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Iowans Financially Support Roxanne Conlin for U.S. Senate

by Paul Deaton

It is no wonder U. S. Senatorial candidate Tom Fiegen was
upset with Roxanne Conlin last Saturday night about the diminished possibility of a Johnson County
League of Women Voters debate between Roxanne Conlin, Bob Krause and himself. Campaigns are always about three primary things: ideas,
name recognition and money. Today Conlin announced she has more than $1 million
in her campaign bank account and has left her primary competitors in the dust on fund raising. This
leaves name recognition and ideas upon which to compete and Conlin already has
better name recognition that her two challengers. It reduces down to ideas
and that appears to be what the brouhaha last Saturday was about. There should
be an equal playing field on dissemination of ideas, yet a decision to debate
would clearly have favored Krause and Fiegen who have struggled to get their
message out through the corporate media. One can’t blame Conlin for declining
to debate. While money and name recognition aren’t everything, it will mean a
lot if the Democrats want to unseat the six term incumbent. That is something many
Iowans want to do.

It is clear that Iowa Democratic Party chair Michael Kiernan
favors Conlin in the race, as do other key party members. Blog for Iowa has attempted to present a level account of
all three candidates, but Conlin’s superiority in fund raising is difficult to
ignore.

To date, the campaign has raised $1,483,191 according to campaign
sources. In the first quarter, $628,615 was raised by the campaign and the candidate
contributed $250,000 of her own money. According to Open Secrets, Grassley has
cash in hand 5:1 compared with Conlin at $5,092,181. Conlin claims no PAC or Washington
Lobbyist contributions, and at the same time, she was recently seen fund raising in
Massachusetts by a friend of mine. The campaign asserts that out of
state donations amount to about 19% of contributions, more raised than Krause
and Fiegen combined.

With 54 days to go until the June 8 primary, Krause and
Fiegen have a lot of voter contacts to make to offset the cash advantage and
name recognition of Roxanne Conlin. Neither has indicated that they are dropping out of the race.

~Paul
Deaton is a native Iowan living in rural Johnson County and weekend
editor of Blog for Iowa. He is also a member of Iowa Physicians for
Social Responsibility and Veterans for Peace. E-mail Paul
Deaton