Did she not like the NYT story because of inaccuracy, or because, as Harry Truman said, "I don't give 'em hell, I just tell the truth and it sounds like hell?" Facts are facts, Iowa Dems have lost the last four gubernatorial elections, only occupy a third of the Iowa Legislature, none of the congressional delegation and just one elected seat in the executive branch. The Black Hawk County Democrats seem to be an "outlier" in every sense of the phrase. They hold all the local Statehouse seats except for a sliver of Sandy Salmon's district grazing the county's northwest corner; they've also held the courthouse since the late '80s. We have a diversity of rural and urban, labor and farm, race and ethnicity. And a large block of indepentent voters. Those from here who have aspired to play a larger role statewide role have been turned aside. Maybe it's time for the Iowa Dems to think outside the box, or the Golden Circle, and seek some input from someone who knows how to win elections. Bringing Gov. Tim Walz down from Minnesota for the Iowa State Fair is fine, but it also makes a tacit statement as to how thin the Iowa Dems bench is. There's talent out here, the state Dems just have to cultivate it. And as Neil Young once sang, "in the field of opportunity it's plowin' time again." The process has to be more, um, democratic, not trickle-down from the capital city.
Out here in Western Iowa, many of us feel abandoned by the IDP. We have good candidates who run great campaigns but lose because the GOP floods their opponent’s campaigns with $$$ right before the election. When Rita Hart says the IDP will be prioritizing counties in the Eastern side of the state, it is just more of the same for us. Not impressed. I hope to see changes, but we’ll see...
I would also like to see the list of the 2,000 or so Iowa projects funded by the Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Acts. I could not find the list on the IDP website.
I did find a link to confirm the status of voter registration which is helpful. https://iwillvote.com/
Look into Reynolds depriving rural Iowans the opportunity to apply for IRA planning funding. $3 million. Without a plan, they cannot apply for the funding to utilize the millions for weather mitigation and resilience. 3 metropolitan statistical areas did apply and get the grants at the last minute. what a shame for rural Iowa. Huge loss in fed$ for them.
I was a precinct chair for about five years and ran a precinict house for two elections. Attended meetings regularily and finally said enough! THis was in Cedar Rapids and far from rural, it also was far from local control as far as most of the people attending these county meetings were concerned. The chair and his or her henchmen ran the show, we were expected to attend and contribute our money and whatever it took to put these fund raisers on. That was our part, nothing more nothing less, except when it came to elections then it was our job to get out the vote and if it wasn't for the local unions who helped knock on doors, I would have been buried! Finally I said enough! When you learn to make me a part of the decision making process and stop putting your hand in my pocket constantly I'll come back and help, until then, I'm done! Never heard a thing after that!
So now I live "out in the sticks" a county with declining population as the farms get bigger and bigger, with fewer families out on the land. The communities that once were viable now compete with Walmart and quite frankly that is impossible. Business such as car dealers or implement operations are faced with Earl Butts rendition of "Get bigger or get the hell out!" that is enforced by required inventories of product or you are simply out of business. In a county with no railroad 32 miles from a major city both north and south from here, we are simply screwed. I've been here seven years and watch city councilmen quit before their term is up on many ocassions because the job is too demanding! There are no bussiness men who clamor for this job anymore who have a sense of responsibility to the community to take these tasks and do what needs to be done! Retired people and young people who don't have a commitment to the community because they are still trying to get their own game together are who take these jobs and eventually quit. Party affiliation has little to do with it, and recruitment efforts on the part of the party are nill. With county populations of less than 25,000 people in a county, the central committee often is made up of a couple dozen people! Just what in the hell are they going to accomplish??? The National Party has abandoned the rural areas of the country to the Republicans without so much as a wimper. Then they wonder how to invigerate the rural areas without spending a dime! That fiasco that was the "first in the nation" caucas in the last presidential race was a fine example of how much the National or State Party cared, I doubt that even today some counties really know the numbers of votes that were cast for democratic candidates! The reason is squarely on the party in either Des Moines or Washington, to end first in the nation status for Iowa. So, who is really going to make this happen? Someone from Clinton County who happens to be out in the country? I really have to wonder how stupid they think we are!
Thanks for sharing. Lots to unpack here. I certainly don't have the solution, but think that the Democratic Party can learn a lot by thinking about what you have offered here. Hopefully they listen.
That part, "Listening" seems no longer a pre-requisite to actually doing anything! In the usual way of accomplishing what government or the parties that run government do, the simple answer is, we have the answer! Never mind the people on the ground, everything will work out once we have completely redone everything our way! Living in what was considered a slum in Cedar Rapids for over thirty years taught me lessons I would have never gotten in rural Iowa. Our part of town was changing, and that usually means for the worse for people who call the old neighborhood home. Ending the one way streets and planting a medical faculity across 2nd Avenue had a lot to do with that. Suddenly, with this third medical operation between the two hospitals the area became "The Medical District" and something had to be done to" fix" the neighborhood. Decisions like that probably would include the neighborhood that was slated for change, but because the city had abandoned the neighborhood after a bout of "white flight" took place in the 60's, what had been a scaled middle-class neighborhood suddenly became the "hood". With background like that, we had nothing to offer as far as the group that was set to "fix" us was concerned. The president of the organization called me one day and said something in effect that he didn't like what I had said about what they were doing and thought we should get together for a cup of coffee and iron out our differences. I took him up on a cup of coffee, even if I don't drink coffee as a rule, to get a shot at this guy was worth it! We met a block from my house in what they had discribed as a "neighborhood center" it was early spring and snow was still previlent, but melting. I asked if I could ask a couple of questions and if that was agreeable, the response was positive, so I started with simple questions, "How long have you lived in Cedar Rapids? " he responded, "Ten years". Then I asked, "How long have you lived in this neighborhood?' His response was "Never". So, once we established that, I proceeded to tell him why that was important! Examples work the best so I told him there were things he didn't understand simply because he wasn't from here. There were things we dealt with everyday, he had no undeerstanding of and no history with. I asked him to look across the street from the corner we were at and to tell me what he saw. He didn't understand the question. So I tried again, "If you look across the street right at the cross walk what do you see?" He still didn't get the question, so I explained it to him from the view point of people who live in the neighborhood. "What you aren't seeing is a reality that comes with being poor and many don't own cars, they walk or they walk to a corner to catch a bus. Something you probably don't do. So the state of side walks and cross walks are important, if you look at that intersection on each end of the cross walk is a puddle of standing water! three feet away on both sides of the street are storm drains in the street! Why doesn't the water drain into the drains? Because we don't matter! That is the reason the police stay out of this neighborhood and don't answer calls. That is the reason the drug dealers are here and not spread all over town. That is the reason the streets are in such bad condition, that is the reason that when something is done here as far as streets are concerned you have to make trouble to get things done even half right! You don't know this from where you live, you expect the city will respond when you call and where you live they will. We have no expectation of that here. So what is it that you are doing? You are buying up housing and completely rebuilding it. 100 plus year old houses you are gutting to the studs, putting in new plumbing, no wiring, new heating, new kitchen cabinets, new roof, and vinyl siding and new flooring. Then you are discounting the houses for medical workers to get them to live here. Did you give any thought topeople like me who have held a mortgage for over twenty years and fought every raise in property tax since the city doesn't take care of us like the rest of the city and have won everytime? Now you are putting literally new houses on the market in this neighborhood in mass and don't think that won't price the people living here out of the market! Yes, you are getting what you want, but don't think because you are getting what you want that you aren't putting me and my neighbors in jeopardy! So don't think just because you see yourself as doing something good here, that you can expect the people who live here to love what you are doing, especially when you don't even take them into consideration! A few years latter this guy I talked with was gone and someone else took over. Whoever he is, he probably doesn't understand the impact any better than the last guy. It makes it doubly difficult to have even a twinkling of hope things will get better. At the sametime, people wonder how it is that a State that voted for Obama twice turned right around and voted for Trump! Well, as one person told me the reason he voted for Trump was simply to see some change in Government. From my view, that meant let's tear this apart and start over! The thing they didn't envision is tearing down the government we have would lead to anarchy or the possibility they could end up with a dictator!
I am happy that you got the interview, but clearly, there is a lot of "floss" here. I find it interesting that she talks her commitment to rural, but for those of us who work to do rural messaging every day, there seems to be "no there, there."
How about some examples? Keokuck is her home area and it has a big main street project funded by two Biden Bills. Did I miss that comment as I read your review? The Republican Members (IA, IL, MO) of Congress whose constituents shop in Keokuck didn't miss it; they all voted against the funding, and now claim credit. This "taking credit" is happening all over Iowa with Miller-Meeks and Hinson topping the list of "queens taking credit" for things they did not vote for.
How about clean water in Iowa? Was there a "borrowed" quote she could have used from Chris Jones?
How about tossing in a couple of statistics about how the Governor is taking money out of public schools to give to private schools, most of which are religious schools? Hmmnn -- public money to religious schools. In rural Iowa, the end result with be more kids on the bus for more hours as their schools are forced to close.
Or, maybe I misunderstood, but didn't she says the IDP website has a list of all the Iowa projects getting Biden federal money? I looked for it? Didn't find it? Is it a secret list, or do iIhave to open every single web address to find it?
Or what about those training sessions? Maybe we should train the IDP and the Chair. By staying mostly silent, they have wasted almost a year now. So yes, it would be good to train county party leadership -- on local fundraising, on building their blogs, on sorting out the many blogs that can be helpful to us, on how to write a press release where we still have local newspapers, on all the activities that we wish the IDP could remember to do, etc.?
Or how about some teamwork? For Iowa, many of us have hosted or worked on Washington fundraisers for Iowa candidates for years. Some of us belonged to the club system (now abandoned) that loyally supported the IDP financially. How about a thank you, and an actual lift on the list-building for another? Oops. I forgot ... she doesn't talk to people unless she happens to be in the mood. She doesn't have a voice. From what I hear, The NYTimes nailed it. County parties are on their own. The IDP Central Committee has gotten so big that it's useless as a leadership entity and mainly functions as a crutch for its many do-nothing issue caucuses.
I admit -- all of this breaks my heart. For all of us who spent years building the IDP, it is very difficult to understand why even the basics are missing. Essentially, when we have a bad year, it can't be fixed by doing less. More has to be done. Motion has to be made. And most certainly, when leaders don't know what to do, the first thing they should be doing is making motion.
Thanks for the insights Barbara. I've subscribed to your newsletter and hope to learn more. Happy also to chat over the phone about what you think the best practices are. Thanks, Bob rdwleonard@gmail.com
“It’s the economy stupid.’’ Jim Carville beat an incumbent president with that mantra. The Democrats have watched as the Republicans demolished private sector unions. There hasn’t been a significant challenge to the right to work law in my lifetime and I’m 71. We’re Iowa, not California and we don’t share the cultural values of the coastal elites. Again the Democrats seem annoyed by when with a wave of the hand some “expert” tells us gender is fluid.
Now Rita tells us she’s one of us. Ok. Show us. Stop lecturing us on how to speak and think. It’s the economy stupid.
Did she not like the NYT story because of inaccuracy, or because, as Harry Truman said, "I don't give 'em hell, I just tell the truth and it sounds like hell?" Facts are facts, Iowa Dems have lost the last four gubernatorial elections, only occupy a third of the Iowa Legislature, none of the congressional delegation and just one elected seat in the executive branch. The Black Hawk County Democrats seem to be an "outlier" in every sense of the phrase. They hold all the local Statehouse seats except for a sliver of Sandy Salmon's district grazing the county's northwest corner; they've also held the courthouse since the late '80s. We have a diversity of rural and urban, labor and farm, race and ethnicity. And a large block of indepentent voters. Those from here who have aspired to play a larger role statewide role have been turned aside. Maybe it's time for the Iowa Dems to think outside the box, or the Golden Circle, and seek some input from someone who knows how to win elections. Bringing Gov. Tim Walz down from Minnesota for the Iowa State Fair is fine, but it also makes a tacit statement as to how thin the Iowa Dems bench is. There's talent out here, the state Dems just have to cultivate it. And as Neil Young once sang, "in the field of opportunity it's plowin' time again." The process has to be more, um, democratic, not trickle-down from the capital city.
Thanks for the insights. She felt the story could have reflected the bigger picture.
Pam, you are exactly right.
Out here in Western Iowa, many of us feel abandoned by the IDP. We have good candidates who run great campaigns but lose because the GOP floods their opponent’s campaigns with $$$ right before the election. When Rita Hart says the IDP will be prioritizing counties in the Eastern side of the state, it is just more of the same for us. Not impressed. I hope to see changes, but we’ll see...
I have heard this quite often. Thanks!
She has no clue about how to do her job.
I would also like to see the list of the 2,000 or so Iowa projects funded by the Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Acts. I could not find the list on the IDP website.
I did find a link to confirm the status of voter registration which is helpful. https://iwillvote.com/
Great idea!
Google state by state list of infrastructure project. The While House has a great list
Look into Reynolds depriving rural Iowans the opportunity to apply for IRA planning funding. $3 million. Without a plan, they cannot apply for the funding to utilize the millions for weather mitigation and resilience. 3 metropolitan statistical areas did apply and get the grants at the last minute. what a shame for rural Iowa. Huge loss in fed$ for them.
Thank you. I need to learn more about this.
I was a precinct chair for about five years and ran a precinict house for two elections. Attended meetings regularily and finally said enough! THis was in Cedar Rapids and far from rural, it also was far from local control as far as most of the people attending these county meetings were concerned. The chair and his or her henchmen ran the show, we were expected to attend and contribute our money and whatever it took to put these fund raisers on. That was our part, nothing more nothing less, except when it came to elections then it was our job to get out the vote and if it wasn't for the local unions who helped knock on doors, I would have been buried! Finally I said enough! When you learn to make me a part of the decision making process and stop putting your hand in my pocket constantly I'll come back and help, until then, I'm done! Never heard a thing after that!
So now I live "out in the sticks" a county with declining population as the farms get bigger and bigger, with fewer families out on the land. The communities that once were viable now compete with Walmart and quite frankly that is impossible. Business such as car dealers or implement operations are faced with Earl Butts rendition of "Get bigger or get the hell out!" that is enforced by required inventories of product or you are simply out of business. In a county with no railroad 32 miles from a major city both north and south from here, we are simply screwed. I've been here seven years and watch city councilmen quit before their term is up on many ocassions because the job is too demanding! There are no bussiness men who clamor for this job anymore who have a sense of responsibility to the community to take these tasks and do what needs to be done! Retired people and young people who don't have a commitment to the community because they are still trying to get their own game together are who take these jobs and eventually quit. Party affiliation has little to do with it, and recruitment efforts on the part of the party are nill. With county populations of less than 25,000 people in a county, the central committee often is made up of a couple dozen people! Just what in the hell are they going to accomplish??? The National Party has abandoned the rural areas of the country to the Republicans without so much as a wimper. Then they wonder how to invigerate the rural areas without spending a dime! That fiasco that was the "first in the nation" caucas in the last presidential race was a fine example of how much the National or State Party cared, I doubt that even today some counties really know the numbers of votes that were cast for democratic candidates! The reason is squarely on the party in either Des Moines or Washington, to end first in the nation status for Iowa. So, who is really going to make this happen? Someone from Clinton County who happens to be out in the country? I really have to wonder how stupid they think we are!
Thanks for sharing. Lots to unpack here. I certainly don't have the solution, but think that the Democratic Party can learn a lot by thinking about what you have offered here. Hopefully they listen.
That part, "Listening" seems no longer a pre-requisite to actually doing anything! In the usual way of accomplishing what government or the parties that run government do, the simple answer is, we have the answer! Never mind the people on the ground, everything will work out once we have completely redone everything our way! Living in what was considered a slum in Cedar Rapids for over thirty years taught me lessons I would have never gotten in rural Iowa. Our part of town was changing, and that usually means for the worse for people who call the old neighborhood home. Ending the one way streets and planting a medical faculity across 2nd Avenue had a lot to do with that. Suddenly, with this third medical operation between the two hospitals the area became "The Medical District" and something had to be done to" fix" the neighborhood. Decisions like that probably would include the neighborhood that was slated for change, but because the city had abandoned the neighborhood after a bout of "white flight" took place in the 60's, what had been a scaled middle-class neighborhood suddenly became the "hood". With background like that, we had nothing to offer as far as the group that was set to "fix" us was concerned. The president of the organization called me one day and said something in effect that he didn't like what I had said about what they were doing and thought we should get together for a cup of coffee and iron out our differences. I took him up on a cup of coffee, even if I don't drink coffee as a rule, to get a shot at this guy was worth it! We met a block from my house in what they had discribed as a "neighborhood center" it was early spring and snow was still previlent, but melting. I asked if I could ask a couple of questions and if that was agreeable, the response was positive, so I started with simple questions, "How long have you lived in Cedar Rapids? " he responded, "Ten years". Then I asked, "How long have you lived in this neighborhood?' His response was "Never". So, once we established that, I proceeded to tell him why that was important! Examples work the best so I told him there were things he didn't understand simply because he wasn't from here. There were things we dealt with everyday, he had no undeerstanding of and no history with. I asked him to look across the street from the corner we were at and to tell me what he saw. He didn't understand the question. So I tried again, "If you look across the street right at the cross walk what do you see?" He still didn't get the question, so I explained it to him from the view point of people who live in the neighborhood. "What you aren't seeing is a reality that comes with being poor and many don't own cars, they walk or they walk to a corner to catch a bus. Something you probably don't do. So the state of side walks and cross walks are important, if you look at that intersection on each end of the cross walk is a puddle of standing water! three feet away on both sides of the street are storm drains in the street! Why doesn't the water drain into the drains? Because we don't matter! That is the reason the police stay out of this neighborhood and don't answer calls. That is the reason the drug dealers are here and not spread all over town. That is the reason the streets are in such bad condition, that is the reason that when something is done here as far as streets are concerned you have to make trouble to get things done even half right! You don't know this from where you live, you expect the city will respond when you call and where you live they will. We have no expectation of that here. So what is it that you are doing? You are buying up housing and completely rebuilding it. 100 plus year old houses you are gutting to the studs, putting in new plumbing, no wiring, new heating, new kitchen cabinets, new roof, and vinyl siding and new flooring. Then you are discounting the houses for medical workers to get them to live here. Did you give any thought topeople like me who have held a mortgage for over twenty years and fought every raise in property tax since the city doesn't take care of us like the rest of the city and have won everytime? Now you are putting literally new houses on the market in this neighborhood in mass and don't think that won't price the people living here out of the market! Yes, you are getting what you want, but don't think because you are getting what you want that you aren't putting me and my neighbors in jeopardy! So don't think just because you see yourself as doing something good here, that you can expect the people who live here to love what you are doing, especially when you don't even take them into consideration! A few years latter this guy I talked with was gone and someone else took over. Whoever he is, he probably doesn't understand the impact any better than the last guy. It makes it doubly difficult to have even a twinkling of hope things will get better. At the sametime, people wonder how it is that a State that voted for Obama twice turned right around and voted for Trump! Well, as one person told me the reason he voted for Trump was simply to see some change in Government. From my view, that meant let's tear this apart and start over! The thing they didn't envision is tearing down the government we have would lead to anarchy or the possibility they could end up with a dictator!
Robert,
I am happy that you got the interview, but clearly, there is a lot of "floss" here. I find it interesting that she talks her commitment to rural, but for those of us who work to do rural messaging every day, there seems to be "no there, there."
How about some examples? Keokuck is her home area and it has a big main street project funded by two Biden Bills. Did I miss that comment as I read your review? The Republican Members (IA, IL, MO) of Congress whose constituents shop in Keokuck didn't miss it; they all voted against the funding, and now claim credit. This "taking credit" is happening all over Iowa with Miller-Meeks and Hinson topping the list of "queens taking credit" for things they did not vote for.
How about clean water in Iowa? Was there a "borrowed" quote she could have used from Chris Jones?
How about tossing in a couple of statistics about how the Governor is taking money out of public schools to give to private schools, most of which are religious schools? Hmmnn -- public money to religious schools. In rural Iowa, the end result with be more kids on the bus for more hours as their schools are forced to close.
Or, maybe I misunderstood, but didn't she says the IDP website has a list of all the Iowa projects getting Biden federal money? I looked for it? Didn't find it? Is it a secret list, or do iIhave to open every single web address to find it?
Or what about those training sessions? Maybe we should train the IDP and the Chair. By staying mostly silent, they have wasted almost a year now. So yes, it would be good to train county party leadership -- on local fundraising, on building their blogs, on sorting out the many blogs that can be helpful to us, on how to write a press release where we still have local newspapers, on all the activities that we wish the IDP could remember to do, etc.?
Or how about some teamwork? For Iowa, many of us have hosted or worked on Washington fundraisers for Iowa candidates for years. Some of us belonged to the club system (now abandoned) that loyally supported the IDP financially. How about a thank you, and an actual lift on the list-building for another? Oops. I forgot ... she doesn't talk to people unless she happens to be in the mood. She doesn't have a voice. From what I hear, The NYTimes nailed it. County parties are on their own. The IDP Central Committee has gotten so big that it's useless as a leadership entity and mainly functions as a crutch for its many do-nothing issue caucuses.
I admit -- all of this breaks my heart. For all of us who spent years building the IDP, it is very difficult to understand why even the basics are missing. Essentially, when we have a bad year, it can't be fixed by doing less. More has to be done. Motion has to be made. And most certainly, when leaders don't know what to do, the first thing they should be doing is making motion.
Thanks for the insights Barbara. I've subscribed to your newsletter and hope to learn more. Happy also to chat over the phone about what you think the best practices are. Thanks, Bob rdwleonard@gmail.com
Sure. barbara.leach@gmail.com. 202.262.6170
“It’s the economy stupid.’’ Jim Carville beat an incumbent president with that mantra. The Democrats have watched as the Republicans demolished private sector unions. There hasn’t been a significant challenge to the right to work law in my lifetime and I’m 71. We’re Iowa, not California and we don’t share the cultural values of the coastal elites. Again the Democrats seem annoyed by when with a wave of the hand some “expert” tells us gender is fluid.
Now Rita tells us she’s one of us. Ok. Show us. Stop lecturing us on how to speak and think. It’s the economy stupid.
Vote for Trump
Nah. He's Putin's bitch.
Why don’t you just move to Russia.
Pam Kinney below nails it. The IDP has repeatedly failed, desperately needs a new chair and other leadership too.