Posted November 01, 2017in Political Mercury
Or can Fred Hubbell, the embodiment of the Des Moines establishment, resurrect rural Iowa? Mr. and Mrs. Rural Iowa. Or to put it more directly, my friends and neighbors: I invite you to take a Sunday drive through the Des Moines suburb of Grimes, which is snaking east with housing
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Posted October 04, 2017in Political Mercury
J.D. Scholten considers himself generally under the pro-choice rubric as a candidate on the position of abortion. This puts him at odds with staunchly pro-life Congressman Steve King, a Kiron Republican who has represented similarly unbending anti-abortion political territory in western and central Iowa for eight terms in the U.S.
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Posted September 06, 2017in Political Mercury
Democratic candidate for governor seeks a return home in 2018 bid Fred Hubbell, a scion of a foundational Iowa family, says he wants to see rural Iowa flourish as much as its capital city. Hubbell, if elected governor in 2018, says he would return to Terrace Hill, a home his
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Posted August 02, 2017in Political Mercury
Can John Norris cut into Republican heavy countryside in governor’s race? The winding Montgomery County roads from Red Oak to the Norris family farm served as something of a time machine July 10, with both forward and reverse levers available to a politician many Democrats believe can resurrect the party’s
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Posted July 05, 2017in Political Mercury
The comedian Bill Burr invented another shooting sport should the worlds of Amazon.com, the Goliath of modern e-commerce, collide with the diminished rural regions of the nation for which the Internet is proving to be something akin to the Smallpox-infected blankets white soldiers gave to Native Americans in the 1800s.
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Posted May 31, 2017in Political Mercury
“Testing the waters” with a swing through Iowa Red Oak native John Norris, a former top staffer at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and key figure in Iowa campaigns for a generation, brings a lengthy resume of advocacy for farm life to his potential — and seemingly odds-on — campaign
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Posted May 03, 2017in Political Mercury
Iowa senator talks corn, trade, foreign policy and the draft In a 1981 movie partially set in Dubuque frustrated brewery workers had a message: “Take this job and shove it!” The Johnny Paycheck song served as the title of that folksy film, and today, those words sum up what some
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Posted April 05, 2017in Political Mercury
I was somebody else’s baby. Until I wasn’t. Born to teen parents in Cedar Rapids in 1969, the first motherly play-call in my life was a handoff to a nurse who took my swaddled self from the young-and-distressed hands of Biological Mom at Mercy Medical Center to an on-deck circle
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Posted March 01, 2017in Political Mercury
Party can’t just bash Trump, Reynolds and expect to win, Derek Eadon says The key to resurrecting the Democratic Party in Iowa in the wake of two devastating campaign cycles in which presumed favorites Bruce Braley and Hillary Clinton fell on the swords of their own poor messaging is greater
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Posted February 01, 2017in Political Mercury
What are the most important four words President Donald J. Trump could say for rural Iowa? “Four lane Highway 30.” U.S. Highway 30 is the longest road in the state, running 331 miles from the Mississippi to Missouri River. The U.S. 30 corridor spans 12 counties and 39 cities. According to
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