Is Frew leaving? Donald Kaul and other names from the past
First the political news, if it is news: Culver’s chief aide John Frew is telling friends, who are telling Skinny, that he is leaving late this spring. He’s going to Texas, they say, the home state of his wife — who wasn’t ecstatic last year when he told her they were moving to Iowa from Colorado. And, once again, the rumors are that Culver influential campaign consultant Teresa Vilmain will be leaving after the primary. But that rumor crops up every few months. The revolving door moves faster and faster.
More bad news for Democrats. Skinny hears that AFSCME, irked because the House Democrats didn’t pass the labor bills the union wanted, has told House leaders not to expect union money for this campaign. If so, that’s a huge hit. In past years, the union has supplied as much as 40 percent of the House’s campaign funds, says a guy who keeps track. Another guy says the House Democrats won’t be the only ones cut off by AFSCME. “Don’t look for any AFSCME money going to the state Democratic party,” he says. …
Now the cultural news: Cityview, sparing no expense, dispatched an operative to Philadelphia for the opening preview of “Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins.” The play is by twin sisters Allison and Peggy Engel, onetime reporters (along with their brother Jonathan) at the Register and Tribune. Kathleen Turner is the one-woman in the 80-minute one-woman (with a young man in a walk-on, nonspeaking role) play, and she got a standing ovation at the end of Friday night’s initial performance. The play formally opens Wednesday. (There is also, offstage, a barking dog, or a recording of a barking dog, playing the role of Ivins’ dog, whose name was Shit.)
“It’s a terrific show,” was the complete report of Cityview’s critic, who is not paid by the word or the mile.
And the social news: The Philadelphia show was also a reunion of sorts for 60 to 65 friends of the Engels, who were corralled by (another former Register newsie) Julie Gammack and her husband (a former Register executive and Iowa political operative) Richard Gilbert, formerly known as Dick Gilbert. They live in Annapolis, and reeled in folks from coast to coast. Among the 65: former Register Washington bureau chief (and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner) Jim Risser, now of Ashland, Ore. His former colleagues Norm Brewer, most recently with the Transportation Security Agency, and Ken Pins, and their wives. Donald Kaul, who needs no introduction if you’re over 40 and can’t be explained to you if you’re under 40, came in from Ann Arbor. Jim O’Shea, who got his start at The Register and went on to become managing editor of The Chicago Tribune and then editor of The Los Angeles Times, came in with his wife, Nancy, from Chicago, where he has launched an innovative news organization that supplies Illinois pages to The New York Times. Former Congressman Jim Leach, who now runs the National Endowment for the Humanities, and his wife, Deba, also journeyed up from Washington. Laddie Paul, a Des Moines editor who has retired from a career at The New York Times, came down from New York, as did Sara Giovanetti, who was brought in to redesign The Register in the 1970s. Arnie Garson, once a crack reporter and editor in Des Moines, came in with his wife from Louisville, where he is publisher of the Courier-Journal, and former Register editor Dennis Ryerson came from Indianapolis, where he’s the editor of the Star. Nick Kotz, another Pulitzer winner from The Register’s long-ago Washington bureau (and later an accomplished author), came up from Virginia with his wife, Mary Lynn, a best-selling author. Laurisa Sellers, who ran the Young Women’s Resource Center when she lived in Des Moines, came down from Boston with her husband, Arnie Shapiro. The delegation from Des Moines included Jim Autry (the middleman in getting the script from his friends the Engels to his friend Kathleen Turner) and former Lt. Gov. Sally Pederson; Herb and Kathy Eckhouse; Arnie and Karen Engman, John Viars from the Des Moines Playhouse, and Dick and Mary Susan Gibson. There were others, whose name the Cityview operative either can’t remember or can’t spell.
There were toasts galore, including a lovely one from Sally Pederson and one from the Engels’ onetime boss, former Register editor Michael Gartner. “I’m only sorry your mother and father can’t be here to see this,” Gartner said, clearly implying both were dead. Later, Peggy Engel told him her mother would be there the next evening, that she was alive and well in North Carolina. Gartner then got up and announced he had a correction in the toast, ending in a way the newspapermen there would understand: “We regret the error,” he said.
The Engels hope the next stop is Broadway. ...
Meantime, the shows are about to begin in Iowa, where the three surviving candidates for the Republican gubernatorial nomination will stage the first of three planned debates on April 7 in Sioux City. All three debates — with Terry Branstad, Bob Vander Plaats and Rod Roberts — are being sponsored by media organizations, which means they’ll probably be bland. Most media people are not good moderators, but Skinny has an idea: Ask Christopher Rants to moderate at least one of the debates. Rants, the legislator and former House speaker who dropped out of the gubernatorial race for lack of money and support but not lack of ideas, knows policy better than any of the three candidates, has a tongue as sharp as his mind, and wouldn’t let any of the three get away with half-truths or whole lies. It would be lively. Just a thought.
More next week on the people who did (seven men who want to unseat Leonard Boswell) and didn’t (Jonathan Narcisse) file for election this year, but if you’re looking for a choice, says Skinny’s one-man panel of experts, look no farther than Senate District 31 on the South Side of Des Moines. Incumbent Matt McCoy, liberal Democrat, openly gay, is being challenged by Dave Leach, virulent anti-abortion activist who last summer told the Iowa Independent that his “mind remains open” on whether it’s all right to kill a doctor who performs abortions. …
And finally, overheard at the Gammack party in Philadelphia: First person, from Washington: “I knew Chet Culver when he was two years old. He had a nasty little temper, and he whined a lot.” Second person, from Iowa: “He hasn’t changed.” CV
