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.
The editor of an influential newspaper in western Iowa’s Latino community tells us she thinks Hillary Clinton and John Edwards had the strongest perfomances in the Univision debate in Miami.
La Prensa’s Lorena Lopez, who says she is leaning toward an endorsement of Barack Obama, says Clinton appeared to command issues and seemed “calm” in her approach to the questions on issues of concern to the Latin community. In an interview with Iowa Independent tonight, Lopez said she thinks Edwards may have made some inroads with his debate performance as well. Lopez is writing an article for her paper on the details of these views, and we’ll get a translation of some of that when it is published.
The western Iowa Spanish-language paper, La Prensa (The Press), is a family operation, the product of an ambitious mother-son team originally from Nicaragua but with deepening roots in Carroll.
Published twice a month, La Prensa, a free tabloid, is distributed at several locations in western Iowa including Carroll, Storm Lake, Denison, Spencer, Humboldt and Fort Dodge. Distribution stands at about 6,800.
In terms of specific issues, Lopez said she was disappointed with the candidates’ answers to a question about why many in the United States support the erection of a wall with Mexico — but not with Canada.
Here is The New York Times on the issue:
Mr. Obama did not address the distinction between Mexico and Canada, talking instead about his support for an immigration overhaul and border security. Mrs. Clinton said she supported “much more border patrolling and much more technology” on both borders, and a barrier “in certain areas.” Mr. Dodd echoed Mrs. Clinton, then focused on making trade and economic agreements that benefited Central American countries.
The blog VivirLatino noted the fence question as well.
You had to love watching Dodd, Clinton, and Obama dance around why they supported the border wall between Mexico and the US. They all cited security, but as made clear in the question, that answer doesn't fly for Latino voters after all none of the 9-11-01 attackers came in through Mexico.
Like Lopez, the Huffington Post had high marks tonight for Clinton.
“Hillary has the best closing statement, more feeling and warmth and the most applause. And she got the last word!” writes HuffPost in a live blog of the event.
Richardson, the first serious Latino candidate for the Oval Office seemed to perform well in what was clearly a home game — but the Univision format remarkably didn’t allow the New Mexico governor the true homefield advantage: the rules forbid Spanish on the stage. (Only he and Dodd speak fluent Spanish in the Democratic field so that probably was necessary to even get the other candidates in the debate.)
A blogger named La bloguera has some witty observations on the translation issues as well as the debate in general.
“Richardson started in Spanish
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