Cityview | Central Iowa's Independent Weekly

Coronation?

What the GOP primary will tell us about Terry Branstad and the future of the Iowa Republican Party

While he leads comfortably in recent Florida U.S. Senate polls, establishment Republican governor Charlie Crist, a centrist in today’s political dictionary, faces a feisty underdog in Marco Rubio — a darling of the right who conservative pundits are peddling at every opportunity.

Meanwhile, as of presstime, political pros of both parties were closely watching a special election in upstate New York, where the more moderate, some say liberal, Republican nominee, Dede Scozzafava, just bowed out, clearing the for third-party conservative, Doug Hoffman — the preferred candidate of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh.

Are there portents in New York’s 23rd Congressional District and the Sunshine State for the Republican Party in Iowa in 2010?... Read More>>

What the GOP primary really means; Ed Fallon needs work

So much for strategy. As he was gearing up to seek the Republican gubernatorial nomination, Terry Branstad told a guy that he would campaign on economic issues and on his love of the state and would stay away from the social issues that divide his party. He made his first campaign appearance Saturday, in Wilton in eastern Iowa. He did in fact talk about the economy, but he also said he favored putting Iowa’s same-sex marriage ruling to a vote of the people.

“During his remarks, Branstad called for a public referendum to define marriage,” the Quad-City Times reported. “He called the state Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage ‘appalling,’ and he likened the inability to put the issue on the ballot to a ‘dictatorship.’”

The sound you hear is the Republican moderates (all three of them) rushing to the exits. Along with a couple hundred thousand independents. Read More>>

Elliott finds his stride with ‘Redemption Man’

Redemption is something a working artist like Chad Elliott understands. It is the saving or improving of something from irreversible decline.

Sometimes it is the art. Other times it is the artist himself.

Eight years ago, the 35-year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist bought a one-way ticket to California. With only $20 in his pocket, he immersed himself in San Francisco’s homeless community. For one month, he ate and slept with them. Then for the next 11 months, he lived in his car, rambling like a vagabond before returning to his native Iowa and settling down in Coon Rapids.

“It put me in a different world as I was learning to write as a solo performer and finding my voice,” said Elliott, who three years prior to that had began his musical career as part of the indie-folk duo One Man’s Junk.

35th Street Café

The re-opening of 35th Street Café this month signaled the final stage of a long, controversial makeover of the Ingersoll Avenue Dahl’s, a neighborhood anchor since the Truman Administration.

The original store opened in 1952 with a band, an elephant and a donkey, plus building-sized photos of presidential candidates. It introduced brave new concepts to Des Moines including an underground train that transported groceries to a Dahl House pickup station, a Kiddie Koral, rotisserie chickens and an in-store café. The restaurant kept loyal customers until it closed in the first phase of the makeover. Scores of regulars were then displaced after decades of sitting around three oval counters that facilitated conversation and camaraderie but not table turning and profits. The café stayed packed for most of 55 years, with people waiting for a seat to open at rush hours and retirees chatting over coffee during off hours. Because the store’s customer base is heavy on nostalgic senior citizens, expectations for the reopening were high. Too high. Read More>>”