The battle of words rages on in Iowa's 3rd District, with the campaign for incumbent U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell issuing a letter to Democratic primary challenger Ed Fallon railing on contributions from Democracy for America, a national progressive political action committee founded in 2004 by current Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.
"In light of your criticism of Leonard Boswell for accepting support from Political Action Committees (PACs), I was rather dismayed to see you accepting support and soliciting money for your candidacy from a PAC," wrote JoDee Winterhof, a senior adviser for the Boswell campaign.
Her words in the letter were echoed by one of Iowa's state lawmakers.
"You can't bash PACs and then enlist their support in your campaign," said Des Moines State Rep. Bruce Hunter. "It's like having your cake and eating it too. By keeping the money, Ed is being disingenuous."
Democracy for America sent an email asking for individual contributions, it's unlikely they made a PAC contribution. This is below par journalism from Lynda Waddington at the normally quality Iowa Independent. It's easy to verify whether DFA made a PAC contribution. She should have.
Boswell's dishonest entitled attitude is a bit unexpected considering people tell me he's a nice guy, but it certainly fits in nicely with the Blue Dog caucus he reveres. And it's lovely that he, like Al Wynn and Dan Lipinski, is trying to wound progressive organizations like DFA.
... In the comments I'm reminded that Howard Dean sent an email out to his list to give to Boswell back in 2004 as a way to signal to the establishment he could be a good nominee, and raised around $50k for him. I wasn't a Dean supporter at the time, but I gave to Boswell because it was such a cool ask. Boswell is the first non-Presidential candidate I ever contributed to. And I'm no PAC.
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