Last year, Blue Dog Leonard Boswell received a left-wing primary challenge from former state Representative Ed Fallon. Boswell's central, and perhaps only, message to left-wing and new media-focused Democrats was his endorsement by Al Gore. Desmoinesdem explained at the time:
Accompanying these messages, Boswell's campaign has made sure to remind Iowa Democrats that Al Gore supports Boswell, whereas Fallon supported Ralph Nader for president in 2000. A photo of Al and Tipper Gore, along with a letter from Gore endorsing Boswell, are prominently displayed on the front page of the Boswell campaign's website.(...)
Last Thursday another glossy mailer from the Boswell campaign arrived in my mailbox. This one focused on Gore's endorsement of Boswell, with a large photo and a letter from the former vice-president. Here is an excerpt from that piece (all bolded passages were bold in the original):
Leonard Boswell, a remarkable congressman and my friend, is facing a serious primary challenge.
Whether the issue is global warming or increasing the minimum wage, making college more affordable or expanding health care to every American, Leonard Boswell is on the front lines of these issues, working hard for Iowans every day.
Democrats and Republicans on the committee took turns criticizing the legislation. Their chief complaint is that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, rather than the U.S. Department of Agriculture, would be in a charge of the credit program through which farmers could get paid for practices that store crop residue in the soil or otherwise reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
"As this bill stands today, I can't vote for it," Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Ia., told Vilsack. "I don't know of anyone else in the committee who can."
Al Gore is arguing that the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation has "the moral significance equivalent to that of the civil rights legislation of the 1960s and the Marshall Plan of the late 1940s." Now, Leonard Boswell, along with seemingly all other Democrats on the Agriculture Committee, is hijacking climate change legislation unless it removes the EPA's authority to determine carbon offsets. Note that this is already on top of the bill's provision to eliminate the EPA's ability to regulate carbon itself, which is actually a step backward for climate change regulation in the Unites states.
The reason I bring is up is that, whenever groups like Friends of the Earth or Greenpeace criticize Waxman-Markey for not going far enough, they are immediately smacked down by bloggers like Joe Romm at Climate Progress for failing to offer up "politically realistic" alternatives. However, if this is all about political realism, then why are we seeing the following from Al Gore and Climate Progress in response to the Agriculture Committee's actions:
Al Gore has not made a single public statement about either Leonard Boswell or the Agriculture Committee, despite what they are currently doing to Waxman-Markey.. This is even though Boswell largely owes his position in Congress to Al Gore. One might think that political realists would use this past support to try and influence Boswell in some manner.
Climate Progress have never even mentioned Leonard Boswell once for the more than three years of their existence
according to Google. In fact, Climate Progress has never directly attacked the actions of the Agriculture Committee in the same way that it has repeatedly, and sometimes viciously, attacked environmental groups that criticize of the bill from the left. All Climate Progress is doing about the Agriculture Committee's actions is putting up articles declaring that the House will pass the bill, and a guest post very politely telling farmers why it would be super swell if they supported global warming legislation.
As such, here is my message for the self-proclaimed political realists who are supporters of Waxman-Markey:
The Democrats on the Agriculture Committee are probably, as a group, the most electorally vulnerable Democrats on any House committee. Some of the Democratic members of this committee, like Leonard Boswell, owe their continuing presence in Congress to people like Al Gore, and certainly to hundreds of progressive donors who would be upset about what Agriculture Committee Democrats are currently doing to climate change legislation. As such, either start directly attacking these vulnerable Democrats in progressive media and Democratic fundraising circles for what they are doing to Waxman-Markey, or stop priding yourself on your political realism.
If Waxman-Markey really is so unbelievably awesome, as both Al Gore and Climate Progress keep arguing, then we should be doing everything possible to pass it. Instead, Al Gore and Climate Progress seem to be giving the Democrats on the Agriculture Committee a free pass on significantly watering down the bill. I have no idea this is happening, but it certainly isn't because they are using all available, politically realistic means to pass Waxman-Markey.
Start playing some hardball, or stop telling us that we are about to get the best climate change bill politically possible.
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.
I went to the 50th wedding anniversary of some old friends in Des Moines over the weekend, and the Fallon/Boswell race had everybody talking. The crowd there- mostly older labor union people- was split down the middle in terms of who was supporting who, but the interesting thing was that the Boswell campaign has gone over the top with nasty mailings about Ed that it is causing a serious backlash. With his money and huge name ID edge, and the fact that Boswell has kept in good touch with the district and is well-liked personally, he should have won this race without breaking a sweat. I'll be surprised if Ed can win with all of Boswell's advantages.
But Boswell's over-the-top negative campaign against Ed has caused a serious negative reaction, and has got everyone talking. I talked to at least half a dozen people who said they were planning to vote for Leonard, but have switched to Ed because of the mailings, and even Boswell's supporters have been made nervous and set on edge by the mailings.
I think Ed will fall a little short tonight, but if he wins, give at least some of the credit to Boswell's mistakes.
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.
Desmoinesdem has the latest on the Fallon-Boswell race below, and is not confident in Fallon's chances. I spoke with Fallon's campaign manager last night, and she believes and has data to suggest that Boswell is in trouble. It's going to be a low turnout affair, and Boswell has backed Clinton whereas Fallon has backed Obama. And she raises the good point about Boswell, which is that he hasn't fully released any internal polls, a weird trend if a candidate is doing well. On the other hand, there has been one public poll in the race, and Fallon was down by a little more than twenty points in April.
Bill Clinton calls Todd Purdum, the reporter who published the hit piece in Vanity Fair, a scumbag and said that Purdum has done bad journalism since Whitewater.
John Bresnahan has a good profile of Pelosi's consolidation of power in the House, over such status quo stalwarts as Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel, and Jim Clyburn.
Jonathan S. Landay at McClatchy report that both Obama and McCain are exaggerating the threat from Iran.
The presumptive Republican nominee for president and the leading contender for the Democratic nomination are exaggerating what's known about Iran's nuclear program as they duel over how best to deal with Tehran.
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., say that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
The U.S. intelligence community, however, thinks that Iran halted an effort to build a nuclear warhead in mid-2003, and the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, which is investigating the program, has found no evidence to date of an active Iranian nuclear-weapons project.
Jordan Fabian and Bob Cusack report that superdelegates like Jason Altmire are ready to break for Obama at the end of the week.
Obama has a historical debt to Harold Ickes because of his work liberalizing and opening the primary process in the 1960s and 1970s. I'll add that Ickes was the floor manager for the vicious 1980 convention fight between Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter, which ultimately got rid of the robot rule forcing delegates to vote for the person they pledged to.
The big question is when Clinton bows out of the race, and there are splits at the top of the campaign about this question. What are you reading?
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'.
The fundraiser for Fallon is going incredibly well, with all of us pitching in. I chipped in $45 when the amount on our page hit $955, so we could hit $1000 cleanly, and now we're at $1745. You guys are amazing, but also dedicated. It's important to understand that we may lose this primary, but that what is important is that we are willing to take risks to support candidates who stand up against the status quo. And that is Ed Fallon.
This is the kind of shit we're dealing with from his opponent, Leonard Boswell.
That's a mailer sent out by an anti-Fallon 527 run by a developer who will reap rewards from one of Boswell's earmarks. It criticizes Fallon's vote against residency restrictions for child sex offenders; Fallon was the only legislator in Iowa to vote against them. Even though prosecutors of these crimes say these laws don't work. The pandering on the fears of the middle class and the creation of a fear-based atmosphere is a key hallmark of a politics that doesn't work, and it's precisely this kind of fear-mongering that is paralyzing our political system.
If you want to stop child predators, there are many ways of doing it. The politicians who voted for this law really didn't care about stopping child predators, just as the developer who paid for this mailer and the corporate PAC backers of Boswell are just seeking standard legislative favors.
I spoke with Fallon's campaign manager yesterday, and she told me that they are going to use the money we raise for response mailers to this piece. I thought we'd hit $1000, which would pay for about a tenth of what it would cost. We ended up going beyond that in only a few hours. If you'd like to contribute, you can do so here.
The Obama campaign is doing well because it is rejecting these kinds of divisive and unproductive political attacks. That is why, you might have guessed, Fallon endorsed Obama, and Boswell endorsed Clinton.
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.
In just a few minutes, Iowa state legislator and candidate for Congress Ed Fallon will be joining us for a live blog at 1pm et over at the EENR Blog. Get your questions ready and let's get the conversation going!
One of the first candidates the bloggers of EENR decided to endorse was state legislator Ed Fallon running for Congress in Iowa's 3rd c.d. It wasn't a difficult choice. Ed Fallon is a progressive's progressive. In his 14 years as a legislator in Iowa's House, he never accepted PAC/lobbyist money. Fallon had his values in place long before it was the progressive thing to do to refuse lobbyist/PAC money. Here's a statement from Fallon about why he's running for Congress:
Our country needs and wants change. I'm ready to take on the corporate interests who have corrupted our federal government. I'm ready to give working families and the poor a voice in national politics. I'm ready to do what I can to see that environmental issues are taken seriously inside the beltway. I'm ready to apply what I've learned during 23 years of public service in Iowa and be a part of the solution in Washington.
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."
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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.
Less than a month before the Democratic primary to represent Iowa's third district, Ed Fallon is trying to make Congressman Leonard Boswell either debate him or pay a political price for refusing to debate.
Join me after the jump for more on that and other recent developments in the race.
