Can Roxanne Conlin raise $10 million without PACs?
Roxanne Conlin told Skinny the other evening that she’ll need to raise $10 million to $12 million to take on Republican Sen. Charles Grassley next year. Then she said she won’t take any money from lobbyists or political action committees (PACs). Conlin doesn’t smoke anything or drink anything these days — but she must have been under some mind-addling influence to make that statement. Maybe that nicotine gum and those nicotine patches affect political judgment. Or maybe there was something in the hors d’oeuvres.
(Social note: This is the first time “hors d’oeuvres” has appeared in a column by the upwardly mobile Skinny.)
“Realism seems absent here,” a Conlin friend, fellow Democrat, long-time pol and strategist for several winning campaigns told Skinny. Another pol notes that Conlin will be competing in fund-raising with Chet Culver, who needs $10 million or so to run for re-election as governor — and who is nothing if not a tireless and prodigious fund-raiser.
(Aside. The bulky governor has announced he is competing in a mini-triathlon in Florida on Nov. 15. A Skinny reader asks: “What three food groups is he competing in?”)
As of press time, Conlin has not yet formally announced, so she has zero dollars so far. The 76-year-old Grassley, seeking his sixth Senate term after 50 years in public office, had $4,434,143 on hand as of Sept. 30. So far this year, he has raised $2,059,237, and $977,612 of that has come from political action committees. The top five industries contributing to him in the past five years are “health professionals,” “insurance,” “pharmaceuticals/health products,” “lobbyists” and “hospitals/nursing homes,” according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The top three corporate contributors have been Amgen Inc; Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and Select Medical Corp. It is no coincidence that all these contributors have a big stake in the current health-care legislation, in which Grassley is a key player and a staunch defender of the medical/health/insurance establishment. And all that money just sort of came in over the transom when most people assumed Grassley wouldn’t have a viable opponent. It will really pour in now that he has real opposition.
It takes a lot of nickel-and-dime contributions to match the $257,356 that health professionals and their PACs have given to Grassley since he last was elected. But Conlin says that’s the point: that lobbyists and PACs have taken over politics — especially in the health-care debate, and especially in the case of Grassley — and she thinks that’s horrid. Indeed, that’s a main reason she’s running.
(Aside. Skinny reported on Aug. 13 that Conlin was probably the mystery candidate state party chair Michael Kiernan was talking about for the Senate race. Then, on Oct. 10, Skinny reported that it’s “clear Roxanne will run” against Grassley and laid out how she might win. Ten weeks after the first mention in Skinny, in an “exclusive,” copyrighted story, The Des Moines Register reported Friday that “Conlin Considers Opposing Grassley in 2010.”)
The 65-year-old Conlin, who says she’s in the race to win and isn’t a sacrificial lamb for her party, could beat Grassley, whose popularity is dwindling, but she has her work cut out for her. Though she has a gold-plated resume — U.S. Attorney, first woman president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, assistant Iowa attorney general, long-time civil rights activist, hugely successful law practice, founder of the Iowa Women’s Political Caucus, leader in the fight for women’s rights — and a gold-filled purse, she lost her only state-wide race when Terry Branstad beat her by six points for the governorship in 1982. (In part, she blames the Register’s former editor Michael Gartner and political writers Jim Flansburg and David Yepsen for that, though she says over time she has “forgiven” Flansburg, then Gartner. Yepsen is still on the waiting list. All are gone from the Register.)
She has no organization yet, though she has great contacts in the state and should be able to build a staff and an organization fairly quickly. And the state party will go all out for her. Another plus: she’s on good terms with the Governor, so there will be some synergies there, and she can count on help from Harkin’s backers. But the loyalists of former Gov. Tom Vilsack aren’t likely to step forward. Some of them have been quietly hoping Christie Vilsack would run — there’s no love lost between the two women — but Conlin’s entry forced Vilsack’s hand, and on Monday Vilsack said she wouldn’t enter the race (which the Register Web site reported Monday as yet another exclusive — “via e-mail press release,” which was distributed so widely that even Skinny got a copy Monday morning). Still, one Vilsack partisan uncharitably compared the tart-tongued Conlin to the harsh Nancy Pelosi last week, and noted that Iowans don’t flock to Pelosi-like women. They prefer Christie-like women, he said. A city person, Conlin will have to learn about agriculture, which might strike a non-Iowan as odd. But an Iowa farm wife was quoted in The New York Times on Sunday as saying “Most people in farm states really don’t know a farmer,” and that’s probably true. In 1962, Congressman Neal Smith demolished opponent Sonja Egenes, a Fulbright scholar with an urban background, by simply asking on a radio show a basic question about farms that she couldn’t answer.
(Aside. Potential copyright story for Register: Republican State Sen. Brad Zaun is thinking of running against U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell. Such a race would not elevate the art of debating.)
But win or lose, Conlin will bring out voters, which is good for the Democrats. The Senate race will be on the top of the ballot, and having a credible candidate helps those down farther on the ticket. It should help Culver, too, who will need all the help he can get if former Gov. Terry Branstad gets the Republican nomination.
At any rate, with old foes Branstad and Conlin both in the race, and with each having a chance at an upset, politics has gotten a lot more interesting in Iowa.
Miscellany: A huge sculpture was dedicated last week. It’s on the Capitol grounds, near the Supreme Court building, and it celebrates the long history of civil-rights, diversity and equality decisions handed down by the Iowa Supreme Court, from the very first decision that guaranteed freedom for a former slave, to this year’s unanimous ruling allowing same-sex marriage. The ceremony was in a packed room at the Supreme Court building, and the speakers heaped praise on the court. Some great-great grandchildren of Iowa’s first chief justice came from afar for the celebration. No current justices of the Court attended.
Helpful money-saving idea for the universities: Do you really need those troopers and police to protect the coaches? Don’t you think that 50 or 60 250-plus pound guys could protect a coach should someone run at him? Also, we know a school-crossing guard who might be interested. Is the job put out for competitive bidding? Just asking. CV
