Joni Ernst’s Iowa campaign makes quick work of the ‘war on women’

The Washington Post ^ | September 26, 2014 | George Will

[centurion316]

-SNIP_Of the five Senate contests in purple states — Iowa, Virginia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Colorado — this is currently the closest: The Real Clear Politics average of polls shows a tie (Ernst ahead by 0.2 percentage points as of Friday).

Which should make Republicans anxious as they try to take control of the Senate and as they contemplate the 2016 presidential landscape. Although Iowa has voted Democratic in six of the last seven presidential elections, the Ernst-Braley contest should not be this close.

Only 38 percent of Iowans approve of Barack Obama’s performance. Braley, a past president of an Iowa trial lawyers association, is as awkward as Ernst is ebullient when campaigning. And the Democratic Party’s single idea — the trope that Republicans live to wage a “war on women” — leaves Ernst bemused: “I am a woman, and I have been to war and this is not war.” A 5-foot-2 grandmother, she is a National Guard lieutenant colonel who served in Iraq.

-SNIP-

Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican who served four terms from 1983 to 1999, is now in his fifth and has a double-digit lead in his quest for a sixth, and is already the longest-serving governor in the United States since Colonial times. His coattails should help Ernst in the voting, which began Thursday. Ernst is also warmly supported by Iowa’s six-term Sen. Charles Grassley, who would be chairman of the Judiciary Committee in a Republican-controlled Senate. Braley, speaking at a fundraiser to other trial lawyers in Texas, and evidently forgetting that nowadays cellphones are also video cameras, was recorded lamenting that Republican control could put Judiciary’s gavel in the hands of “a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school.” -SNIP-

[centurion316]

George Will is frequently off the conservative reservation these days, but I think that he is on the mark with this piece. Iowa is another strange midwest state. They should be solid red, but there are stubborn streaks of blue that led to a long career for retiring Senator Tom Harkin, one of the Senate's original Communist members.

[jjotto]

Here’s what else Braley told the Texas trial lawyers who were raising money for him:

“[I]f you help me win this race you may have someone with your background, your experience, your voice, someone who’s been literally fighting tort reform for thirty years, in a visible or public way, on the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

So Braley claims he has an inside on Judiciary should he be elected. How would he get such an inside? What did he give up to get it? Why won’t Ernst exploit this claim?

[SoFloFreeper]

Isn’t it the “city” of Des Moines that creates the bulk of Demon Rat votes for Iowa?

The current occupant of the Oval Office won Iowa by about 90,000 votes in 2012.

1/3 of those votes came from Polk county, where Des Moines is located.

Scott county has Davenport, that went Democrat by 12,000.

Linn county, where Cedar Rapids is, gave BO a margin of 11,000.

That is +53,000 votes right there from three of the largest cities in Iowa.

Black Hawk county must have had the fraud machine working overtime.... +13,000 for the Demon Rats. That county is home to Waterloo.

Generally, it looks as though EASTERN Iowa enjoys being a vassal to the federal bureaucracy, whereas WESTERN Iowa prefers to live according to the Constitution.

http://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/president/iowa/

[Carry_Okie]

Generally, it looks as though EASTERN Iowa enjoys being a vassal to the federal bureaucracy, whereas WESTERN Iowa prefers to live according to the Constitution.

Propose junking ethanol in gasoline and grain price supports and watch what western Iowa does.

[captain_dave]

Joni, make ‘em squeal!

[SunkenCiv]

George Will’s support is analogous to an OOP artifact.

Anyone who votes for her opponent should go straight to Hell.

The fact is, there isn’t a strong party identification in Iowa; it at least used to be said of voters there, “court us or we’ll show you”. Braley’s a pro-torte, anti-farmer demagogue and jackass. However:

> Iowa is among the four states that have never sent a woman to either the Senate or the House. The others are: Delaware (D); Mississippi (black); and Vermont (D or I).

http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/resources/state_fact_sheets/IA.php

> Why is Mississippi so red when it’s so black?
> http://thegrio.com/2011/08/25/why-is-mississippi-so-red-when-its-so-black/

> Why the Hell is Mississippi Republican?
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-white/why-the-hell-is-mississip_b_4055688.html

[Beagle8U]

Make ‘em squeal Joni!

[jjotto]

Johnson County, Iowa, gave Obama 26,500 more votes than Romney (67% to 31%) out of a total of around 74,000 cast. The smaller more Catholic counties in eastern Iowa go Democrat too.

[SoFloFreeper]

Well there you go; that makes up balance of votes that I hadn’t found....Iowa City and the University of Iowa are in Johnson County.

and there you have it.

Makes sense.

[SoFloFreeper]

Another point: the Clown won Iowa by 90,000 votes. MORE THAN HALF of that margin, then, came from Polk and Johnson.

[jjotto]

That urban-rural split is probably similar to the rest of America.

That, incidentally, is why secession by a state won’t work, and why there probably won’t be a third party that starts regionally such as happened with the Republican Party.

[jjotto]

Polk County has half a million people, Johnson about a third of that.

[SoFloFreeper]

They can’t be VERY “Catholic” if they go Demon Rat....I mean, murdering babies isn’t a Catholic position.

[2ndDivisionVet]

If it has unions (public or private) in any numbers, it votes Democrat. Des Moines is the capitol, so there are numerous AFSCME, AFGE, ISSWA, NEA, APWU, ANA, IAFF, NALC, RLCA and other union members there.

[2ndDivisionVet]

I miss the Machine Shed and pork tenderloin sandwiches.

[grey_whiskers]

Who can forget Maid-Rite?