IDP chair Rita Hart

I was going to review the most recent Iowa Press episode with Iowa GOP chair Jeff Kaufmann but you’ll have to go find it yourself. It’s easily findable right there on the Iowa Press website with all the other episodes. It is pretty fun but I will decline to post it here.

In one section, Kaufmann was salivating over the crappy, awful, horrible, over-the-top,  attack ads that have been blanketing the media. (Have you seen the one where they try to link one of our congressional candidates to a murderous ax wielding guy in a dark parking lot)?

The ad strategy being that fallen away republicans, no-party voters and other viewers will be affected by scary ads that work on their brains in such a way that they disbelieve what they can see with their own eyes, how Republican policies have harmed Iowa, and instead they become fearful and vote again to give Republicans another chance… to do even more damage to our state.

Kaufmann basically said they are counting on the non-stop negative ads, the 4th district MAGA base, plus GOTV to minimize republican losses in the midterms.

Brianne Pfannenstiel, chief politics reporter for the Des Moines Register, ever so politely asked him if there was possibly a diminishing return after too many of this type of ad and whether he thinks voters are getting fed up with all the negative advertising on TV and in the media.  Nope.

“…Negative advertising works and the statistics are very, very clear…  get ready, Iowa, because you’re going to see a barrage of television ads. And until statistics tell us any different, I think that’s going to continue to be.” – Jeff Kaufmann

So they’re counting on three things: 1- the 4th district; 2- a gazillion dollars worth of non-stop ads trashing the democratic candidates, and activating the amygdalae  (the part of the brain primarily responsible for managing fear) of voters;  and 3- using that fear to jump start their GOTV strategy.

That’s what they have been doing for awhile and it has been working for the last ten or so years but we’ll see if it works this time around. It kind of seemed like he’s worried it’s not going to.

Enough about the Republicans. Iowa Democrats are back in the game.

Here is Rita Hart, chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, who was on the Iowa Press program a week ago.  She is an honest broker and has been an excellent chair. If you watch both episodes, notice the panel’s diggy, cynical questioning of Hart compared to their fawning flirtatiousness with Kaufmann. Seriously. No exaggeration. Go see for yourself.