I don’t live in Iowa-04 but I’ve been following Ryan Melton’s congressional campaign because he is a plain talking, hard working candidate who I think Iowans would like. Apparently, incumbent Randy Feenstra is afraid of that too, according to this interesting story from the campaign trail, outlined in Melton’s newsletter below. Melton was impressive during his appearance on Iowa Press the first time he ran against Feenstra.
Here is a highlight from that program:
“I don’t have a paid Washington D.C. consultant that tells me what to say, I don’t have any paid consultants that tell me what to say. My words are my own. I have a master’s degree, I’m a smart guy. I can look at the data in front of me without bias, without corporate influence and make conclusions that I think are sound and reasonable. And so in this space as far as political messaging, I don’t say anything that I have first put through the ElectionTron 5000 to make sure that it appeases enough voters. I say the truth. I try to do the right things regardless.” – Ryan Melton, Iowa Press, 2022
Sign up for Ryan’s newsletter and please consider a donation to the campaign, links below.
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This is Ryan Melton, Democrat running for the U.S. House in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District. During my 2024 campaign, I’ll send you a weekly email to keep you in the loop while not overwhelming your inbox. Typically, the newsletter will be a review from the week prior: Where we went, what issues of note were on the minds of those I met with, where we’ll be in the next week, etc.
Where we went and what people were concerned about:
Last week, I spoke with the Drinking Liberally group at Cronk’s in Denison mid-week, and met folks in Huxley, Gilbert, and Nevada at get togethers on Saturday.
Last week on the campaign trail, the hot button issues folks cared about the most were:
Every week on the campaign trail, there’s at least one person that asks me if I’ll debate my opponent, who is probably going to be Randy Feenstra again (although he does have a primary opponent this time). Most likely not, even though I personally would love to. It seems unlikely he’d ever agree to it.
Last campaign, Feenstra was getting criticized in the press for being the only Congressional opponent to have not accepted a debate offer. I know a number of folks who had served with Feenstra in the state legislature, and their common takeaway is that Feenstra has thin skin. This seemed to be confirmed by his reaction to the bad press he was getting for dodging me.
After the bad press, Feenstra and I both received an invite to a joint voter forum run by the Iowa Corngrowers Association. I accepted the invite like I had accepted all other requests to speak on the same stage as Feenstra, but didn’t expect anything from it considering Feenstra had dodged me at every turn. However, he accepted this one. I was as happy as a kid on Christmas morning. I spent the next few weeks prepping, talking to folks like J.D. Scholten and others.
I walked into the building in Fort Dodge on night one of the two night event the forum was being held at and was ushered into what turned out to be a small room with roughly ten people. I quickly noticed there was no recording equipment and no press. I found that odd, but then Feenstra walked in, we shook hands, and began.
The moderator from the Iowa Corngrowers Association kicked off the event by…thanking Randy Feenstra for calling them to set up the event! I assume Feenstra didn’t want them to reveal that he called in a favor to have them put on a closed door, private event, with no press and no recording equipment as a trial run to test whether he’d feel comfortable enough publicly debating me on Iowa Public Television, as he had not yet declined that invite.
I feel I did well, and knocked Feenstra back on his heels often. He started aggressively but ended up in survival mode. At the end, we were each given 3 minutes to finish however we wanted. I chose to look at him directly and ask for a public debate, making clear the citizens of the 4th deserved it. He looked like he was eating a lemon. He was not enjoying the evening.
A few days later, he declined the debate invite from Iowa Public Television without giving a reason. The silver lining? IPTV gave me the entire half hour, and that YouTube link is listed below.
I’m a firm believer that candidates for public office should regularly open themselves up to public scrutiny. That’s why I accept every journalist’s interview ask, every debate offer, and it’s why I pre-advertise my events on Facebook and Twitter, so folks of all political affiliations can seek me out. I’m not going to run for office to represent people only to hide from those same people like Feenstra does.
Let’s keep fighting the good fight together.
Our schedule for this week:
Saturday, February 17, 2024: Door knocking in Storm Lake.
Saturday, February 17, 2024: Pizza Ranch Party Room at 5 in Storm Lake.
Sunday, February 18, 2024: Elk’s Lodge in Council Bluffs 1-4 pm (County Party Chili Fundraiser)
Recent press/social media posts of note:
We again are rejecting all Corporate PAC money, so we really rely on, and are extremely grateful for your support. We’ll spend your donations on ways to expand our reach to as many voters as possible, including:
-Post cards and other mailers and postage
-Hand out cards for events
-Text messaging campaigns
-Transportation costs for events and door knocking
-Campaign website costs
-Radio ads, Social Media Ads, and (hopefully) TV ads
-Our campaign managers
Finally, if you have anyone else in mind that would like to be added to our email list or who would be interested in volunteering, let us know at melton4iowa@gmail.com!
Let’s keep fighting the good fight together!
Ryan Melton
Blog For Iowa 