Saturday, November 29, 2008

Black women may want to rethink their hostility to gay marriage

According to exit polls, of the black women who voted earlier this month in California, 75 percent opposed gay marriage.

They may to rethink that for their own health.

Consider this from The New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow:
More specifically, blacks overwhelmingly say that homosexuality isn’t morally acceptable. So many black men hide their sexual orientations and engage in risky behavior. This has resulted in large part in black women’s becoming the fastest-growing group of people with H.I.V. In a 2003 study of H.I.V.-infected people, 34 percent of infected black men said they had sex with both men and women, while only 6 percent of infected black women thought their partners were bisexual. Tragic. (In contrast, only 13 percent of the white men in the study said they had sex with both men and women, while 14 percent of the white women said that they knew their partners were bisexual.)

Razorlight's 'Wire to Wire'



This will be an international hit.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Who knew? You can fly direct from Grand Island, Neb., to Vegas

This is really surprising but kind of cool for rural types like me -- just to know that you can get from a place like Grand Island to Vegas on a direct flight. Here is The Grand Island Independent:

In September, Allegiant Air ended nonstop flights from Lincoln to Las Vegas, shifting the flights to Grand Island’s airport. Although leisure travel is expected to decrease nationally because of the economic downturn, twice-a-week flights from Grand Island to Las Vegas continue to hit an average of 91 percent occupancy, Olson said.

The flights can hold 150 people; the average flight carries 136, and “99.9 percent of our travelers are going to Vegas for leisure,” Olson said.

It may seem counterintuitive — full flights to the nation’s playground in the midst of an economic crisis.

Obama and 'The Godfather'

John Deeth has a wonderfully entertaining post about Barack Obama and parallels with his political moves and some of the president-elect's favorite movies -- the first two "Godfather" installments.


One of the very first posts I wrote on this site, six years ago, was titled "Everything I Needed To Learn I Learned From The Godfather." I'd seen the movie when I was young, but it wasn't until I was middle aged, with a decade or so in politics behind me, that I really got the Machiavellian machinations and political parallels.

So now we have a fun tool with which to analyze the new administration.

Monday, November 24, 2008

GOP in 2012: Bobby Jindal takes first test in Iowa



WEST DES MOINES — Louisiana’s 37-year-old Republican governor, already in short-list territory as a potential presidential candidate for 2012, made what could be considered an initial foray into Iowa with a keynote speech Saturday in Des Moines on cultural values to one of the Hawkeye State’s major Christian conservative organizations.

Bobby Jindal, a Rhodes Scholar whose meteoric rise through Louisiana politics has national party leaders eyeing him as Oval Office material, told the Carroll Daily Times Herald there are more important matters to think about than speculation about his prospects as a leader of a resurrected Republican Party.

He has a big job as governor of Louisiana, Jindal said politely, in a brief exchange.

But there was no doubting that Iowa Republicans Saturday were taking the measure of the Louisianan as they begin an inter-party debate to define the GOP brand for a generation. Will they go for the emotional appeal of a Sarah Palin or seek more intellectual ballast with the policy-rich mind of a Jindal?

Early in a speech to an audience of 800 at an Iowa Family Policy Center dinner in West Des Moines’ Sheraton Hotel Jindal, who had been in eastern Iowa earlier in the day to tour flooded area, said simply “enough is enough” with the presidential handicapping for 2012.

That said, State Rep. Linda Upmeyer, R-Garner, sees Jindal as being able to effectively to bridge social conservatives and the more economically main street Republicans.

Upmeyer said she thinks Jindal would do well in Iowa in 2012, should he run, noting that he’s clearly articulate and passionate.

Additionally, Upmeyer, who considers herself a social conservative, said Jindal passed something of a first-impression gut or smell test with conservatives, that they see him as one of them.

“I think he did,” she said.

A reporter from the New Orleans Times-Picayune followed Jindal to Iowa and wrote a story for the Sunday edition of that paper examining the governor’s potential as a future GOP presidential candidate in Iowa.

A graduate of Brown University who later went to Oxford, England on a Rhodes Scholarship, Jindal at age 24 was appointed as Louisiana’s secretary of the Department of Health and Hospitals. In 2004, Jindal, a second-generation Indian American, who is Catholic, was elected to Congress, and then became governor in 2007.

In the speech Jindal said that Democrats overreach if they see a mandate in the election of Barack Obama as president.

The nation didn’t suddenly veer to the left, he said.

“We’re still a center-right country,” Jindal said.

Voters quite directly rejected Republicans on management — not philosophy or ideology, he added.

“They fired us with cause,” Jindal said. “Let’s be honest.”

Jindal quickly moved from politics to the meat of his speech, addressing American culture.

His speech focused heavily on efforts in Louisiana to deal with sex offenders.
Jindal strongly supports the death penalty for sex offenders whose victims are children. The governor also has backed legislation to lengthen sentences for sex offenders.

On the same day last summer when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to execute a child rapist if the victim isn’t killed, striking down a Louisiana decision, a furious Jindal signed a law mandating castration of certain second-time sex offenders.

“If you intend to harm a child you better stay out of the State of Louisiana,” Jindal said.

He said those who find comfort in computer maps showing the places sex offenders live are missing the point.

“I’d be much more impressed to find out they are all in one — the state penitentiary,” Jindal said.

Moving to the economy, Jindal said the current economic crisis has cultural and moral roots as the housing and stock market freefalls are in large part the result of “unchecked avarice.”

In his speech, Jindal also showed the ability to effectively use the humorous anecdote. Following Hurricane Katrina, Jindal’s 3-year-old daughter asked him before bed one night, why, when she prayed to God to protect the state from the wrath of the weather, did so many people die?

“I said, ‘Sweetheart, go back to sleep. When you wake up, ask mommy. She knows everything,’” Jindal said.

Adam Freed, an Urbandale attorney, said he left the event with a favorable impression of Jindal.

“I thought he gave a very compelling speech,” Freed said. “I thought he definitely hit all the issues I agree on right on the head.”

Freed said Jindal’s focus on culture was key.

“I think a lot of times in the secular culture we just kind of forget about the fact that we need the cultural underpinning to make our system work,” Freed said. “We need to have consistent values that everybody agrees with.”

Hazel Anderson, a homemaker in Altoona and a New Orleans native, said Jindal connected with the audience when talking about protecting children from crime.

“I thought it was wonderful because the children are the future leaders,” she said.
Anderson said Jindal reached the GOP activists who will be vital in determining which candidate emerges from Iowa in 2012.

“I think he said good things for this audience,” Anderson said.

UPDATE: Eastern Iowa blogger John Deeth -- my old colleague at Iowa Independent -- covered the Jindal event in Cedar Rapids earlier in the day and had some thoughtful takes.


Photo: Louisiana Gov Bobby Jindal, a Republican, spoke to about 800 people at an Iowa Family Policy Center dinner on Saturday in Des Moines. The socially conservative organization is a major force in Iowa Republican politics, and Jindal is already being talked about as a possible presidential candidate in 2012.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Unbelievable!



As an Iowan I know that Thanksgiving -- the way we recognize it -- relies on killing birds. That said, this is the most unbelievable backdrop for a political interview I've ever seen in my life -- or in a movie. Palin just keeps getting more absurd. Bobby Jindal better do some fast talking to get her off center stage.

A new Wal-Mart effect?

This item in The New York Times is, well, not unexpected but very odd:

When Best Buy announced its latest sales figures last month, the company reported “an unprecedented drop in consumer buying of items like flat-screen televisions,” said Ori Brafman, a business expert and an author, with his brother, Rom, of “Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior,” out since June from Doubleday Business. “But when Wal-Mart released its report last week, there was a surprise. Consumers had increased their flat-screen purchases. Somehow, because Wal-Mart feels like a bargain store, shoppers who have deprived themselves of luxury items elsewhere rationalized their purchases at Wal-Mart as ‘getting a good deal,’ ” Mr. Brafman continued. “Granted, flat-panel TV’s at Wal-Mart might run a little cheaper than elsewhere, but no financial adviser would include one on his or her list of Items to Buy During Tough Times.”

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Vetting Jindal

In doing some research prior to the upcoming Bobby Jindal Iowa visit, Iowa Political Alert came across these:

At The New Orleans Times-Picayune, Stephanie Grace has this:

Ever since the presidential race ended and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin shed her strong-armed handlers from the McCain campaign, boy, has she been talking.

And the more she talks, the better Gov. Bobby Jindal looks.

Facing a serious-minded Democratic president-elect, many in the GOP are looking for a serious-minded leader of the loyal opposition. The more time Palin spends trying to live down her campaign season wardrobe excesses, proving she's a regular gal by scooping out moose chili on camera, and still -- still -- struggling to answer questions on policy, the more she inspires the question: Who else have the Republicans got?


And Brendan Miniter in The Wall Street Journal:
Mr. Jindal is a boy wonder of the party. At 25, he was appointed to fix Louisiana's failing Medicaid program, and succeeded. At 32, he lost a hard-fought campaign for governor but later landed a Congressional seat from which he criticized bureaucratic bungling in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Last year, after Katrina had destroyed Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco's reputation, he won his second bid for the office by promising sweeping reform of Louisiana's corrupt and inefficient government culture.

'Milk' earning stellar reviews



In light of the passage of Proposition 8 in California this movie has more relevancy. Peter Travers (the best movie reviewer in the nation) calls the movie a classic, and writes in Rolling Stone that Sean Penn gives a transcendent peformance as Harvey Milk, the San Francisco pol who in the 1970s was the firat openly homosexual man elected to office in the nation.

Bobby Jindal in Iowa Saturday

How Iowa benefits from new House Energy & Commerce Chair

Over in eastern Iowa, one of the state's top bloggers and political analysts, John Deeth, has an insightful post today about how a new chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee could be a big deal for the Hawkeye State.

Iowa may have been a big winner in today's epic vote that stripped a powerful committee chairmanship from the senior member of the House of Representatives.

Rep. Henry Waxman of California was elected chair of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, defeating incumbent John Dingell of Michigan. The vote was a 137-122 secret ballot in a closed door meeting, but Rep. Bruce Braley of Waterloo was one of three speakers on Waxman's behalf.


Dingell, it should be noted, had long been an opponent of Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses. Now that he's out of power -- and Obama is in -- the future of our place at the front of the line is much more secure.

His wife: Another example of why Culver should have vetoed smoking ban

This is getting ridiculous. If Iowa's First Lady Mari Culver wants to smoke a cigarette in her vehicle, she should be able to do so.

But alas she cannot as her husband, Chet Culver, eager for a legislative achievement in the last session, signed the ridiculous smoking ban into law.

Now, not only do we have the sight of huddled masses outside small town bars (in which a majority of patrons had smoked along with the employees for years) but we have The Des Moines Register nailing the first lady for smoking in a state car.

It's a fair story. As a smoker one element I did find troubling is that she was smoking as a passanger with s atate trooper driving. Is he a smoker, too, or did he feel pressured to deal with the second-hand smoke instead of nicotine-deprived first lady.

Mari -- who is a super classy lady -- doesn't deserve to got knocked around too much on this one. Maybe Chet could buy her a new car for Christmas so she can fire back heaters at will. DSM isn't that challenging of a place to drive.

At the very least Culver should exempt bars from this ban -- which should be tossed altogether.

Hispanics want Obama's first U.S. Supreme Court appointment

BY DOUGLAS BURNS
Iowa Political Alert Editor

The Hispanic juggernaut that helped propel Barack Obama to his historic election is looking for barrier-shattering changes for its community -- sooner rather than later.

There is of course, immigration reform. But it doesn't stop there.

Hispanic advocates are calling on Obama to figure its community in appointments, and the president of the National Hispanic Bar Association (NHBA) has called on Obama to fill the first U.S. Supreme Court vacancy with a Latino.

"We hope that you will choose to make history yet again by nominating a Hispanic to fill the first Supreme Court vacancy that occurs during your term," wrote the HNBA's Ramona E. Romero in a letter to Obama.

No Hispanic has ever served on the U.S. Supreme Court.

In an interview with La Prensa, a western Iowa Spanish-language paper, in 2007, well before the Iowa Caucuses, Obama pledged to move on comprehensive immigration reform in his first year as president.

Later, in a July session with the National Council of La Raza, Obama made a similar promise.



He has a major incentive to keep his promises, as do the majority Democrats.

Latinos went for Obama by a margin of 2 to 1, and a retention of this community in the Democratic column jeopardizes the very existence of a national Republican Party.

But with a flagging economy (the treasury secretary today fieled questions about a potential Depression) the question for the Hispanic community is this: can Obama dare make immigration reform a priority.

"Obama is committed to [comprehensive immigration reform] in the long run, and his debt to Latino voters will ensure that he makes good on his promise," Daniel Kowalski of Bender's Immigration Bulletin told The New York Daily News. "But it will take time - 2012 at the earliest, probably later."

But the Democrats -- with some Senate seats still in the balance -- have huge majorities, and the simple resurrection of the compromise immigration bill that Obama supported -- along with John McCain -- could go a long way toward solidifying Hispanic loyalty to Democrats for a generation. At least 10 million Latino voters cast ballots, an increase in participation of 32% from the 2004 Presidential Election.

"The question for Democrats as they think about tackling immigration reform is, are they going to take (Hispanic support) for granted or are they going to feel they need to do something in the shorter term in order to solidify it?" Tamar Jacoby, the CEO of ImmigrationWorksUSA, a national employers' coalition, told Reuters.

While he pulled the support at the polls earlier this months and retains generalized goodwill, there is concern among the Latino community that Obama is not being inclusive enough of them in forming his administration.

Consider this from the immigrant advocacy Web site, Feet In 2 Worlds:
The National Latino Opinion Leaders Survey was conducted between Nov. 8 and 14. Over 900 Latinos in the U.S. and Puerto Rico — community leaders, activists, government officials, business people, and members of nonprofit organizations, religion, academia and the media — took part, according to the institute, which published a summary of the study on Monday through its electronic newsletter.

When asked “if the Obama team was adequately including Latinos in the transition process, 32 percent said ‘no’, 46 percent were not sure or didn’t know, and only 22 percent said ‘yes.’ 53 percent said that the Democratic Party was not being responsive to the needs of the Latino community, as opposed to 21 percent who said it was responsive.

New York Daily News Obama photo gallery



The New York Daily News has a remarkable collection of everyday photos of President-elect Barack Obama.

Harkin: Detroit turnaround should be fueled by Iowa



U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin today said a possible federal rescue plan for Detroit automakers could include provisions that advance Iowa-produced energy.

In a conference call with the Daily Times Herald and other media this morning Harkin said he’s talked with key players in the process about hiking the blend in ethanol from “E10” to E15 or E20. What’s more, the Iowa Democrat is pushing for requirements on flexible-fuel vehicles that run on traditional petroleum as well as biodiesel, ethanol and other sources.

“That would be a step in the right direction,” Harkin said.

With Illinoisan Barack Obama two months away from taking the oath of office as president, Iowa’s renewable fuels industry is in a prime position, Harkin said.

Obama made renewable energy an important component of his campaign in Iowa during the caucuses. Now, the Hawkeye State is poised to benefit quickly as the next president shepherds in what is expected to be something of a green revolution, Harkin said.

“It’s a whole new industry for the state of Iowa,” Harkin said.

He said a federal economic stimulus package Obama has pledged to enact if the current Congress doesn’t move first would surely include a major push for renewable energy because of the job-creating potential.

Iowa could quadruple its wind energy production over the next decade as state and federal efforts ramp up with an Obama administration, Iowa Utilities Board Chairman John Norris told The Storm Lake Times in a recent interview.

Harkin sees the wind energy development occurring in concert with progress on electric cars.

“That way you can run your car on wind energy,” Harkin said.

Norris also expects that the biofuels industry will get a significant boost over the first term of the next Congress as Barack Obama takes the presidency.

Norris told The Storm Lake Times that much of the wind energy expansion will occur in Northwest and North Central Iowa, where wind resources are the greatest.

According to The Storm Lake Times, the two biggest obstacles to expanded wind production are the lack of a carbon cost system and a federal requirement that utility companies must generate a percentage of their power from renewable resources — called a renewable portfolio standard (RPS), Norris said. Obama includes both in his green energy plan — devoting $10 billion per year to renewable energy in hopes of creating 5 million jobs.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Could wind energy do for Iowa what oil does for Alaska?



Sarah Palin's hockey mom bona fides appears to be in order.

But the checks in the mailboxes for every Alaskan during a time of high oil prices no doubt have something to do with her much-trumpeted popularity there.

As a profile of Alaska in The New Yorker points out, full-time residents of that state get a cut of the oil profits.

Alaska is sometimes described as America’s socialist state, because of its collective ownership of resources—an arrangement that allows permanent residents to collect a dividend on the state’s oil royalties. It has been Palin’s good fortune to govern the state at a time of record oil prices, which means record dividend checks: two thousand dollars for every Alaskan. And because high oil prices also mean staggering heating bills in such a cold place—and because it’s always good politics to give money to voters—Palin got the legislature this year to send an extra twelve hundred dollars to every Alaskan man, woman, and child.


This recalls a fascinating idea about development of a massive state-owned wind farm from a former Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Iowa, Gregg Connell, who was in the race for a while in 2006 before his candidacy tragically ended after he was involved in a fatal car accident that killed another driver in western Iowa.

It was the big idea of that election -- and because Connell, who has served as Shenandoah mayor, a long-time Vision Iowa board member and executive vice president of the Shenandoah Chamber and Industry Association, only spent enough time in the race to hit some western Iowa media with visits, not too many people heard it. When one reads about how Alaskans benefit from oil controlled by the state, and when I see Mid-American Energy building wind turbines closer to my house in Carroll, Iowa, than Russia is from Sarah Palin's, it makes me wonder about whether Connell was on to something back in 2005 when he launched his candidacy. Could the state pull money from the wind and use the profits to buoy any number of ventures from education to infrastructure to Alaska-style checks to residents?

Specifically, Connell proposed the creation of a State of Iowa wind energy utility with 540 turbines, a $1 billion venture he plans to finance with $50 million a year or 17 percent the state’s cut of casino revenue of about $260 million annually.

The state would develop the wind farms and much of the power generated would be sold as “green energy” to states that have renewable-energy standards, he said.

“I would guess that a significant amount of it would be sold to states that have renewable energy portfolio standards of maybe 5 percent to 10 percent,” Connell said.

He said the massive wind farms likely would be located in northwest Iowa, an area with favorable wind patterns for energy production.

He predicts a return to the state of $100 million annually from the wind utility, and Connell proposes using 25 percent of that to fund a “Manhattan Project” for renewable energy in Iowa in which the research capability of state universities is used to accelerate growth of the biomass, biodiesel and ethanol, solar and hydrogen-cell industries.

There are, of course, solid arguments about government staying out of the way of private business (although this is not the best time to make those in the wake of the calamity on Wall Street), and wind energy is still very much an emerging technology. But it is our loss that Connell was never able to press forward with specifics behind this vision.

Memo to Iowa delegation: Where is our $198,000 library grant?

As a member of the Carroll Public Library Foundation -- a group charged with raising money for our new library -- I would sure hope one of our U.S. senators or Congressman Steve King could do for Carroll what U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., did for South Sioux City. He helped that city get a $198,000 grant for a new library -- according to The Sioux City Journal.

Culver pushes for federal stimulus package



(Photo: Gov. Culver pheasant hunting in Carroll over the weekend.)


Gov. Chet Culver is urging Congress to pass a stimulus package that would assist Iowa with flood recovery as well as address roads, bridges and other long-neglected infrastructure needs.

Dealing with the aftermath of the floods remains the Democratic governor’s priority, but Culver sees moving on “ready to go” transportation projects as a way to dramatically boost the Hawkeye State’s economy.

“We have major rebuilding that has to happen just because of severe weather this past year, not just the floods and tornadoes,” Culver said in Carroll on Friday afternoon.
In an interview with the Carroll Daily Times Herald and Carroll Broadcasting at Sam’s Sodas & Sandwiches, Culver said the stimulus package — which President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to shepherd through Congress if it doesn’t act in the waning days of the Bush administration — is vital for Iowa.

“What I am trying to do is really capitalize on the opportunity with the likelihood of federal infusion of financial assistance,” Culver said.

He said money could go to improving information technology and even the state’s trails systems.

“It’s a real opportunity for smart growth and sustainability,” Culver said.

In Iowa, there are 20 projects totaling as much as $150 million that are ready to go next spring. These are projects that go beyond those that are already scheduled to begin construction, and include work on four interstates and five highways in 17 Iowa counties, the governor says. It is projected that this work could mean more than 6,000 jobs in Iowa.

A recent report by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials shows the influence that infrastructure investment has on the economy. The report notes that for every $100 million in highway investment, more than 4,400 jobs are created or supported.

“It’s pretty exciting,” Culver said. “I mean it’s clearly daunting in terms of the recovery efforts from the floods but it’s also an opportunity to address some infrastructure needs that have been neglected for too long.”

Specifically, there are immediate needs with levees in eastern Iowa.

“There will be some priority projects,” Culver said. “But I think we need to look at this as a comprehensive longer-term project.”

He said the Rebuild Iowa Commission will have more to say on that in a 120-day report, which will be released this week.

On his way from Des Moines to Carroll last week, Culver encountered some of the ongoing road work on U.S. Highway 30.

When the Daily Times Herald asked him directly if his experience provoked any thoughts on future four-laning Culver said: “I can tell you that it’s a sure noticeable difference between east of Ames on 30 and west of Ames on 30.”

He made no specific commitments for U.S. 30 work, which has long ranked behind other road in priority among the state’s politicians.

Culver is not the only governor pressing for a stimulus package for public works.
In Arizona, for example, Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, testified before Congress that money invested in roads and highways could inject money into the flagging construction sector.

This story is crossposted at Carrollspaper.com

Sarah Palin -- "The White Oprah"



So says long-time television journalist Cokie Roberts -- a daughter of two members of Congress.

Roberts thinks Palin will be a big part of our popular culture into the future, according to The Los Angeles Times Top Of The Ticket blog.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Get inauguration tickets through Latham -- if you live in the 4th

THIS FROM CONGRESSMAN TOM LATHAM:

Congressman Latham has been given a limited number of tickets to the Inauguration of America's 44th President Barack Obama, to be held in Washington, D.C. on January 20th, 2009. Residents of Iowa's 4th Congressional District who are interested in making the trip to the nation's capital for this event may request a ticket from Congressman Latham's office.

Interested parties should e-mail Congressman Latham through his website, www.tomlatham.house.gov, with their full name, address, phone number and number of tickets requested before 5:00 CST on November 28, 2008. Ticket requests will be entered into a ticket lottery, and Iowans selected through the lottery will be notified no later than December 2, 2008 via e-mail. A letter of acknowledgement will also be sent via the United States Postal Service.

Due to the high volume of requests and the limited number of tickets available, ticket recipients from Latham’s office must be residents of the Fourth Congressional District of Iowa. To help Iowans figure out if they are within the boundaries of the district, Congressman Latham has created an interactive map of the district at www.tomlatham.house.gov/District. Because of restrictions put in place by the Joint Inaugural Committee prohibiting the mailing of inauguration tickets, all persons receiving tickets through Congressman Latham's office will need to be physically present to pick up tickets from Congressman Latham’s Washington, D.C. office between 11:00 AM and 7:00 PM EST on Monday, January 19, 2009. Individuals should be prepared to show photo identification that confirms residency in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District.

If there are any questions about visiting Washington, D.C., please visit Congressman Latham's website at www.tomlatham.house.gov/Contact. Special information about the inauguration can be found at www.inaugural.senate.gov. --

Is Sarah Palin front-runner in Iowa in 2012



While being careful to tell us up front that he thinks the premise of the question is more than a bit shaky, Republican David Oman, a key figure in the last two GOP gubernatorial administrations in Iowa, says Sarah Palin has the makings of a presidential front-runner in the Iowa caucuses in 2012.

"The retail nature of caucus politics would play to one of Governor Palin's strength - an energetic personality," he says.

There is speculation that the Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate - who distanced herself from McCain in some areas - is well-positioned for Iowa in 2012.

Whether she would make a competent president is a different thing altogether - and a seriously debatable point in 2008.

The fact remains that in the universe of Republicans, she is the only star with any true shine - although a meteoric rise from another little-known candidate can't be ruled out over the next few years. And depending on economic fortunes, Iowa Republicans, who for months flirted with Mitt Romney, may be ready for a known candidate with some burnished business credentials.

Of all the candidates in the scrum for 2012 (assuming John McCain loses) Palin would have the most appeal with the people that matter in the Iowa caucuses.

She has all the assets that can't be taught - the charisma (at least the sort that appeals to the Christian right) and stump-speaking skills.

Iowa is a state of small towns, and people in these communities increasingly see divisions based in rural-urban terms more than anything as modernity is literally swallowing once-thriving farm towns.

Her small-towns-folks-are-better-Americans speech is a brilliant appetizer for Iowa 2012. Palin speaks to a key population (in terms of voting) of small towns in the same way Barack Obama appeals to certain constituencies - including rural folk (as the Iowa caucuses proved).

Moreover, the life of Iowa communities is the family. The Hawkeye State, and in particular its rural parts, is not a friendly places for single people - unless they are widowed in nursing homes. Palin's appeal to those who want to see their candidates as they would like to see themselves - with kids and family in full bloom - is unrivaled. Keep this in mind: Iowa is a state in which many families own more than one crockpot. It doesn't get more family values than crockpots.

Additionally, Palin's punched the victim card. One doesn't need clairvoyance to hear her speeches in Le Mars, Iowa, on a fall night in 2011. I'm guessing it might sound something like this:

"Well, the New York Times and their liberal friends may not like this mom, but the last time I checked those elites are too busy blogging and jumping from one failed relationship to another to have any kids of their own. Are we going to allow the coastal elites who stopped having kids to run the nation? We small-town moms should decide the future because we're the only ones who will have kids in the future."

Friday, November 14, 2008

Infuriating irony: Iowa and California, black and white

In Iowa, a heavily white state, voters launched into the world the dream-filled vessel of Barack Obama, the nation’s first African-American president whose imminent administration holds so much promise.

For years, Hawkeye Staters, president makers that we are, have been targets of the media elites from the coasts and the lefty blogs of the D.C.-New York corridor, people who arrogantly pound computer keystrokes about us without working to see what’s in the heads behind the feed and tractor hats of those voters now having coffee or maybe a beer outside of Templeton, Iowa, at the Corner Station — or a thousand places like it.


Iowans, the white lot that it is, went for Obama in overwhelming fashion in the general election, after being there for him in the Iowa Caucuses nearly a year ago. Iowans aren’t blind. Iowans saw Barack Obama as a black man, because that is, after all, what he is. But Iowans saw more than just that, and with their most powerful property in a democracy, the vote, lined up and went to the polls for now President-elect Obama. No state was as important as Iowa. Obama himself has said as much.

As our European-descended populace, with their German and Irish names, cast ballots for Obama, African-Americans and Hispanics in California used their votes to reveal themselves as something far different: bigots.

By large margins Hispanic and African-Americans in California voted in favor of a ugly amendment to that state’s constitution that kills the right of gay couples to marry. Had blacks and Hispanics not been allowed to vote on Proposition 8, it would have failed and gays would be able to marry. Whites and Asians voted against the ban — or with gay marriage — 51 to 49 percent.

Here is the Bakersfield Californian newspaper:

Exit polls showed that 70 percent of black voters and more than half of Hispanic voters backed Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry.


For years, as a co-owner and columnist of my family’s newspaper, the Daily Times Herald, I have used its editorial pages to fight prejudice. I have called out my own for our failings in this area, whether it is with the slow-footed acceptance of a growing Hispanic community or hostility to those of other races that emerge.

What I would hope to see, instead of apologists in the black and Hispanic communities on cable and the Net making excuses for the bigotry of their people on Proposition 8, is instead a mirror-in-the-face self-reckoning. Prejudice based on sexual orientation is just as awful as that based on skin color.

My friends and neighbors here in Carroll County sent a message Tuesday. And so did the blacks and Hispanics of California.

Iowans helped you tear down a barrier just as California’s blacks and Hispanics threw in with forces erecting one for another minority group.

It is an infuriating irony.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Why Barack Obama is our next president



For most of the last 40 years we have lived in an era of lesser-than-two-evils presidential politics, a time when the nation has collectively yearned to reach into the history books for a Kennedy, Lincoln, Roosevelt - or even a Truman.

History returns to us on Tuesday.

With Barack Obama we have a candidate who is a historical presence in the present. Simply put, Senator Obama will be the next president of the United States.

Initially brushed off by the bobble-heads of the coastal chattering class as a political mercury rising who would fade in the colds of Iowa, Obama - who announced his candidacy nearly two years ago in Springfield, Ill., on Feb. 10, 2007, in bone-chilling weather - turned the idea of his unlikely presidency into the sophisticated business of a modern national campaign.

Obama blended hole-in-the-shoes work on the ground with an embrace of technology - using social networking sites on the Internet and text-messaging in ground-breaking ways. Obama had an uncanny ability to help define the intersection of technology and politics - rather than respond to it clumsily as did the campaign of John McCain, who at one point admitted to having never sent an e-mail himself.

The last weeks of the McCain campaign have not been a profile in courage for the man many Americans have long admired. It's as if McCain's Men with Blackberrys rushed the cockpit and took the throttle. His running mate Sarah Palin's events have been full of straw-grasping personal attacks with roots in Cold War smear tactics - talk of real Americas and other Americas, reds and patriots, the last carbohydrates fueling McCain's run.

We don't need the late-arriving Alaskan to tell us what to think of Obama.

We don't have to guess on this one.

Here in western Iowa's small towns we actually got to know Obama about as well as any voters in contemporary American presidential politics can.

Yes, when Obama speaks we see an African-American because that, after all, is what he is. But we hear the unmistakable voice of a Midwesterner in the Illinoisan who formed his early presidential principles in Iowa with a deep understanding of rural politics and issues. When you cut through all the clutter and high-mindedness about his barrier-shattering presidency, it is this Midwestern-ness that should encourage Hawkeye Staters when the calendar turns past Nov. 4 and breaks toward 2009.

On the issues that matter to Iowa Obama is one of us.

"What I see in Iowa are a lot the qualities I love in Illinois. I think there's a truth to the idea that there's a Midwestern sensibility and that people don't like a lot of fuss, don't like a lot of pretense, and I think are much more likely to think about things pragmatically and how do you get the job done as opposed to having a lot of ideology driving decision-making," Obama told the Daily Times Herald in an interview at the Carroll Rec Center in the fall of 2007. "And I think that's what America needs right now."

As a reporter and columnist based in Carroll, the hub of west-central Iowa, I tracked Obama's schedule for the nearly one-year campaign in Iowa. Some days, Obama would be in five, six or more small communities.

I'd give Obama better odds at finding his way from Carroll to Sioux City without a map than any of the pundits calling him elite.

His plan for a renewal of the American economy hinges heavily on the renewable energy that is finding a growing presence in western Iowa: wind, biodiesel.

"Instead of drill, baby, drill you have plant, baby, plant," Scott Wallace, grandson of former Vice President Henry Wallace, told the Daily Times Herald the other day.

Wallace, whose family founded the formidable Pioneer seed company, says Obama's rural policies reflect the prosperous nexus of agriculture and energy in a way that is lost on McCain.

In the presidential debates, when he had the universe of federal spending from which to choose for questions about possible cuts, McCain went right for the throat of ethanol, suggesting subsidies for it should be scuttled.

In the death throes of its campaign, the McCain camp has cannon-balled out label after label, as if one too-clever-by-half term ("Barack the redistributor") or wildly flailing charge (socialist or communist) can erase the last eight years of George W. Bush and the final eight weeks of McCain's White House bid.

Don't just consider the words of recent days. Look back.

In the summer of 2006 Obama delivered one of the more groundbreaking, even magisterial speeches, you'll hear, a "Call to Renewal" address in which he frankly discusses his own religious beliefs.

It is an inspiring speech, one I didn't think a contemporary American politician could deliver. It defines Obama.

"Faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts," Obama said. "You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away - because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey."

Obama is a believable Christian because of his thoughtful journey with faith, one that involved those doubts.

He writes his own books and speeches and stuffs them with religious imagery. It's not something that can be faked.

Neither can intelligence, which in political terms can be defined as the self-confidence to absorb a variety of opinions, to encourage challenging points of view from advisers.

Defenders of lesser intellects like Sarah Palin argue that all one really needs is a group of good cabinet secretaries and staff members. Well, what happens when your top advisers offer differing opinions?

These times demand our best minds.

In the end, as we are in the final days of the campaign, I think back to the first hours I started to study Barack Obama.

I was listening to his reading of his best-selling memoir, "Dreams From My Father" while driving across Nebraska in 2005.

Raised by a single mother, Obama offered some penetrating insight into growing up that way, about the search for identity and understanding of one's place in the world - something made more challenging in the absence of a father.

On that journey Obama found America, and the nation found him.

'Doubt' looks to be outstanding



This movie promises to be excellent with Streep and Seymour Hoffman going at it -- a clash of acting giants.