Mr. Loebsack's Ready to Go to Washington

Congressional Quarterly has a nice story on how Dave Loebsack won and what he has been up to since the election. Loebsack is definitely not sitting back and taking it easy.

Since winning on Nov. 7, Loebsack has met with chambers of commerce across the 2nd District and has held meetings with local residents from Ottumwa in the southern part of the district to Cedar Rapids in the north.

“I don’t want this to be a period when I’m somehow out of touch with people in the district,” Loebsack said. “After all, I’m going to Congress to represent them.”

Local observers say Loebsack’s series of constituent events is a smart way to raise his profile during the “honeymoon” period between his election and the start of the 110th Congress. As an academic from the northern part of the 2nd — which also includes strongly Democratic-leaning Iowa City, home to the University of Iowa — Loebsack needs to build his ties with the more rural and conservative voters, including some Democrats, in the southern part of the district.

Loebsack’s background may help him build a connection in less-affluent areas. He often relates that he grew up poor in a single-parent household in Iowa City with a mother who suffered from mental illness, but that he went on to receive a Ph.D in political science from the University of California at Davis.

“I wouldn’t have gotten to where I am had it not been for that hope and opportunity offered predominantly by the Democrats,” said Loebsack, who says he worked as a janitor to pay for college. “[Illinois Democratic Sen.] Barack Obama was here the Sunday before the election, talking about the ‘audacity of hope.’ But that’s what I had been talking about for the entire campaign.”

The last line of the story is a very good one for Democrats in the 2nd District...

“In terms of personalities, it’s not going to be a huge shift from Leach to Loebsack,” Squire said. “I think he just has to get people comfortable with the idea that after a very long period, we’ll have a Democrat representing this district.”