Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Des Moines Register political columnist David Yepsen used his Sunday column to discuss the future of the Republican Party of Iowa, concluding that the party is going “nowhere fast if it doesn’t find a major-league contender to run against Democratic Gov. Chet Culver in 2010.”
Who should the GOP nominate? Yepsen suggests state Rep. Jodi Tymeson of Winterset.
She’s a retired brigadier general in the Iowa Army National Guard, is from a county-seat town and is a licensed teacher.
Do I need to mention she’s a woman? Women form the majority of the Iowa electorate, and she just might attract a few of their votes. Lots of people would like to see Iowa elect its first woman to the governorship, yet Democrats are never going to do it fielding rich, urban liberals. Maybe a small-town conservative legislator with executive experience in the military could do it.
There is one problem, though. Tymeson is already involved in the 2010 campaign to unseat Culver – as state chair for the only official GOP candidate at the moment, Bob Vander Plaats.
Maybe Yepsen’s correct in his assumption that Tymeson would make a great candidate, but the likelihood that she would jump ship and challenge her own candidate seems remote at best. Or maybe this is his subtle attempt at telling Vander Plaats that his third attempt at the governorship is ill-advised.
But subtley is not usually something Yepsen bothers with, so most likley he simply was not aware that his candidate of choice is already spoken for.
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