An Iowa View of the Midterms

“During the question and answer
period someone asked, 'What is the strategy to influence our elected
officials?' That is a tough one because the question’s construction
presumes a separation from our elected officials.”

A group of locals gathered in our small town library this week to talk about the midterm election campaign. It is still early and we don’t expect to ramp up until after the June primary. The Democratic ballot shows only one contested primary race in our precincts and we don’t talk much about that as there is consensus about who the winner of that contest is likely to be. For most of us, this is our fourth election cycle of working together, we know the drill, and will support candidates who come out of the primary, for the most part, whether we like them or not. We had locally baked pie and coffee after the meeting and talked in a way that has become habitual.

If Democrats had a political awakening after the 2000 presidential election, it has taken the conservatives longer. If Varnum vs. Brien and national health care reform got some Republicans in Iowa fired up, that energy does not appear to have been sustainable. The corporate media covered the resurgence of interest by conservatives and the noise fed upon itself. It is difficult to tell if the media influences the outlook of viewers or the other way around and that noise appears to be fading, at least in our community. Evidence of this can be found in the arc of Sarah Palin’s popularity. It seems to have turned downward since it was determined that she is less politician, and more public speaker and capitalist opining on political topics. We expect voter turnout to be higher than a normal midterm election in our community, but one never knows.

Tip O’Neill famously said, “all politics is local.” What Iowans should know is that in our locality, the Governor’s prospects for re-election are strong, we seem likely to hold our congressional seat, and for the first time in a long time, the senior senator from Iowa is vulnerable and within striking distance of being replaced. Our state representative has a challenger and with our hard work and persistent efforts, 2010 should be a good year for Democrats in Iowa. What else are we going to do but work hard? We already have a substantial investment in the government we elected after 2000 and are unwilling to give that up without a fight.

At a public meeting to celebrate Cinco de Mayo we heard a talk on the 2006 raids of the Marshalltown Swift Plant by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. During the question and answer period someone asked, “What is the strategy to influence our elected officials?” That is a tough one because the question’s construction presumes a separation from our elected officials. If politics is local, in our locale, there is little separation between citizenry and elected officials unless a person wants it.

Around here, each of us has had opportunities to speak directly, person to person, with our elected officials about what is on our mind. In the last week I had dinner with my congressman, pie and coffee with my state senator and representative and conversations with three of my five county supervisors. There were no limits on these conversations, except on the time: let’s face it, who has time to talk about politics without end. These conversations are never only about politics and the accessibility I experience is available to almost anyone in the region.

The idea, asserted by some, that there should be a direct conduit between the “will of the people” and politicians borders on insanity. If that were the case, then technology today is such that Oracle or Google could probably rig up some kind of telephone based voting system where congress could be dissolved and we could have our say in everything through direct participation. Boy that would change things!

We look to our elected officials to learn about what is going on in addition to telling them things. I have disagreed with votes taken by my representatives and they know my points of disagreement. I am not ready to throw them out of office because of the dialectic we have established. Most of gathered at the library felt the same way.

So as spring moves towards the primary we see some action on the part of our conservative neighbors and gird up for the campaigns to come thereafter. If we are a political machine, as some have described us, it is more because some of us have bridgework, artificial knees and pacemakers more than because someone tells us what to think and do. That’s local politics in Iowa and by the way, the lemon chiffon pie was to die for.

~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. With the advent of spring
he is also planting and blogging about his garden which you can check
out here. E-mail Paul
Deaton