The Political Industrial Complex

by Jim Larew



The
simple lesson to be learned from the November 2004 election is this:
Progressive and liberal Iowa Democrats must push the Iowa Democratic
Party and elected Democratic office holders to provide a new emphasis
upon core values, as opposed to focusing on the next wave of purported
reforms of campaign machineries.  In that election, Iowa Democrats
suffered their first loss of the Presidential race in years, a
disappointment suffered in the national spotlight created by our swing state status.



The
humiliation did not end there.  In that same campaign, the Iowa
Democratic Party failed to offer an effective challenge to U.S. Senator
Charles Grassley, a one-time fiscally conservative Republican who has
now morphed, without any political repercussions, into a legislative
architect of the largest deficits and most wasteful Federal spending in
American history.  Of the millions of dollars floating around the
Hawkeye State in the 2004 campaign cycle, barely a penny could be found
by Iowa Democratic Party leaders to support Grassley’s hapless, if
undaunted, challenger, Art Small, a longtime progressive political
officeholder.



Similarly,
the Iowa Democratic Party offered Iowa voters no effective alternative
to any incumbent GOP congressman when it denied each challenger access
to effective political or monetary support. In every case, Iowa’s
losing Democratic challengers were progressive and articulate, yet each
of their respective voices were silenced, not so much by the
opposition, but by the abject failure of the Iowa Democratic Party to
meaningfully support their candidacies.

To read the entire article (Part I), see the
Spring 2005 issue of the Prairie Progressive, Iowa's oldest progressive
newsletter, available only in hard copy for $12/yr. to PP, Box 1945, Iowa City
52244.  Co-editors
of The Prairie Progressive are Jeff Cox and Dave Leshtz.