Convention Wrap Up;
Thoughts for 08
By Sam Garchik
We need to elect Joyce Schulte. Thanks to the Johnson County Republican Blog, we get this from Steve King at the Republican State Convention:
“There are probably not 72 virgins in the hell Al-Zarqawi is in. If there are, the probably all look like Helen Thomas.”
What the heck is that? I'd hate for someone to say that about your mother, Steve.
Oh yeah. He also prayed that “Justice Ginsberg and Justice Kennedy fall madly in love with each other and elope to Cuba, giving President Bush two more appointments to the Supreme Court.”
Hey, Hey, Ho Ho, Steve King has GOT TO GO!
Now time to organize.
Holly Berkowitz, bless her soul, taped the convention. She says she can burn a DVD for me, and I can post the Fallon speech on this blog sometime in the next few days. Also, if anyone has a report from the meeting after the convention, email to me here and I'll post it.
I talked to Polk County activist Christina Butts, who runs the Yahoo group, Democracy for Iowa. Look forward to possibly more collaborative efforts between us and them.
And check this out! Alta Price has created the Quad Cities Democratic Gun Club. Their motto should be, “Peace By Any Means Necessary!”
Lastly and most importantly, the third amendment on the agenda, the addition of a Progressive Caucus (page 39 Convention Book) was written by a woman named Cathy Ferguson (sp?) who I tried to reach in the afternoon. Unfortunately, she had already left, so if anyone knows Cathy, please let her know I am interested in contacting her.
So, the amendment went down 294 – 194, but NO ONE IN JOHNSON COUNTY VOTED because we were all somewhere else (talking to Harkin, I think, or not yet seated?. More details on this are found at Political Forecast, who bless his heart, blogged the whole convention.
So, here's a plan to get this passed.
1. Work together to come up with an amendment which we think might pass.
2. We can win if we pay attention to what's going on, look for our amendment, contact county chairs and the folks who voted against it, hit delegates with a cheap direct mail piece and an add in the convention book (as the two winning DNC electors did), and get 50 of the nay votes. No problem.
3. Only 740 or so of the possible 1500 delegates showed up. In 2004, I understand, about 3,000 delegates were eligible to be seated. If progressives descend on the convention with enough votes, fill in vacant seats and alternate seats, we can win the amendment by a landslide. No problem.
4. There's no Labor caucus. We can write an ammendment that ads both a Labor and a Progressive Caucus, and work with Labor to get the backing for the whole deal. Everyone wins. No problem.
So I'm totally interested in pursuing this. We have the tools, the outreach, and the passion. Let's get to work.
Blog For Iowa 
Steve King losing would be great. If King does win though, it wouldn't be so bad. He then would probably run against Tom Harkin in 2008 and get destroyed in a state wide election.
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I was kind of thinking the same thing, but I don't think he'll run against Harkin. It's tough to figure out who will, but Harkin's nearing retirement. It'd be a lot easier to win that seat come 2014. It's a long ways away, and too long for the fifth to wait for King to move on.
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Sorry that I couldn't make it to the post convention get together at the Savory, we had to head back to save my mom from our four youngest children.
Some of my thoughts:
The idea of combining a labor and a progressive caucus into one admendment is a good idea. I think that it could work to try to build a coalition to pass the admendment.
Our district met with Gov. Vilsack in the afternoon. When we were leaving the meeting he was shaking a few hands, since my wife, daughter, and I were in the front row about the only way out was to go by him. So as he shook Hannah's (my daughter, one of the youth delegates) hand he noticed the small Blog for Iowa pin that she had on. Gov. Vilsack then said to her, “Blog for Iowa, I like looking at that site. It is a good website.” So we might have the governor lurking at times here.
The convention lasted a couple hours longer than it should have simply because the platform ballots should have been turned in several hours earlier than what they were. Those of us on the rules committee weren't very happy with this because we generally will stay until the convention is over. But at least it wasn't as late as last time.
One last thing, does anyone have any photos of the convention? My oldest daughter is the webmaster (with a little help from her mom…) for our county Democrats website. Our camera went on the fritz, with lots of lines showing up on every photo that was taken. Any general photos would be appreciated. Thanks!
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Thanks for getting this up so promptly, Sam.
Yesterday afternoon we took 3 Charter Members of the Quad Cities Democratic Gun Club target shooting. Afterwards I took our advisor and his son out to dinner to thank them (our advisor happens to be my husband, so it was also a father's day treat). I'll try to get a blog post up at the QCDGC DFA-Link site tonight about it.
We had a great Chinese dinner for our DFIA get-together on Saturday evening. I think the Roseman's have pictures (please send). I'll try to write up something short about that (unless someone else wants to?) and get it up at the DFIA blog at DFA-Link. We should also put that up at BFIA.
It was great to meet so many Progressives and DFAers in Des Moines! We had a lot of fun. But I agree 110% with Sam – now it's time to get to work!
Alta Price
altaprice@yahoo.com
563-332-5051 home
563-421-1140 work
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I have a small correction to what you posted about the convention. You stated:
So, the amendment went down 294 – 194, but NO ONE IN JOHNSON COUNTY VOTED because we were all somewhere else (talking to Harkin, I think, or not yet seated?.
This is not quite correct. I remained behind at the convention and did not join the photo taken with Harkin. I voted, all 3 times. I also pointed out to everyone that Johnson County was missing, but the chair basically said tough, delegates should stay in the main room if they want to participate in votes. I also got Brenda Conry and Tim to vote at the very very end of the paper balloting. They were back from the photo before most other people so I was able to let them know what was going on.
Wendy Robertson
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Here's what Joyce Schulte had to say about King's comments, by the way…
From Democratic candidate Joyce Schulte:
Congressman Steve King continues his vituperative and uncivil behavior during his speech at the Iowa Republican State Convention.
Commenting on the recent death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a most reprehensible person at best, King opined that al-Zarqawi has probably learned that 72 virgins did not await him in the hell he is in. King went on to state “And if there are, they probably all look like Helen Thomas.” There was extended laughter by King and his audience.
While we should not be surprised by any of King's remarks at this point in his career, his desultory comments about the appearance of a respected member of the journalistic community is so low as to evoke a response from me.
Mean-spirited remarks are beneath the dignity of any self respecting Congressperson, and remarks about another person's appearance are even lower.
I am not an apologist for al-Zarqawi, and the hell he put many people through; Muslim, Christian and unknown others. I am certain that he is getting his justice and that there is no excuse for the kind of terror he practiced. I let God be God.
I hesitate to even use Helen Thomas' name in the same document with so vile a wretch as al-Zarqawi. But I want her and the world to know that Iowans are not insensitive buffoons who make fun at someone else's expense.
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