Low Turnout?

I watched the 6:00 news tonight and they said it will be a low turnout and Blouin and Culver are counting on high turnout to win. Blouin might be helped by the higher turnout in the 1st District due to the primary for the US House seat. That means the low turnout might help Fallon out.

Polls are open until 9:00, so get out there if you haven't voted yet.

May Poll Results

The poll for May was who do you support in the Democratic Primary. Well, we will find out today who the winner is. Here are the results with 273 votes of the very unscientific poll.

Who do you support in the Democratic primary for Governor?
Ed Fallon 58%
Chet Culver 28%
Mike Blouin 12%
Sal Mohammed 3%

So we know that Fallon's supporters are online more. We will see tonight if they get out and vote more too.

A new poll will be coming out this week sometime.

Governor's Forum on Radio on Tuesday at noon

KUNI Candidates Forum

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - 12:00 PM
Ed Fallon, Mike Blouin and Sal Mohamed will take
part in this one-hour gubernatorial forum, which
will be broadcast live on KUNI across Iowa.
KUNI Studios  Cedar Falls,  IA

FM 90.9 in eastern Iowa

www.kuniradio.org
Not sure where Chet is at.  If you can't listen to the forum,
I am pretty sure it will be on the KUNI's website later on.

Governor Candidates Fundraising Reports

The fundraising numbers from the Governor's Race were released this week. Chris at Political Forecast does a nice job looking into the here. Over at John Deeth Blog, he has a great post about what the money and TV ads mean during a primary election.

Whomever the Democratic candidate is, they will not have as much money as Nussle. Luckily, I have never seen a check for $5,000 walk out of a voting booth.

DM Register Governor Debate on Now

I am watching the Gubernatorial Debate sponsored by the Des Moines Register and aired on IPTV (it will be replayed Sunday at 6:00). Culver, Fallon, and Blouin are in attendance. Not sure where Sal is. Here are some thoughts I have...

• The segment where the candidates ask each other questions was interesting, but pretty odd. It would be interesting to hear what the candidates thought about that format.
  
• Blouin is now saying that a lot of the jobs the Iowa Values fund has created are "in the pipeline." All the other times I have heard Blouin he has said the jobs have already been created.
  
• Culver takes a cheap shot at Blouin on education about knowing which students are so far behind on the first day of class. Culver says that as a teacher he could tell the same thing, but as most every teacher, he worked his hardest to help those students. Then Culver goes and gives the same answer that Blouin gave.
• The moderator has a stone like stature which gives the debate a cold feeling. At least Fallon is trying to liven it up a bit.
• Blouin's answer to the abortion is pretty good...finally. Too bad he didn't say that from the beginning. He really fumbled the issue because no one is for abortion. The government needs to do everything to reduce the number of abortions by reducing poverty, providing health care, and sexual education. If Blouin would have said this from the beginning this would not be an issue right now.
  
• Culver talks about his achievements as Sec. of State making it easier for people to vote by expanding doors, having more polling places, and paved parking lots. Those are all nice, but the thing that really matters is the use of computer voting machines and verifiable having paper trails.
• Fallon is in a tough situation standing in between Culver and Blouin. This would have been more interesting if Culver and Blouin were standing next to each other.
• The lightning round is great. It cuts all the gray area and bs out.
• Closing statements
  
• Culver talked about creating jobs close to the land? Compared to jobs in the air?
• Blouin: Spoke about faith traditions. The next time consultants say to talk more about religion, they will use this as a bad example. It didn't make any sense with the rest of what he said.
  
• Fallon: We are in trouble when campaigns come down to big endorsements and big money. His campaign is about big ideas.

The debate will be replayed on Sunday at 6:00 on IPTV.

Vote in the Poll for Governor

I posted a poll earlier this week asking who you support in the Democratic Primary for Governor. Please take the time to vote. The primary is coming up fast. It will be interesting to see where the people in the Iowa blogosphere stand compared to the outcome on June 6th.

In campaign news, the Fallon campaign is on a 50 County, 13 day Rural Working Tour. Kyle is blogging the stops and has some good stuff. About Ed stopping at a Brewery in Amana, Kyle wrote...

After moving off the production line, Ed discovered he’s also not so good at tapping beer. Thankfully, Ed’s press secretary, Lynn, has some experience in the field.

Fallon has also been raising a bunch of money recently. In the last 2 weeks of April, they raised over $35,000 to surpass their media budget. In May, they have a goal to raise $75,000 and already have raised $17,000.

Culver has started airing TV ads. I haven't seen any on yet, but then I don't watch much TV beside Comedy Central from 10-11. You can see the ads online though. Chet goes over better on TV than he does in person. Not sure if that is a good thing or not.

I have a qustion for the Blouin campaign. What's up with your poll? They have a poll asking what issue is most important to you. They have the obvious choices: education, job creation, health care and then they have 2 others...protecting natural resources and capital punishment. Blouin's taking a left jab at Judge and right hook at Culver with those choices. However, a total of 8% of the people voting think those 2 issues are the most important. Good news for Blouin, the state legislature should be done tomorrow, so he will be able get those checks for the unions and PAC's a couple days before the primary.

As for Sal Mohammed. A friend told me he say Sal in Des Moines standing on corner on University holding up a Sal Mohammed for Governor sign. Not totally sure this is true. A person with some intelligent ideas about how to better run the state would have better luck working on getting his message out than holding up a sign. Maybe Sal should start a blog.

4th District Convention Report

I attended the 4th District Convention yesterday in Ft. Dodge. It was my first district convention experience and was pretty fun, though somewhat long. I met Drew Miller and Gavin there, both had laptops and Drew did some live-blogging from the event. Yes, Mr. Deeth, we did have wireless Internet. I didn't take any notes, so I am just going to toss out a summary.

Daryl Beal, State Senator from Ft. Dodge was the convention chair. He did his best to make the day exciting, and yes glamorous. State Sen. Jack Kibbie, Senate Co-President, was there and spoke later in the day. I didn't know much about Kibbie, but from the sounds of it the Iowa Democratic Party owes a lot to him for his years of great service. These 2 State Senators showed me once again how bad Larry "Quite your Fibbin" McKibben is.

Denise O'Brien, candidate for Sec. of Ag, was the first speaker. She was very enthusiastic, which was really good early in the day. She said that will be traveling in a green bus during the 30 days before the primary that will run on homemade bio-diesel. Her son-in-law has been collecting firer grease from local restaurants for awhile and making the homemade biodiesel. (Doing a little research when I got home O'Brien has a blog that is actually updated frequently.)

Selden Spencer, running for Congress against Tom Latham, spoke next. His message was great and he had some fantastic lines. He explained how he decided to run, how the Republicans have failed us, and what he wants to do when he is elected. His message really excited the crowd. He mentioned being a rubber stamp and empty suit in the same sentence as Latham often and got loud cheers each time. You could tell that Spencer is new to running for office. His message was great, but he could use a little more polish on his delivery. One piece of advice from this amateur is to make sure you take up a bottle of water with you when speaking. As he speaks more and more, he will get better. His message was there and the excitement was overflowing.

Perhaps, the most interesting part of the convention was the voting for the state central committee. There were 4 females and 5 males running with 3 females and 3 males getting elected. To be elected you needed to have a majority of the votes, which meant that we would vote over and over until people got over 50%. After it got narrowed down to just 2 females, the two woman tied, so one of the them decided to drop out, so we wouldn't have to vote over and over. For the most part, the people I voted for made it!

Sec. of State candidate Michael Mauro spoke. He stressed how important it is to have a Democrat as Sec. of State, pointing to Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. Mauro talked about his experience running elections in Polk Co. and how that would be valuable as Sec. of State.

Dusky Terry came and spoke. He had a lot of the same ideas as O'Brien and made it sound like whomever was the last Sec. of Agriculture did not do a very good job with factory farms and water quality. He did not say this, but that is the feeling I got from the speech. Terry said that Iowa needs to improve a lot in those areas. Terry speech was really good, he had it down. It eerily seemed like a TV commercial. Terry is young and seems smart, so he should be a part of Iowa politics for a long time. I liked his ideas, but I also like O'Brien's bus idea. (I couldn't find a website for Terry, maybe I need another cup of coffee.)

Vilsack couldn't make it because of the weather, so he called in. He had some good comments about the same old stuff. It would have been nice to have him there in person, then you could compare the current candidates to him a little easier.

Ed Fallon had John Tapscott, a former candidate for Governor in the 197o's , speak for him. He focused on campaign finance reform and gave a very passionate speech. He said, "if you read the platform that will be approved today, there is only one candidate that stands up for that and that is Ed Fallon. Ed is for a woman's right to choose and against the death penalty." He really showed the differences between Fallon and the other 2 candidates.

The platform process started up and I left the main room to go chat with some people. At this point, my attention span was wearing down and I was getting tired of sitting. I got to talk with Drew, people from the Spencer campaign, Tom Harrington and some other people from Story Co.

Russ Feingold showed up at the same time as Chet Culver. Being a Senator trumps being a candidate for Governor, so Feingold spoke first. He kept his speech short and to the point. He was very enthusiastic and so was the crowd. I think the Democratic base does support the censure by the sound of the applause Feingold got. There was bit of confusion when Feingold said "it is very important that Iowa elects a Democratic Governor and we have 3 great candidates including our next Governor right here!" Culver waiting to speak next, was the only candidate for Governor in the room. Feingold came back later and cleared it up that he did not endorse any candidate for Governor.

I didn't listen to closely to Culver. I went and talked with Feingold and the people from the Progressive Patriots Fund and talked to people running the Spencer fundraiser. From what I heard Culver said all the right things, but it is just hard for me to get excited about him.

Feingold's speech at the fundraiser was full of excitement. He got many ovations, most were standing ovations because most of the people were standing around the pool at the hotel. Many of the people attending totally agreed when Feingold said Democrats need to stand up and show some spine. From what I heard from people in the crowd is that Democrats need to stand up for us because we have their back out here. I think that was the whole theme from Feingold's speech. Hopefully, Feingold comes back to Iowa often in the future.

Spencer and Blouin followed (too bad Fallon couldn't make it), but I didn't pay much attention. I went to shake Feingold's hand before he left and then found the beer cooler. After a long day, a cold one sounded real good.

2nd District Convention Report

I asked some friends over at DU if they would writeup a recap of the 2nd District Convention. Cornfield agreed and was very speedy in getting it to me. So here it is. Thanks Cornfield!

2nd District Democratic Convention – April 29, 2006

The fire alarm at Mount Pleasant High School went off, proving to everyone in attendance that the Second District Democrats were on fire.

The Second District seated 287 regular delegates (out of 337) at their convention on Saturday, April 29. On the whole, the day ran smoothly and without incident.

One of the first speakers was gubernatorial candidate Mike Blouin. Those in the audience were again instructed to repeat after him: “Jim Nussle will not be governor of Iowa.” (This seems to have become the Blouin mantra – and one the Democrats stomach very well.) He spoke at length about keeping young people in Iowa and bringing back those who had left. One of his ideas for doing this was for Iowa to offer “real jobs” that “pay real money.” He also hit hard on the state’s educational system, stating fears of economic hardship should not be limiting educational opportunities. He closed by telling the audience he wanted to build on the Vilsack legacy.

Blouin is typically a very strong speaker and Saturday proved no different. He currently holds strong support in the Second District and received at least four standing ovations (in addition to the typical coming and going).

In probably the most embarrassing event of the convention, Elaine Baxter took the stage to introduce Mary Culver (wife of gubernatorial candidate Chet Culver). Her introduction was very good. She received good crowd response. Unfortunately, when the call was made for Mary to take the stage, no one came. The few moments which followed were awkward and did not shine favorably on the Culver campaign.

Secretary of Agriculture candidates were the next to speak. Dusky Terry was represented by his wife while Denise O’Brien was represented by her daughter. Iowa is fortunate to have two very qualified candidates who have a vision for this position and for the state. Both stressed the need for our state to value rural Iowa, clean up our waterways and continue Iowa’s leadership in the world’s agricultural endeavors.

If forced to choose based solely on the two representations today, I would choose O’Brien. Terry’s wife is both articulate and intelligent, but she doesn’t convey a sense of passion. O’Brien’s daughter, however, captivated the crowd with her memories of their family’s organic farm and their belief that all people should have access to safe and nutritious foods.

Rod Perdue spoke on behalf of gubernatorial candidate Ed Fallon. He was sincere as he complimented all of Iowa’s wonderful candidates. The most applause was garnered when he spoke of campaign finance reform – “based on need and not greed.” There are a fair number of Fallon supporters in the Second District. While it was obvious they were disappointed time constraints could not allow Fallon to address the group personally, they supported their candidate’s representative with several standing ovations.

Baxter returned to the stage and was finally successful in introducing Mary Culver. Mary spoke very briefly before turning the stage over to Culver’s Lt. Gov. pick, Patty Judge. It was difficult to recall the embarrassing moments earlier in the day once Judge began to speak. She hit on several hot button issues – women’s reproductive rights, education, healthcare, poverty, economic development, agriculture, minimum wage – and the ideas and viewpoints she expressed received wide-spread report. That is, those cheering and standing were not just the delegates with Culver stickers on their lapels. Several Blouin and Fallon supporters could be seen not only paying attention to her speech, but joining in the standing ovations. Perhaps the line which received the most unilateral support was “Iowa will not only feed the world – we’ll fuel the world.”

While someone might have walked on the convention floor and mistaken the focus for support, it is difficult to know whether applause will translate into votes during the primary. Judge has always been a passionate and effective speaker. Her energy today was high and it seemed to translate to those in attendance.

Sal Mohamed spoke later in the afternoon and, as always, spoke of how he planned to bring science back into government and how he wanted to place more money back in the pockets of our residents. Although I might be ripped to shreds for saying this, I feel it is important. Mohamed has a sound message. He speaks and his voice vibrates with his own passion for what he is saying. Unfortunately, his accent is difficult for many Iowans to understand (your author included). I believe out of all the gubernatorial candidate web sites, Mohamed’s has received the most visits. I listened as at least 50 separate people discussed their visit to his site and what they discovered there. People can tell he believes in what he is saying and they want to understand. In person, however – especially when there is a temperamental sound system in the mix – as he becomes excited about his plans for our state and his speech speeds up, it is difficult to understand him word-for-word.

When looking at the gubernatorial candidates, despite the early morning snafu, I believe the speaker who excited the crowd most was Patty Judge of the Culver campaign.

Not even Judge, however, came close to the thundering, roaring, screaming, clapping and stomping crowd which greeted Congressional candidate Dave Loebsack. As Tom Petty swooned how he wouldn’t back down, Loebsack made his way up the center aisle and onto the stage. He told the participants his campaign was about two things: Change and Leadership. He urged the audience not to confuse this with “change in leadership” because he didn’t give “the current occupant that much credit.”

Loebsack has never been a slouch in the speaking department. (I wish I had more professors at my university with his talent!) From discussing Leach’s vote for the birth tax to reminding those in attendance that “election year conversion does not equal leadership,” Loebsack simply stole the show. He closed with one of his signature lines: “I will lead when it matters, not when it is safe.”

There were also two non-candidate speakers who brought down the house: Gov. Tom and Christie Vilsack. When Mrs. Vilsack proclaimed, “It should not have taken our legislators so long to help our educators,” when discussing teacher pay increases, the audience erupted. Neither of the Vilsacks took a position in the current gubernatorial race, but Christie did state that "we have some great candidates and we need a competent governor.” To me, when compared with some of the recent attacks questioning Culver’s IQ, this almost appeared an indirect endorsement. Perhaps it wasn’t meant that way, but I know I’m not the only person in the audience who thought it was.

In one of the most genuine speeches I’ve ever heard him provide, Gov. Vilsack spoke about our state, our accomplishments, his recent trip overseas and the call to a fallen soldier’s family he will never forget. The man who died while following his orders was 42 years old, father and husband, a helicopter pilot. When Vilsack spoke with the widow, he said she could see his difficulty in speaking the traditional lines of service, honor and country. As it turns out, the man had a choice on the day that he died. He could have chosen to save himself, but instead he chose to place himself in mortal danger so that he could try to protect those soldiers traveling with him. When all was said and done, the man and his co-pilot died – 18 others lived. Once this was explained the wife told Gov. Vilack that those 18 soldiers needed her husband more in that minute than she did for the rest of their time together.

It was obvious Vilsack was having a difficult time holding onto his emotions as he thanked everyone for their support. He had to stop speaking several times in order to pull himself back together.