed, and I know and support them.

For state representative in House District 73, there are two candidates, Democrat David Johnson and Republican incumbent Bobby Kaufmann. Since I waged a campaign to defeat each of them in 2012, neither represents my best option. How I decide to vote won’t be discussed here or anywhere else in public.

There is a three-way race for two seats on the county board of supervisors, with incumbent Janelle Rettig, Mike Carberry and John Etheredge on the ballot. My votes will go to Rettig and Carberry. Although I’ve gotten to know Republican Etheredge better during his term, he is likely to be the burr that gets sanded off in the wood shop that is this heavily Democratic county.

I am one of three township trustees and one position is on the ballot after the resignation of long-time trustee Elmer Vanourney, and subsequent appointment of Dewayne Klouda to replace him. Klouda will get my write-in vote since he failed to file in time. Ryan Hajek is on the ballot for clerk, and was appointed when Klouda moved to trustee. He is interested in the work of the trustees, and will get my vote.

Figuring out the rest of the ballot is more difficult.

The other non-partisan offices? Who knows? There are five candidates for five positions on the ag extension council, and one supposes that if they are interested enough to get on the ballot, why stop them? Same with the single candidate to fill a two-year term. Soil and water commission has two candidates for two positions. Judicial retention in the court of appeals, District 6 District Court and District 6 District Associate? Again, who knows? They had to file for retention, so at least we know they want it that much. This is always a puzzler unless there is some controversy.

There are two ballot issues, the Local Option Sales Tax, and the county court house bond issue. I don’t support increasing sales tax, and once the ballot is printed, I’ll see what my choices are. I will vote for the court house bonding, and there is almost no public opposition to moving forward with it, so hopefully it gains the 60 percent required.

What I’m saying here is that voting early is good for the top of the ticket, but can be bad for down-ticket candidates and issues. Understanding as much as possible before we vote is important. If that means waiting until election day, then so be it.