Behn, former senator for Carroll, considers gov run

BOONE - Republican State Sen. Jerry Behn of Boone, who represented Carroll County for most of two terms before redistricting after the 2000 elections, says he's "seriously considering" running for governor in 2010.

Behn said he's talking with supporters and others about a possible bid. He joins what is a growing list of potential candidates that includes State Rep. Rod Roberts, R-Carroll.

Behn said he had no firm timetable in mind at this point for making an announcement.

A social conservative with strong credentials in the pro-life community, Behn spent much of the interview hammering Democratic Gov. Chet Culver on fiscal and economic matters. Culver is borrowing too much money and spending the state's future away, Behn contends.

"I really want to leave an Iowa to my children and grandchildren that is every bit as good as the Iowa left to me by my parents," Behn said.

He said Iowans instinctively know the state is heading in the wrong direction and are looking for a turnaround.

"If you look at the Titanic, if it was aiming the other way, it wouldn't have hit the iceberg," Behn said.

Specifically, Behn hammered Culver's $830-million bonding plan, which is aimed at creating jobs and improving infrastructure. The borrowed money will be paid back through certain gambling revenues over 20 years.

Behn was first elected in 1996 in a Senate District that included Carroll and Greene counties. Four years later he defeated Democratic challenger Joan Phillips, then of Manning, and represented Carroll until being redistricted into a more central Iowa region, District 24, that includes Boone, Waukee, Perry and Adel.

"Carroll County has a special place in my heart," Behn said. "You essentially put me in the Senate."

Conservative voters only have to look to Behn's voting record on social issues, the Boone Republican said.

Behn thinks he can hold the GOP base while reaching out to independents on the economy.

"I think the economy moves voters," Behn said. "The independents are worried about money - pure and simple."

This doesn't mean Behn won't use the issue of recently legalized gay marriage in Iowa in a potential campaign.

Behn makes the case that the three branches of government shouldn't be equal, that the courts should take a lesser role to the legislative and executive branches, the latter two of which he says are closer to the people.

"Absolutely," he said, when asked if that's the power structure he favors in Des Moines.

"The judiciary was supposed to be the weakest of the three," Behn said.

In April the Iowa Supreme Court legalized gay marriage.

Republicans need to return to the "ABC's," said Behn who said that should stand for "anyone but Culver."

"You have to have someone who fundamentally disagrees with the direction we're headed," Behn said.

Behn, 55, is a longtime grain farmer who lives just south of U.S. 30 in Boone. He and his wife have four children, three grown and living in Iowa and the other 13 years old.

Besides Behn and Roberts a GOP gubernatorial field is emerging that includes some well-known politicians and candidates with big-time business credentials and bases. As it stands that list would include: Sioux City business consultant Bob Vander Plaats (who ran in 2006 before joining forces with the eventual nominee, Congressman Jim Nussle) U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, State Rep. Christopher Rants of Sioux City, Bettendorf businessman Mike Whalen, former State Sen. Jeff Lamberti, an Ankeny lawyer and board member of Casey's General Stores and Vermeer Corp. president Mary Andringa of Mitchellville.

Behn said that no "big name" - such as King - has announced. The Boone senator said that his decision isn't necessarily connected to the moves of other Republicans.

He worked closely with Carroll's Roberts, and Behn says he holds him in high regard.

"He's a quality candidate," Behn said. "I like Rod personally. I like Rod professionally."

Racing Committee recommendation makes sense

Prairie Meadows Racing Committee recommends that Iowa pass a law requiring all casinos in the state to simulcast horse races from the Altoona, Iowa, track.

This should pass. While not all Iowa counties can benefit directly from casinos, the equine industry does have a presence in them all. This law would be a way to spread the benefits from gambling beyond those locales with the political muscle -- or geographic good fortune -- to obtain licenses.

The fact that I love horse racing has nothing to do with this opinion.

Kaul: Enjoy American cars while you can

By DONALD KAUL

Packard, Studebaker, Hudson, Auburn, Oldsmobile, DeSoto, Pierce-Arrow, Stutz, Cord, Mammon, Dusenberg, Nash, Franklin, Edsel, LaSalle, Essex, Stanley, Graham, Reo, Crosley, Kaiser---the pages of automotive history are heavy with the obituaries of car nameplates that have gone on to that Great Junkyard in the Sky.

Why should Pontiac be any different, or Chrysler for that matter? It’s no great tragedy, at least not one that we haven’t experienced time and time again. It’s been obvious for some time that the global auto industry was overstocked in production capacity and understocked in customers. Some winnowing was inevitable.

Right now it seems that American manufacturers are the ones being winnowed. Chrysler is CURRENTLY on life-support, Italian style, and General Motors is undergoing a series of painful amputations. Whether either can survive remains an open question. It would be a tragedy to lose them. Not the bogus tragedy referred to earlier---an automotive icon of your youth disappears, so what? -- -but a real, practical tragedy; hundreds of thousands of jobs gone, whole towns dead.

It was and is worth trying to save these companies but there comes a time when the situation becomes hopeless and it’s time to cut your losses and move on. We’re not there yet, but you can see it from here. To one who grew up in mid-Twentieth Century Detroit the thought of GM collapsing is almost unimaginable. It was the all-powerful Ozymandias of the auto industry---“Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,” it seemed to say.

But now we’ve moved to the close of that Shelley poem:

“Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

“The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Or, as we like to call it these days: Detroit.

Actually, downtown Detroit doesn’t look too bad; it’s got a pulse. Like so many center cities these days it exists primarily as an entertainment center, with extravagant athletic and cultural facilities as well as fine hotels, restaurants and casinos. But move off into the neighborhoods---former neighborhoods really---and Shelley’s desolate vision is made flesh. Much of the city is a wasteland of vacant lots and derelict buildings framed by weeds growing through long-unused sidewalks.

There’ll be dozens of other cities joining Detroit in the urban ash-heap if the automakers go down.

Car companies die for a variety of reasons, only sometimes because they make bad cars. More often it’s mismanagement that does them in. That’s pretty much been the case here in recent years. Our auto executives have been locked in a mindset that believed a decent profit could be turned only by making big cars, trucks and vans. Which was fine so long as the American public loved big, not so fine now with $4-a-gallon gas a recent memory. When the mood turned to small, the Japanese manufacturers moved in and ate their lunch.

You could make a case that Chrysler stopped being a car company years ago, that it invented the van and was content to make its money on them, with cars as an afterthought. Now it’s going to be run by an Italian company that makes its money on small cars, very small. We’ll see. General Motors was conceived nearly as century ago as an automotive giant that would have a specific car for every income class. Cadillac and Buick were the luxury brands with Chevrolet and Oldsmobile for the common man. Then they decided there was a hole to be filled in the luxury field and the LaSalle was born. The Pontiac was developed to fit between Olds and Chevy.

All of this demanded a huge dealer network and a vast bureaucratic superstructure. It worked, but to keep people buying cars they had to make cars that wore out quickly and “planned obsolescence” became the watchword. That was when old Ozymandias started to crumble.

I wish our car companies well, I really do. If they go away we will feel the pain in places we didn’t know we had places.

Distributed by Minuteman Media.

Why Rod Roberts should run for governor

When Rod Roberts embarked on his first Statehouse bid in 1998 I was skeptical to say the least. In fact, the candidacy of this ordained Christian conservative pastor frightened me.

With a passionate belief in separation of church and state I had visions of Rod as something of a localized Pat Robertson, an evangelical bent on Bible-beating his view of life and Christianity into his politics, his representation of us. Most of all I feared that if Roberts, a Republican, shirt-sleeved his brand of Protestantism, he'd expose rifts in this city that we've long since repaired to make way for collective progress and respect.

After hundreds of interviews with Roberts over the last decade and in interaction through Rotary and elsewhere I can now say that my initial suspicions, which I think Rod himself would admit were fair and not borne out of any malice, were dead wrong.

Simply put, Rod has demonstrated himself to be a member of that proud tradition of Christians in politics, those whose private faith informs their public acts. In hindsight this shouldn't have come as a surprise. Rod's father, Jack, now retired, was a longtime history and government teacher at the Colo-Nesco School District east of Ames. Rod probably learned about church-state separation somewhere around the time the training wheels came off his first bike.

Over his nine years in the Iowa House, Roberts, the Iowa development director with the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, has been a reliable vote on social conservative issues to be sure. He's vehemently opposed to abortion and is steadfast in his religiously based view that marriage should be between one man and one woman. Organizations such as the decidedly right-of-center Iowa Family Policy Center know this and tell us they're quite comfortable with the prospect of a Governor Rod Roberts. They trust him.

But it is not with social issues that Roberts has made his name in the Legislature and Iowa politics - or in Carroll. Specifically, Rod, a man who clearly keeps close counsel with successful economic-development leaders in Carroll, fought for legislation that has dispersed money from casino-rich counties to the rest of the state through Endow Iowa. Carroll County and other rural areas without slot-machine-fed streams of cash benefit enormously from this. It is a signature accomplishment.

On the education front, Roberts, a former member of the Carroll Community School Board, has shown a keen understanding of the state's public systems, which consume a lion's share of the tax dollars we send to Des Moines. What's more, he provided crucial advocacy for private schools with support of tuition tax credits and the rescue of logical state transportation programs for parochial students - funding that was under heavy assault at one point from former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.

With regard to constituent service, an underrated but perhaps the best measure of a legislator, Rod's performed diligently. He's listened and delivered, most recently where the city of Carroll and a much-needed traffic signal project at U.S. Highway 30 and Griffith Road is concerned. I've personally never seen Rod Roberts unprepared or ill-informed on legislation. This teacher's son does his homework.

In an in-depth analysis of a potential Roberts gubernatorial bid we published Monday, fiscal-issues-first Des Moines Republican David Oman, former state chairman of that party, described Rod as having "a winning personality." This is right on the money for Rod is that rarest of political creatures with whom one can disagree but still hold in esteem, for while he's a sharp tactician and not afraid to mix it up, Rod isn't guided by guile.

In 2010 the Iowa GOP has a barn-door opening provided by an at times stumbling Chet Culver and overreaching Democratic Party, which appeared more interested in political paybacks than governing. But Republicans face political Siberia if they can't nominate a competitive candidate for Terrace Hill and shape an agenda that reaches out from the ideological single-issue madness of fringe players to life in the middle of Iowa, where most of us live.

There's every reason to believe Rod Roberts can erect the political bridges Republicans so desperately need.

Rod has what GOP insider and influential blogger Tim Albrecht calls a "gentle mannerism." Because Rod is so comfortable with himself, with his beliefs, and the necessary reconciliation on soul-searching matters like abortion and the death penalty, he doesn't have to spit-scream like a broker on a New York trading floor to prove who he is. There's no worry of a magically morphing Mitt Romney with Roberts.

Practically speaking, Roberts should enter the GOP gubernatorial primary because he has everything to gain and nothing to lose if he runs a clean campaign full of ideas and scrubbed of insults - which if history is a guide, there's ample reason to believe he will.

There are three possible results should he enter. Roberts could connect the Robert Ray moderates and Steve King conservatives in his party to capture the nomination. Or he could find himself positioned nicely for the lieutenant governor slot should a central Iowa moderate emerge as the GOP's top candidate. The worst-case scenario is that Roberts, who could drop out of the June 2010 primary in time to keep his House seat, would boost his name recognition, setting up future runs, perhaps for Congress or another statewide office or a prestigious leadership role in the Iowa House as its speaker or ranking member.

In the end, Rod should run because if he doesn't, he'll always wonder what could have been. Rod's earned this shot and should take it with the support of the Carroll area he's admirably represented.

This column first appeared in The Carroll Daily Times Herald.

Does Roberts have right stuff for gov run?

Early GOP vetting starts for 2010 with Carroll-area legislator in mix

By DOUGLAS BURNS

Iowa Republican strategist Tim Albrecht sees a canyon-sized opening for his party in the 2010 gubernatorial race in which a potential double-digit-sized list of challengers to Democrat Chet Culver is building.

One legislator in the mix, although not formally announced, is State Rep. Rod Roberts, a Carroll Republican who has served west-central Iowa for a decade in Des Moines.

Albrecht said Roberts, a social conservative, has the style and skills to hold the GOP's right base while reaching out to moderates and Democrats.

"Rod has a way about him, a very gentle mannerism that could bring in some of those individuals," says Albrecht, a former statehouse staffer who now operates TheBeanWalker.com, a conservative Web site the Washington Post tabs as one of the tops for politics in Iowa.




An ordained pastor (although he hasn't been behind the pulpit for 20 years) Roberts is development director for the 125-congregation strong Christian Churches/Churches of Christ in Iowa.

Because of this background Roberts won't be forced to headline his candidacy with the twin towers of Hawkeye State conservatism: opposition to abortion and gay marriage. He's strong on both fronts.

"He doesn't have to lead with his faith because people already know him," says Bryan English, a spokesman with the highly influential Christian-conservative Iowa Family Policy Center.

English said the GOP must field candidates who can deliver a broad message. Roberts would seem to have that ability, English said.

"He's a very well-rounded representative," English said. "He does a great job. He's very good at what he does."

Following an electoral thrashing in 2008, the GOP, both nationally and statewide, is in the process of deep soul-searching, with some arguing for entrenchment with a robust, unapologetic social agenda and others calling for laser-like focus on economics in the form of policies aimed at reining in taxes and reducing the role of government.

For his part, Roberts says he's closer to a run than ever.

"I am still very seriously considering this question of running," Roberts said. "I am probably more interested in running than I have been up to this point."

Roberts said he will make a decision "sooner rather than later" and is eyeing the Fourth of July as a tentative date for deciding whether to establish an exploratory committee. That group then would determine if Roberts has enough fund-raising muscle to be competitive.

"The biggest hurdles are can he raise his profile and raise the money he needs," Albrecht said.

A field is emerging that includes some well-known politicians and candidates with big-time business credentials and bases. As it stands that list would include: Sioux City business consultant Bob Vander Plaats (who ran in 2006 before joining forces with the eventual nominee, Congressman Jim Nussle) U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey, State Rep. Christopher Rants of Sioux City, Iowa Auditor Dave Vaudt, former State Sen. Jeff Lamberti, an Ankeny lawyer and board member of Casey's General Stores and Vermeer Corp. president Mary Andringa of Mitchellville.

Roberts knows he doesn't go into the starting gate with the best odds. That suits him just fine.

"I kind of like being the darkhorse person in the mix of names," Roberts said.

Roberts starts with much less of a geographic base than potential contenders with statewide, regional - or in the case of King - national name recognition.

A Carroll resident, Roberts represents House District 51, which includes Carroll County, part of Sac County (Wall Lake and Lake View) and eastern Crawford County (but not Denison).

The obvious question looms for Roberts: Can he build support outside of western Iowa? The short answer is yes.

"Name recognition and fund-raising will be a real challenge with such a large field," says Iowa State University political science professor Steffen Schmidt. "However, I think Roberts has good conservative credentials and roots in the faith-based community to go after the spot on the ballot."

Schmidt is also a commentator for InsiderIowa.com. An audio recording of Schmidt's complete vetting of Roberts as a possible candidate is posted on the The Daily Times Herald's Internet homepage, carrollspaper.com.

Roberts' name has been discussed in the highest GOP circles.

Iowa's last two Republican governors, Robert Ray and Terry Branstad, said in earlier interviews that Roberts has the standing in the party to make a run.

"Personally and politically I think a lot of Rod Roberts and others do, too," says David Oman, who was executive assistant to Ray and Branstad, served as co-chair of the Iowa Republican Party from 1985 to 1993 and was a candidate for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in 1998.

In an interview last week, Oman said Roberts has an intangible quality working for him, what the Des Moines Republican termed a "winning personality."

Roberts also can count his wife, Trish, development director at St. Anthony Regional Hospital in Carroll, as a major political asset, Oman said.

"His wife Trish is terrific," Oman said. "Iowans want to get to know a spouse. She certainly will be beneficial to Rod."

That said, Oman thinks geography will be the major challenge for a possible Roberts bid.

He'll need money and he'll need to get around the state - the latter of which is more challenging than it may seem, according to Oman.

"Iowa may look small on a map but whether you're driving or flying it is an expansive state," Oman said.

Because Iowa hosts first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses every four years voters expect high-level candidates to almost go door to door.

Additionally, Republicans must travel more aggressively to win statewide in Iowa as the party's base is more dispersed in rural, suburban and urban areas of the state - unlike Democrats who can pull off wins by running up margins in about two dozen counties, Oman said.

"With others from western Iowa in, that will make this opportunity perhaps more challenging," Oman said.

Oman is among those veteran politicos in his party urging a primacy of economics over fire-breathing right-wing social agenda rhetoric that alienates independents, moderates and conservatives Democrats - all of whom Oman thinks are ripe for the picking in 2010 because of dissatisfactions with Culver and fears about the growing role of government in Des Moines and Washington, D.C.

"I would come down on the side of suggesting we have to rally Republicans on core principles of limited government and sanity when it comes to spending and individual responsibility and freedom and growth," Oman said.

In eastern Iowa, top Republicans says they are familiar with Roberts but need to know more.

The Roberts "brand" is just not known there, said Tim Palmer of Cedar Rapids, a small-business man who chairs the Linn County Republican Party.

"The feedback I've heard from this side of the state is that no one is taking it seriously, but that's nothing against Rod," Palmer said. "He seems to be well thought of on your side of the state. He seems to have a good brand with the people who do know him."

Palmer, a social conservative who is the editor of a popular Web site called HawkeyeReview.com, says Roberts' biography is appealing to him.

To this point the Carroll person who rose the highest in state government is attorney Art Neu, a former lieutenant governor and an admirer of Roberts, although Neu is decidedly more moderate.

"I think he's about as reasonable a candidate as I could possibly expect from the Republican Party today," Neu said. "He's been a good legislator. I think he'd be a good governor."

This story first appeared in The Carroll Daily Times Herald.

Photo: Jeff Storjohann, Carroll Daily Times Herald

ISU professor Schmidt vets Roberts as gubernatorial candidate

InsiderIowa political commentator and ISU professor Steffen Schmidt reviews Mr. Roberts background and possibilities of getting the 2010 Iowa GOP nomination for governor. Roberts is one of twelve names that have surfaced as being interested in the job, according to Schmidt.

Schmidt says, "Name recognition and fund raising will be a real challenge wioth such a large field. However, I think Roberts has good conservative credentials and roots in the faith based commnity to go after the spot on the ballot."

IOWA TIES TO VIETNAM WALL FEATURED IN LATEST EPISODE OF LATHAM'S TELEVISION PROGRAM

WASHINGTON, DC – The latest episode of Iowa Congressman Tom Latham’s monthly television show has hit the airwaves and is now available online.

The May episode of the “Congressional Report” celebrates Memorial Day by focusing on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, and its traveling half-scale replica known as the “Wall that Heals.” For this month’s program, Congressman Latham interviewed Daniel Schenk, program manager for the “Wall that Heals,” about the importance of honoring veterans and the future of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.

“Every American owes a debt of gratitude to the men and women who have served – or are currently serving – in the armed forces,” Congressman Latham said while filming the episode. “These brave Americans have put everything on the line to protect their families, communities and their nation.”

During the show, Congressman Latham pointed out that Featherlite Trailers, based in Cresco, Iowa, constructed a specialized trailer that carries the traveling replica wall as it crisscrosses the country. Congressman Latham visited an unveiling ceremony for the new trailer on the National Mall in March.

“The employees at Featherlite have played an important role in making this tribute more accessible to veterans and other Americans,” Congressman Latham said. “And for that, all Iowans should be proud.”

The “Congressional Report” airs throughout Iowa on Mediacom Channel 22 on Wednesdays at 4 p.m. and on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. Episodes of the television show are also available on Congressman Latham’s Web site, www.latham.house.gov, and on his Youtube Channel, www.youtube.com/user/CongressmanTomLatham.