Monday, March 23, 2009

Deeth Disects Bob Krause

I posted earlier today that Bob Krause is getting set to challenge Charles Grassley in his 2010 reelection race. I didn't much about Krause except that he is chair of the Iowa Democratic Veterans' Caucus and was elected to the Iowa House as a 23 year old back in the 70's.

John Deeth takes a deeper look and disects a Krause - Grassley matchup...

Krause was once a wunderkind, elected to the legislature at 23 in 1972 and running statewide for state treasurer before he was 30, in 1978. In 1982 he tried a comeback in the state Senate but lost the primary. He now lives in Fairfield but his House district was on the north central border in Kossuth, Emmet and Palo Alto counties.[...]

The good news is that Krause is getting into the race against Chuck Grassley early, earlier than we've seen in a few cycles. (Art Small's 2004 campaign was literally last minute; there were some worries that we wouldn't get ANYone.)

By all accounts Krause is a good guy, but this is hardly an A list or even B list candidacy. Don't get me wrong; I've known Jean Lloyd-Jones, Dave Osterberg and Art Small for ages, and supported and voted for all of them. And my personal politics are more in line with someone like Osterberg than with Tom Vilsack.

But Vilsack was the A lister here. God bless the President, but he screwed at least three Senate races (ours, Kansas and Arizona) putting the cabinet together, and shuffled the deck dramatically in the four with appointees (Colorado, Delaware, New York and his own seat in Illinois). We won't necessarily hold all those. [...]

But you run the race you have, not the race you want. The A lister is gone, and the other A listers (Braley and Loebsack) are settling into the House. But there may be some B+ listers out there yet. [...]

Krause announces his exploratory committee on Saturday. Not many folks other than us junkies will be tuned in to this introduction. And an introduction is definitely what this guy needs. If there's some substance there, starting early helps, but if not, then you're just the next Steve Rathje.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you saying that Steve Rathje lacks substance? If that's the case then you are seriously misinformed. I would advise you and your readers to check out http://www.steverathje.com to see the substance that Steve is working on. With luck we'll have people like him as leaders in the near future to bring us the answers and solutions that we need!

noneed4thneed said...

Did Rathje win?

Jordan said...

I agree. Steve Rathje lacks substance, or at least he lacks something. He was the odds on favorite once King and Latham decided not to run and he wasn't even able to beat Christopher Reed, a layman, who despite his good intentions was no politician either.
And yes, he even finished 3rd behind George Eich...(sp?) who was beaten by McKinley Bailey in his bid for re-election to the Iowa House.
As for Bob Krause, I think he is hitting the trail a lot harder than early entries usually do and after taking a look at his website, I think he is truly serious.
He has my support, Im going to send him an email today.