First, I want to thank Matt and Chris for posting regularly on the Democratic primary in Iowa's third Congressional district, and especially for creating this Act Blue page to raise money for Ed Fallon.
As of now the Open Left Act Blue page has raised $5,585 from 78 donors.
An oddsmaker would have to give Boswell the edge going into the June 3 primary, given his huge advantages in money and establishment support. However, the only public poll on this race, which showed Boswell up 52-28, was taken more than a month ago.
About a week ago Boswell's campaign released partial results from an internal poll showing the incumbent with 65 percent support among likely voters. The campaign has not responded to my request for more information about this poll (such as when it was in the field, the number of respondents, what criteria were used to code a respondent as a likely voter, and so on).
A sign of the incumbent's confidence is that he finally promised to support the winner of the June 3 primary, according to the weekly Cityview. (Earlier this spring, I was unable to get the Boswell campaign to give me an unequivocal statement on supporting the winner of the primary.)
Amusingly, the same article quoted Boswell as saying,
"If you look at the issues, there's just not a lot of difference between us," Boswell said. "He's taking things out of context and trying to conjure up differences that don't exist."
Comments like that indicate to me that Boswell knows he is out of step with the majority of his Democratic constituents on any number of issues. This great website produced by Progressive Kick provides the gory details about Boswell's voting record, but Matt summed it up succinctly last weekend:
If you can name it, Boswell's bad on it. Free trade, net neutrality, torture in the Military Commissions Act, subsidies for oil and gas companies, CAFE standards, the estate tax, increasing the use of coal, immigration, the Bankruptcy Bill, factory hog confinements, etc.
It's notable that Boswell is not running proudly on these differences with Fallon, or trying to argue that he is more in step with voters than Fallon.
Instead, we are getting a lot of messages from the Boswell campaign about the incumbent taking on the Republicans, standing up to Bush, and so on. Direct-mail pieces have included the tag line, "Taking on George Bush for the Changes We Need." The mailer I received on Thursday features a letter from Al Gore, in which he says Boswell "stands up to the Republican right-wing agenda" and is "on the front lines" working hard for Iowans every day.
This week Boswell went up on the air with a tv ad using this closing line: "Leonard Boswell, a trusted Democrat, always standing up for you."
Needless to say, this primary wouldn't even be happening if Boswell really were standing up to the Republican right-wing agenda most of the time. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin voted to authorize the use of military force in Iraq, but you'll never hear any Iowa Democrat suggest a primary challenge, because we all know that he usually does stand up for progressive values.
If Boswell had a list of important legislation he had co-sponsored, or at least a mastery of policy details, his case for re-election would be more persuasive. But he doesn't, as that pillar of the Iowa establishment, the Des Moines Register, acknowledged on Tuesday in its endorsement of Fallon:
Boswell's own record of accomplishment in a dozen years in Congress is relatively light, and, in a recent meeting with the editorial board, he seemed out of touch about some serious issues facing the country.
Click the link to read examples of Boswell's unrealistic or uninformed answers to questions asked by the Register's editorial board. Keep in mind that this is the same group of people who endorsed Hillary Clinton five months ago because of her experience, readiness to lead and hard work in the Senate. In local races for city council or school board, they almost always pick experienced incumbents over challengers.
I don't intend to exaggerate the importance of any newspaper endorsement, but the Register's editorial is valuable for Fallon. It underscores that he is a credible candidate who deserves serious consideration.
Key lines from the editorial support Fallon's claim to represent "New Energy for Iowa," the tag line on his yard signs and his campaign literature.
Fallon's biggest challenge will be to spread the word about this endorsement with only a few days left in the campaign and much less cash than Boswell has. The campaign immediately put the editorial up on the front page of the candidate's website, but it's not clear whether he has the funds to run television or radio advertisements this week. Fallon's campaign has apparently had three television ads produced, but I am not aware of any that have aired on local tv or radio.
On Friday Fallon highlighted his early opposition to the war in Iraq. Click the link to read details from a resolution he offered in the Iowa House before the war, which predicted many of the disastrous outcomes that have come to pass.
The irony is that the Des Moines Register's editorial endorsing Fallon mentioned that very vote as an example of Fallon being right on the issues, since the law has not been shown to provide any protection for children, and only makes it harder for law enforcement officials to track sex offenders.
As I mentioned, a Boswell mailer featuring Al Gore arrived in my mailbox on Thursday. The previous day, I got another mailing from the Boswell campaign focusing on Fallon's support for Ralph Nader in 2000. Click the link to read the full text of that piece and find links to Boswell's earlier two mailings about Fallon and Nader.
Boswell held a bunch of events in the Des Moines area this past week, including a radio appearance Wednesday night at 6 pm, the same night of the "empty chair" forum. That date (May 28) was also one of the options discussed for the Des Moines Register-sponsored debate, but Boswell was apparently too busy.
Boswell's office still has not responded to questions regarding his stand on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and specifically whether he supported Republican efforts earlier this month to add the Senate version of the FISA bill (which House Democrats oppose) to the 2009 intelligence appropriation. Matt included Fallon's open letter to Boswell on the FISA issue here. The press secretary for Boswell's campaign said she would check with his Congressional office and get back to me on this issue, but she never has, despite several attempts by me to follow up. Boswell's Congressional office will not take my phone calls or return my voice-mail messages on this issue. Until the mainstream media start digging on telecom immunity and the FISA, we are unlikely to get any clarity about Boswell's position.
The same 527 group that claimed Fallon failed to protect our children from sex offenders sent out a separate direct-mail piece this week attacking Fallon for not supporting Iowa's ethanol industry enough.
I leave you with a funny You Tube video from the Fallon campaign. Watch voters struggle to tell the difference between two Boswell direct-mail pieces on health care. One of them was financed by taxpayers in an abuse of Boswell's franking privilege a few months ago. The other was produced and mailed using Boswell's campaign funds (a detailed description of that piece is here). Here is the video:
STATE BLOGS
