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.
IOWA CITY — It’s not uncommon for an underdog challenger to insist he or she can take down even long-time incumbents. But Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Roxanne Conlin has made that talking point the centerpiece of her bid against Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley.
U.S. Senate candiate Roxanne Conlin speaks to supporters in Iowa City last week. (Photo by Adam B Sullivan/The Iowa Independent)
And despite a batch of polling statistics predicting a safe win for Grassley in November, Conlin told a group of about 75 supporters at a campaign event in an Iowa City coffee shop late last week that the 30-year Senate veteran is beatable.
“I realized for the first time ever that Charles Grassley was vulnerable,” Conlin said. “It was possible to take him on and it was possible to beat him and that’s what with your help I hope to be able to do.”
During the Democratic primary, the Conlin campaign pointed to poll numbers that put her within 10 points of Grassley. However, the company that produced those numbers — Research 2000 — has since drawn widespread criticism for allegedly fabricating stats.
But Conlin defends the statistics that suggested she was close to Grassley.
“Those numbers were not at issue,” Conlin told The Iowa Independent during an interview. “My sense is that I’m still about that far from him.”
Conlin’s correct that there is no pending litigation over the Grassley-Conlin numbers, but a slew of reputable polling companies have Grassley with a much bigger lead. Shortly after the primary, Rasmussen gave Grassley a 17 point lead. FiveThirtyEight gives the incumbent Republican a 95 percent chance of winning. Cook Political Report says Grassley’s seat is safe and CQ calls it likely Republican.
Grassley has never faced a close re-election during his tenure in the Senate. Notwithstanding his first run for the seat, he’s garnered at least 65 percent of the vote during each election, including a 30-percentage-point margin over his Democratic challenger six years ago.
But the Grassley campaign isn’t treating this year’s challenge like an easy one, launching frequent attacks on Conlin. Just in the last week or so, Grassley’s camp has taken issue with Conlin’s fundraising, her stance on illegal immigration and comments about transportation funding.
“Not only does he attack me virtually every day, sometimes with nonsense, but he started tracking me at the very beginning of this campaign. I assume there was [a Grassley staffer] in this crowd tonight — there always, always is,” Conlin said. “I’m thrilled to pieces that he takes this candidacy seriously enough to send somebody along with me wherever I go.”
Apparently hoping to ride on anti-incumbency, Conlin is drawing associations between the Senator and unpopular federal policies and taking issue with nearly all of Grassley’s recent high-profile positions.
“His newly found concern about the deficit has been used by him to justify walking in lock-step against every single thing that would get people back to work, that would help small businesses, that would support education,” Conlin said. “All he says is ‘no, no, no.’ When Wall Street came calling for $700 billion of our taxpayers money, he had a different answer. The answer was, ‘Yes of course!’ I was so adamantly opposed to that from the very beginning. There were other ways to approach it.”
Conlin pinned deficit blame on Grassley, since he supported the Bush tax cuts in the early 2000′s and expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Conlin said she’d work to let those tax cuts expire and end those military actions.
“Two wars fought off the books. One — I think at this point almost everybody agrees — is almost entirely unnecessary. Wasted time, treasure and human beings,” Conlin said to her supporters. “That would pretty much solve the deficit problem if we had those dollars back that Sen. Grassley has wasted in those ways.”
Conlin made it clear unemployment would be her top priority as a U.S. Senator. She stopped short of committing to vote to permanently extend unemployment benefits for those without a job for more than 99 weeks.
“Let’s take action to get them jobs and then stop having to deal with unemployment compensation,” she said. “But for those people who can’t do that at no fault of their own, yes of course it’s the government’s failure that brought us to this fiscal crisis so it’s the government’s responsibility to make sure people aren’t going hungry.”
Follow Adam B Sullivan on Twitter
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
Sign up for our email newsletter