In the IA-03 Democratic congressional primary, progressive Ed Fallon lost to Bush Dog Leonard Boswell by a seemingly wide margin by on Tuesday, 61%-39%. That is a margin quite similar to Mark Pera's defeat at the hands of Bush Dog Dan Lipiniski in the IL-03 primary back in February. As such, it appears that our only progressive primary victory in 2008 will be Donna Edwards's historic victory over Al Wynn back on February 12th.
While a 22% defeat is not a cause for celebration, it still provides a very useful bit of information for future progressive primary challenges. Considering that Fallon had no paid media and Boswell was endorsed by every single establishment organization except the Des Moines Register, we now know the benchmark, floor support for an Internet supported, progressive primary challenge to a conservative Democrat. As Matt wrote the day before the election:
So now, this is the rawest test of an internet fueled grassroots campaign with none of the bells and whistles of a Donna Edwards or Ned Lamont, up against everything the establishment can throw at a candidate. It's an interesting test case of paid media - this primary will demonstrate what percentage of primary voters have moved their information and political habits away from low information broadcast channels, and towards internet and a more social form of politics.
So, now we know the answer, and it confirms the results of the Illinois 3rd primary back in February. We start a campaign like this at 39%, and need more allies and paid media in order to earn the rest.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to Ed Fallon on Open Left. While a 22% isn't great, it is 78% better than we would have done if we didn't try at all. If we don't keep trying, we will never get better. If we don't keep trying, we have no means to hold Bush Dogs accountable. Even though they were unheard of only four years ago, now with Ned Lamont, Donna Edwards, Mark Pera and Ed Fallon, progressive primary challenges to incumbent, conservative Democrats are becoming something of a regular occurrence. We are learning a lot, finding our bearings, putting many Democrats on notice, and building toward the future. This is important, because next year, when we have a large Democratic trifecta in D.C., we will have to be ready to identify and recruit many more of these primary challenges. Any and all congressional Democrats who hand Republicans any victories during our brief progressive window need to be held accountable in primaries in 2010. Our primary campaign experiences in 2006 and 2008, even the ones we lose, will be invaluable to maximizing the impact of our efforts in 2010.
Building a movement is a marathon, not a sprint. Even without paid media and allies, we are at 39%. While that is not where we need to be, it is still progress.
New Jersey Senate, 89% reporting
Lautenberg: 62%
Andrews: 32%
Cresitello: 6%
Update 13--Boswell wins IA-03: Leonard Boswell is finally declared the winner in the IA-03 Democratic primary. Looks like he will win by about 20%. While that isn't a total disaster, it also isn't the single-digit loss I was hoping for. He felt pressure, but will it be enough? Either way, progressives need to keep challenging.
Update 12--Wave of Superdelegates Endorses Obama: 26.5 superdelegates just endorsed Obama. He has now passed the magic number, even with Michigan and Florida given full voting rights, and even with her four delegates given back in Michigan. Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States.
Update 11 [from Matt]: Boswell is up by 12 points, it looks like he'll take it. That's an extremely tight margin for a primary.
Update 10--Obama wins Montana and national popular vote: In one positive development tonight, Barack Obama wins Montana big. The exit poll indicates it will be a huge victory, too: 55.7%--38.2%, according to the gender crosstabs. So, Obama will win the popular vote. Will he reach the 24,000 threshold that moves him outside the margin of error? Hopefully.
Update 9--Clinton doesn't conceede: Well, Clinton clearly didn't conceede in her speech. Hell, before her speech, McAuliffe introduced her as "the next President of hte United States of America." Then, in case the point hadn't been driven home, she said "I'm not deciding anything tonight." A lot of denail happening, but no concession or suspension. Perhaps one would have come if Obama had tried harder in South Dakota, and actually won the state. Then again, considering the way the Clinton campaign has acted for the last three months, probably not.
Update 8--Hey Obama, a 50-state strategy means campaign in all 50 states: I'm actually kind of angry at Obama for not campaigning harder in Montana and South Dakota. He could have won South if he made a bigger play for it. Also, even if he still lost, these are both important states for Democrats. If Obama had made a bigger push in Montana, he could have put the state in play in the general, and helped the local party solidfy its many recent gains downticket. If he campaigned harder in South Dakota, he could have helped build the party for 2010, when we can take down Thune. Pretty friggin' lame that he didn't campaign harder in those two states. Even though he won the nomination tonight, I'm not very happy with him right now. We need to campaign everywhere in order to build the party everywhere. Obama didn't do that in Montana and South Dakota.
Update 7--Clinton wins South Dakota: Hillary Clinton has won South Dakota. It is really, really important for Obama to win Montana now. Winning the nomination on a night of a double loss would be terrible, especially since he has only won Guam, Oregon, and North Carolina since March. If Obama doesn't win Montana by more than Clinton won South Dakota, Clinton can still win the popular vote, too. It would really suck to have a nominee who didn't win the popular vote.
Update 6--McCain at only 65% in South Dakota: Wow--McCain is only at 65% in South Dakota. That is pretty friggin' heinous. He hasn't had an opponent for three months.
Update 5--Exit poll indicates Clinton South Dakota victory: The South Dakota exit poll shows Clinton ahead 53.8%--46.2%, according to the gender crosstabs. Hopefully, Obama will win Montana by more than Clinton wins South Dakota. Not exactly the sort of result I would have hoped for the night Obama clinches.
Updte 4--Lautenberg crushes Andrews in New Jersey Senate primary: Frank Lautenberg comfortably defeats corproate challenger Rob Andrews in the New Jersey Seenate primary. With 17% reporting, Lautenberg leads by a 2-1 margin. Good. This result will now be moved to the bottom, and updates will be infrequent.
Update 3--Explaining my delegate math: Obama now has 360.5 superdelegates according to their last email on Bob Brady (the campaign just hasn't updated its results website yet). Democratic Convention Watch shows Obama at 1749.5 pledged delegates. Exit polls indicate at least exactly 7 delegates for Obama in South Dakota. With a magic number of 2,117 (not 2,118), Obama is now 0.0 delegates from the nomination. Or, at least he will be, when South Dakota polls close.
Update 2--Obama to win Democratic nomination at 9 p.m.: Rep. Bob Brady endroses Barack Obama, putting Obama over the top in my count. Preliminary exit polls from South Dakota indicate Clinton will receive less than 60% of the vote, meaning that Obama will win at least 7 delegates in the state. As such, Barack Obama will become the Democratic nominee when South Dakota polls close at 9 p.m..
Update--Obama's Victory Speech? Drudge has supposedly obtained a copy of Obama's victory speech. You can read it here.
Several elections tonight. In the Iowa 3rd, we have Bush Dog incumbent Boswell vs. progressive challenger Ed Fallon. In New Jersey, we have Incumbent, machine-bakced, but generally progressive Frank Lautenberg vs. corporate challenger Andrews. And, of course, we have the final presidential primaries in Montana and South Dakota. I will begin live-blogging returns here at Open Left at 8 p.m., when the first polls close in South Dakota and all polls close in New Jersey. All polls close in Montana and South Dakota at 9 p.m. eastern. Polls close in the Iowa 3rd at 10 p.m., eastern.
What Is At Stake Tonight
Momentum. Currently, Barack Obama is precisely tied with John McCain in national polls, and effectively tied with McCain at the state, electoral college level. The ideal scenario for Obama to pick up momentum this week is to win both primaries tonight, reach the magic number tomorrow, and for Clinton to give her "acknowledging reality" speech on Thursday. That would give Obama three consecutive positive days of press coverage, and allow the nomination campaign to end on a positive note for the nominee.
The nightmare scenario for Obama is if he actually loses one of the two primaries tonight. As unlikely as it seems, this is actually possible. Poblano predicts Obama to win South Dakota by only 5%, and ARG predicts Obama to only win Montana by 4%. (Granted, Poblano predicts a Montana blowout while ARG predicts a South Dakota blowout.) Given that the Clinton's have been campaigning in the two states much harder than the Obama's, it is not out of the realm of the possible for Clinton to sneak out a victory tonight. This would be terrible for Obama, since wrapping up the nomination after a loss is exactly the sort of "stumbling across the line" scenario that has hurt Democrats, such as Walter Mondale and Jimmy Carter, in the past. So, a double victory for Obama tonight, while not important in terms of winning the nomination, is important in terms of positioning for the general election.
More of what is at stake, along with my personal predictions, tonight in the extended entry.
Thanks again to Matt and Chris for letting me post here about this race, and for creating an Open Left for Fallon page at Act Blue that has raised $6,200 so far.
It's election day in Iowa, and the Democratic primary between Congressman Leonard Boswell and Ed Fallon is one of the highest-profile races in the state.
Local bloggers are endorsing Fallon, and I think it's fair to say that the internet progressive activists are against Boswell. This is a particularly interesting quote, and suggest that Fallon's campaign is a very interesting experiment: "If you live in the district, you've likely run into Fallon at a town hall meeting or a local farmers' market in recent weeks, but you haven't received mailings because Ed doesn't accept PAC or lobbyist donations."
Fallon has done no TV, no mail, and accepted no PAC money from labor or corporations. All of his money has come from individual donors, and most of it over the internet. His campaign staff is up to 16 people doing persuasion phone work, events, and GOTV calls. He has no major endorsements from any labor unions, simply DFA, Change Congress, OpenLeft, Progressive Democrats of America, and the Progressive Coalition of Central Iowa. His campaign originated because of our Bush Dog arguments, and there are no independent expenditures helping him out. This is not Ned Lamont, who self-financed, or Donna Edwards, who had $900k of help from SEIU, Moveon, the Sierra Club, etc. Those groups have stayed out of this one.
Back on Wednesday, I argued that, if we do well enough in the 2008 elections, our once in a generation opportunity for real progressive change at the federal level will have arrived.
Of course, even if we do pull off a 75+ seat majority in the House, 60 seats in the Senate, and also win the White House this year, the key term to emphasize in the previous sentence is that this is still only an opportunity. Just having the these large majorities does not guarantee that good, progressive legislation will be passed to address the many huge problems we face. Will we go far enough to fix our climate change problems? Our food problems? Our health care problems? Our education problems? Our cradle to prison superhighway? Our housing problems? We are facing numerous major crises as a nation, and there is no guarantee that the still largely New Democratic dominated Democratic caucuses will go far enough to fix these problems.
One way to make sure that the upcoming progressive governing window will go far enough is to elect Ed Fallon to Congress, or at least push Leonard Boswell to the brink of defeat. Primary campaigns like these are just about the only way we progressives can hold our more conservative members of Congress accountable, and change their voting behavior for the better. For example, the only two Democratic votes we flipped on Iraq in 2007 came from Democrats who faced progressive primary challenges.
As the primary season winds down, Ed Fallon's progressive challenge to Leonard Boswell in the Iowa 3rd is one of our last chances to influence the behavior of the massive, incoming Democratic majorities in Congress. Let's make it count. Already, we are at 7082 donors for Ed Fallon, and we can push that up to 100. Donate to Ed Fallon today, and build a progressive governing majority in D.C.
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.
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.
I just got this thank you note from Ed Fallon for our fundraising. I was honestly shocked at how much you are willing to throw down against bad guys, and immensely proud.
Our race for Congress is a hard-fought one. It's tough running as a progressive candidate against a six-term incumbent who is well funded by corporate PACs and who has spent months attacking my character. As this campaign has worn on, I've been grateful for and encouraged by the coverage our race has received from Open Left.
And now, with less than a week before our primary, you have given me an additional boost with your fundraising on behalf of our campaign. Your donations will help us to answer the latest scurrilous attack from our opponent and the local 527 group supporting his campaign. The races for the presidential nomination and some other high-profile campaigns have made this a tough environment for raising money. But a lot is at stake in this central Iowa district. We have the opportunity to retire one of the Blue Dog Democratic votes that President Bush has been able to rely on to support the Iraq War, his assault on our civil liberties, and a host of other issues that have weakened our country at home and abroad. We have a chance to add another voice to the Progressive Caucus in Congress that will work for real, lasting change.
Thank you so much for your support.
Ed Fallon
Candidate for Congress
This is a tough race, but we're excited to back Ed. And since there's such an appetite among OpenLefties for supporting liberals, we're going to think about cool ways to fundraise for candidates that select for the most transformational of the bunch.
Still, if you want to know why Boswell is such a putz, just watch this video where he justifies - even today - the invasion of Iraq as a 'liberation'.
Over the few days, we have held a fundraiser on Open Left, and right now we stand only $3,000 short of our financial goal. However, for the next week, we are putting that fundraiser on hold, and instead asking you to contribute money to Ed Fallon instead, whose primary against conservative Bush Dog Leonard Boswell is only seven days away.
Matt's post earlier today covers many of the issues where Boswell is a Bush-enabling conservative, and an old post of mine from last August tackles several more. Suffice to say that at Open Left working toward a progressive governing majority is our tagline, and changing Bush Dog behavior was one of our very first campaigns (heck, Matt actually coined the term "Bush Dog.") It is difficult to find a clearer opportunity to take a step toward accomplishing both goals than the IA-03 primary campaign. Defeating Leonard Boswell would send a message to all 39 of the other Bush Dogs: stop supporting Bush policies, and start voting your districts, or you will be held accountable. If you support the founding missions of Open Left, then supporting Ed Fallon is a no-brainer.
Fallon is a serious candidate, and a proven winner in this district. Even before the Des Moines Register endorsement today, Fallon defeated an incumbent Democrat for state assembly in a primary in 1992, and did so by a 2-1 margin. Ten years later, also by 2-1 margins, he fended off party-backed primary challenges for his seat. In 2006, he won this district in the Gubernatorial primary. He is experienced at winning primaries in this district, and surely with the endorsement of the DMR he will be charging hard at the end of this campaign.
In his endorsement interview, Boswell talks about how we liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein and how the Iraqis have had elections.
Last week, I blogged about Ed Fallon and his race against Bush Dog Democrat Leonard Boswell. Fallon faces a tough race, but got a key boost this weekend. Here's what I noted on Saturday.
The hope for Fallon is that the media continues to report on the race in a substantive manner, and that Boswell's ducking of debates continues to annoy the voting public.
Today, the Des Moines Register endorsed Ed Fallon. Here's what it said about Boswell:
But currently holding the job of congressman doesn't mean a candidate automatically deserves to be re-elected. After interviewing both candidates and reviewing their records, the editorial board can no longer embrace the congressman as the best person to represent Iowa in Congress. Fallon is running under the slogan "new energy for Iowa." On June 3, Democrats in the 3rd District should give Fallon a chance to unleash some of his ideas and energy in Washington.
Why Boswell falls short
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.
One example: Boswell expressed skepticism about the financial problems facing Medicare, asking what economists the Register had consulted to conclude the health-care program was in fiscal trouble. It's hardly an issue for debate. The Medicare Board of Trustees has issued numerous reports outlining the trust fund's looming deficits. David Walker, former comptroller general, has expressed concerns about projected Medicare spending. Yet Boswell talked about further studying the issue rather than proposing how to address it.
On immigration, he suggested that undocumented immigrants should go back to their home countries and "get in line" for a chance to come here. That's hardly realistic considering there are an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.
When asked about Republican presidential candidate John McCain's prediction the previous day that most American troops could be home from Iraq by 2013, Boswell seemed unaware of McCain's statement. When asked about education in Iowa, Boswell said the state does "pretty good." And when asked what he based that on, he said Iowa's history and his own experience. But Iowa's educational system - not to mention the world economy - looks nothing like it did in Boswell's childhood.
Fallon has endorsed Obama, whereas Boswell is a Clinton superdelegate. There couldn't be a more stark difference. Here's Fallon's letter on May 10th to Boswell on his vote in the Intelligence Committee offering retroactive immunity to telecom companies.
May 10, 2008
The Hon. Leonard Boswell
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.
Dear Congressman Boswell:
I am writing today to ask you to disclose to the people of our district how you voted last week in the House Intelligence Committee on Rep. Heather Wilson's measure to add the Senate-approved FISA bill to the fiscal year 2009 intelligence authorization bill.
Published reports indicate that one of the Democratic members of the committee voted in support of Rep. Wilson's measure, thus supporting the Bush Administration's agenda of giving retroactive immunity to the telecom companies for assisting in the Administration's program of eavesdropping on Americans. You were also one of the 21 Democrats who signed a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi on January 28, 2008, asking the House to grant such retroactive immunity to the telecom companies.
Your original and continued support of the so-called "Protect America Act" and of the PATRIOT Act is an issue to be addressed in public debates. As one of your constituents, I want to know why you supported these bills, and whether you continue to support them. In particular, I want to know whether you continue to support granting retroactive immunity to telecom companies.
On a related matter, I am disappointed that you have refused to debate me, and I encourage you to reconsider. You and I both know that, as candidates for public office, we have a responsibility to voters to let them see us, face-to-face, discussing the key issues facing our district, state, and nation. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Ed Fallon
Candidate for Congress
We are thinking of doing a special OpenLeft fundraiser for Fallon.
We're headed for a realigning period in American politics, but whether we get there with a group of conservative Democrats or progressive Democrats is an open question. In fact, in many ways, it's the political question.
Who will Obama be as President? If he is confronted with 60 Blue Dogs in the House that feel no pressure, he will be a moderate President, necessarily. If he has progressive allies advocating from the left pressing for a low carbon economy, a sustainable food system, and a return to a civil society that respects the rule of law and criminalizes torture, he will be progressive. The place to make this change is in primaries, but there is a reason most DC groups won't go there. It is because when you try to go after someone within the party, party establishment figures go after you. It's a compendium of little things, from denying credentials to conventions to being unable to find consultants and pollsters and media buyers to work a race.
The political market is divided into Democrats and Republicans, and if you don't play by the standard partisan rules, you get pushed out. And so it's not a surprise that after Donna Edwards in Maryland's fourth district, there is only one other significant primary going on, in Iowa's third: incumbent Bush Dog Leonard Boswell versus progressive activists Ed Fallon.
Fallon is hated by the establishment, much more so than Donna. He has raised a much smaller amount of money, around $200,000 versus $900,000 for Donna. The Iowa legislature actually passed a law during this campaign making it harder for Fallon to take a salary from an organization he runs, just to be punitive. Fallon is a pure anti-establishment guy; he beat an incumbent to get into the state legislature, and then came in third in the gubernatorial primary against the current Governor of the state (though winning the third district). He backed Edwards first, and now he backed Obama, though in 2000, he supported Nader. He refuses PAC money of all kinds, and has taken the Change Congress pledge put forward by Larry Lessig. There is literally no one less likely to piss off the establishment than Ed Fallon.
On the other side is Leonard Boswell, a 74 year old conservative Democrat representing a liberal district. Boswell is a Vietnam vet, and has been in Congress for twelve years, though redestricting changed the contours of who he represented; local politicos tell me that he has 'yet to jell with the district'. In other words, he's a jerk. A mean, curmodgeonly, sonuvabitch. About two thirds of his money comes from corporate and labor PACs.
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. My favorite is factory hog confinements, which are industrial size pig farms that create football field size pools of shit in rural areas. Boswell is for them. He's a mean-spirited, degraded, evil man who wants to jail immigrants, torture people, burn more coal, hurt the middle class while paying off the wealthy, and help AT&T spy on all of us to boot.
Boswell is also corrupt, sending out taxpayer funded mailers promoting himself and using $1.1M in PAC and wealthy interests to blanket the district. The abuse of franking privileges is a fairly common problem in Congress, but it's still the use of taxpayer money to run a political campaign. Nevertheless, the establishment closed ranks around him instantly, with major endorsements from labor, public officials and even liberal Senator Tom Harkin. This has resulted in a twenty four point lead in the only poll taken in the race for Boswell, back in April.
Boswell is a Blue Dog, and as part of that group, has pushed aggressively for retroactive immunity for telecom companies. While he has backed off his strident pro-war record since the primary began, in a recent intelligence committee vote, he was in all likelihood the vote that flipped the committee from 12-9 to 11-10 on immunity provisions. We don't know for sure, because he's ducking debates with Fallon, ten at this point, which means it is difficult to get him on the record.
The primary is on June 3, and Fallon has several advantages to offset Boswell's massive warchest and establishment help. He's the candidate of change, having endorsed Obama while Boswell (who is also a superdelegate) hews to Clinton. Yard signs in the district that have Obama signs tend to also have Fallon signs, and vice versa with Clinton. Obama took the district. It's also a low turnout primary. The Iowa caucuses have already happened, so people who vote again in a lower ticket race are going to vote for either Fallon or Boswell, so Fallon has a stronger activist core likely to vote in June. Finally, the media narrative is changing. Throughout most of the race, the media has been attacking Flalon for petty meaningless campaign problems, going along with Boswell's critique that Fallon is small-time and refusing to cover issus. Recently, that shifted, and Fallon's position on hog confinements is getting wide press
The hope for Fallon is that the media continues to report on the race in a substantive manner, and that Boswell's ducking of debates continues to annoy the voting public. He won't have the money to spend against Boswell, and he won't have the party establshment, so we'll see what his activists can do.
Jim Webb keeps getting bandied about as the answer to Obama's Appalachia woes. Of course, Webb's base in 2006 was, um, white liberals in Northern Virginia.
Iowa Democratic candidate for Congress Ed Fallon on Monday proposed a federal ban on the construction or expansion of large-scale livestock confinements by corporations.
Fallon, a former state representative from Des Moines, blamed corporate hog confinements for some of the economic ills facing rural Iowa.
"Part of Main Street and rural Iowa's problem is the shrinking base of on-farm employment in the small towns and the surrounding rural areas," Fallon said in a Des Moines Register interview. "Nowhere is that more evident than in hog production."
Advertisement
Fallon is challenging six-term Rep. Leonard Boswell, also a Des Moines Democrat, in the June 3 primary for Iowa's 3rd Congressional District.
Fallon echoed former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards in calling for a halt to new or expanded hog confinements. Fallon supported Edwards in the campaign for the 2008 Iowa caucuses.
Boswell opposes a moratorium on livestock confinements.
McCain's medical records will be released on Friday. Interesting how they put them out on a Friday.
A little more than two weeks before the Democratic primary in Iowa's third Congressional district, Ed Fallon has challenged Congressman Leonard Boswell to shift his support as a superdelegate from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama.
It's a shrewd move for several reasons that I will describe after the jump.
House Democrats continued to block passage of a terrorist surveillance bill today, rejecting a measure by Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) to add the Senate-passed FISA bill to the fiscal 2009 Intelligence authorization bill. The amendment was defeated by one vote in the House Intelligence Committee, the latest proof that the Senate bill would pass the House if Speaker Nancy Pelosi allowed it to come to the House floor.
There are 12 Democrats on the Committee and 9 Republicans, which means that we lost a Democrat on this vote. The members are Silvestre Reyes, Leonard L. Boswell, Robert E. (Bud) Cramer, Jr, Anna G. Eshoo, Rush D. Holt, Dutch Ruppersberger, John Tierney, Mike Thompson, Jan Schakowsky, Jim Langevin, Patrick Murphy, and Adam Schiff.
Of these, only two signed the letter asking the House to pass retroactive immunity for telecom companies, Bud Cramer and Leonard Boswell.
Boswell faces a progressive primary challenger, Ed Fallon. An extremely vicious Iowa establishment and a complicit Iowa media has been denying Fallon the oxygen he needs to win because they just don't like him. Fallon and Boswell lawn signs are popping up in the district, with Fallon signs situated next to 'Vote Hope' signs and Boswell signs next to 'Hillary' signs. Boswell is leading by about 20 points or so in the latest polling.
It's a low turnout primary in June, and the media narrative has focused on Fallon's support of Nader in 2000 rather than Boswell's voting record for the past five years. Boswell in fact won't debate Fallon, saying that he's just too busy in Washington to respond to misinformation that would inevitably arise. So Boswell's voting record is completely unscrutinized.
If I were Fallon's campaign, I would be sending an open letter to Boswell asking if he voted to allow AT&T to break the law by wiretapping American citizens. That committee vote should have been 12-9. It ended up being 11-10. Was it Bush Dog Boswell who helped out his campaign contributors and in the process covered up Bush administration crimes? We know he voted for the war, for the Protect American Act, and for hundreds of billions in war funding. We know he's funded by corporate PAC money. It seems like a logical question.
STATE BLOGS
