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In late April, I reported that Al Gore had endorsed Leonard Boswell, one of many establishment figures to do so. I've been critical of Gore, because of his support for coal-supporting public officials like Boswell and his praise of McCain during a heated Presidential race. While he won't intervene in the Presidential race, it's clear that Gore is disappointing local progressive supporters, as his endorsement and his aggressive maxed out contributions to the Bush Dog are becoming Boswell's primary form of argument. Ignore the policy choices that hurt our fight against climate change, and pick me because Gore says so. It's quite disappointing that our icons are so consistently unwilling to challenge power, even those you'd think would have learned by now, like Al Gore.
Regardless, David Yepsen, the influential Iowa columnist, has his piece out on the race. Yepsen's piece is mostly vacuous, failing to focus on any substantive differences between the two except the war vote. While significant, the war vote is not the only, or even primary difference. From a whole host of issues - sprawl, warrantless wiretapping, net neutrality, the use of coal, bankruptcy and usury laws, immigration, earmarks, ethanol, campaign finance, free trade, torture, the Patriot Act, factory use of confinements, the estate tax - it's clear that Fallon represents a populist agenda, and Boswell represents his corporate backers. Fallon has raised less than $300k from individuals, while Boswell has taken in over a million, mostly from Political Action Committees.
The issue with the most traction, however, is age. Fallon has challenged Boswell to debate, and Boswell has simply refused, claiming that he's too busy, that Fallon is just going out for a media spectacle, anything but the real reason, which is that he does not want to share the stage with someone who is younger, smarter, and willing to openly call him out on his record.
Boswell even has an independent 527 working on his behalf funded by a developer, Richard 'Red' Brannan, who benefits from a half a million dollar earmark Boswell brought home for a boondoggle to develop rural lands in Polk County, the Northeast Polk County Beltway. That 527 is sending out mailers accusing Fallon of helping child molesters get out of jail. The race, in other words, is tremendously classy.
Democracy for America, who has raised $46k for Fallon, is pledging that the group will bring out hundreds of volunteers for election day, which is on Tuesday. Fallon is sure to have the progressive urban activists with him, and I'm noticing more and more pro-Fallon letters to the editor in my Google alert. Boswell has a much more broadcast-oriented campaign strategy, doing huge mailings, including ethically questionable franking pieces, as well as TV ads. He's using his million dollar warchest, while Fallon has a high staff headcount that he is using for GOTV and persuasion.
The consequence of this primary matter. McJoan has pointed to the FISA fight over retroactive immunity and its latest developments; Steny Hoyer is aggressively pushing for a compromise, and liberals are boxed in by the actions of Bush Dogs like Leonard Boswell, who signed a key letter asking for immunity for telecom companies, which lost us a huge amount of leverage in the fight. If Fallon wins, the FISA fight changes. If not, it doesn't.
Keep your eyes peeled.
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