LAKE VIEW — State Sen. Steve Kettering says he will not seek re-election next November, creating what amounts to an open seat for a new district that includes Carroll County and a vast swath of western Iowa.

“Fourteen years is enough,” said Kettering, a Lake View Republican. “I actually considered not running last time so it was a fairly easy call.”

Steve Kettering

“It was just time,” Kettering said. “I’ve always believed in a citizen legislature. I think fresh ideas need to come in.”

Kettering did say the atmosphere in Iowa politics is more challenging and rife with partisanship today than in his first years in Des Moines.

“It appears bravado and show have overcome substance in a lot of cases,” Kettering said.

The ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Senate Republican whip, Kettering was first elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 1998 and was elected via special election to the Iowa Senate in January 2003 following Congressman Steve King’s election to the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Serving the citizens of Iowa has truly been an honor, and I will forever treasure all of the opportunities I have had to represent my constituents,” said Kettering, who is president of Farmers Savings Bank in Lake View. “I remain ever confident that Iowa’s best days are still yet ahead because of our wonderful people and welcoming communities.”

In the Senate, Kettering has always represented Carroll County, which he would have continued to do under the new post-census boundaries signed into law — should he have opted to run for re-election and won.

Kettering resides in Senate District 6 that includes Carroll, Sac, Buena Vista, Audubon counties and the eastern part of Crawford County.

Republicans have a decided advantage in the four full counties with 32 percent of the active 38,989 registered voters compared with 27 percent for Democrats. Independents are the largest contingent at 41 percent.

In Crawford County, Republicans have a 32 percent to 30 percent advantage over Democrats — with independents representing 38 percent of the active electorate. But the Crawford County portion of District 6 does not include Denison, which gives the Republicans a greater edge.

There are no sitting state senators living in District 6 territory other than Kettering.

State Rep. Gary Worthan (R-Storm Lake) is one possible candidate for the Senate seat. He did not return a call as of presstime today. State Rep. Dan Muhlbauer (D-Manilla) resides in Senate District 6 but said he is likely to seek re-election to the House.

“I’m planning on staying in the House, but the door is never closed,” Muhlbauer said.

Carroll County Ambulance Service director Bill Fish, a Republican, said he is considering a Statehouse run and has examined both House and Senate opportunities but is leaning more toward the former.

Republican Carroll County Supervisor Mark Beardmore, who has in the past openly expressed interest in serving in the Statehouse, said family considerations will prevail in 2012 and that he will likely seek re-election to his county office.

“I’d have to have a meteor strike me” to enter the Senate race, Beardmore said.

Former Audubon County Republican Party chairwoman Kathleen Parris — who has worked as a field staffer for President George W. Bush and presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) as well as former U.S. Rep. Greg Ganske (R-Iowa) — has been mentioned by Iowa GOP leaders as potentially a strong candidate for the Senate seat with Kettering’s departure.

But like Beardmore, Parris, 49, and a member of the Audubon County Republican Central Committee, said considerations as a parent have to come first in her life now and that she will not be a candidate for the State Senate.

Kettering will finish out his current term, which expires in January 2013. The upcoming session, which begins in January 2012, will be his last.

The City of Carroll — which will be the dominant economic force in the new district — has not been represented by one of its own residents in the Iowa Senate in about 40 years, since former State Sen. Art Neu (R-Carroll) left to become lieutenant governor in 1973. Following that, Carroll was represented by State Sen. Karl Nolin (D-Ralston), State Sen. Bill Hutchins (D-Audubon), State Sen. Al Sorensen (D-Boone), State Sen. Jerry Behn (R-Boone) and Kettering.

CARROLL — As he surged to the top of two national polls Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich spent nearly three hours at the Santa Maria Winery in Carroll on Monday, speaking with voters, taking questions, signing books and screening a movie he co-developed celebrating Pope John Paul II.

Gingrich also conducted a 10-minute interview with The Carroll Daily Times Herald and La Prensa, an Iowa Spanish-language newspaper, before going on air nationally with Fox News’ Sean Hannity from a makeshift, temporary studio on the west side of the winery.

It was Gingrich’s second visit to Carroll in the campaign cycle, and momentum had turned decidedly in his favor in the hours before he addressed nearly 200 people at John and Rose Guinan’s local winery.

Public Policy Polling on Monday showed Gingrich, the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia, with 28 percent support in national GOP primary surveying. Businessman Herman Cain was in second at 25 percent with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney garnering 18 percent, according to the polling firm.

Another national poll of Republican voters released Monday — this one from CNN — had Romney at 24 percent, Gingrich at 22 percent and Cain at 14 percent in the race for the GOP presidential nomination.

“This is a year when substance and solutions matter,” Gingrich said. “I think like the conversation tonight, I don’t give them slogans. I don’t try to make them feel better with things that are patently untrue. And I think people are really looking for a leader who will work with them to develop real solutions.”

Newt Gingrich met with GOP caucusgoers at Santa Maria Winery in Carroll.

That considered, Gingrich said the series of nationally televised Republican presidential debates has helped his campaign, resurrected it really, because voters can assess him directly.

“Frankly, without the debates my campaign would have been dead because the news media wouldn’t have covered it, and I couldn’t have raised the kind of money that Mitt Romney and Rick Perry could raise,” Gingrich said.

One of the former House speaker’s major strengths is now coming to the fore with voters, he said.

“I’m the only national candidate running,” Gingrich said. “I’ve led a national movement to win control of the House.”

Gingrich noted that he played a key role with welfare reform and federal budget work in the 1990s.

“None of the other candidates have that type of background,” Gingrich said. “I think gradually it began to sink in to people.”

The Public Policy Polling group’s survey clearly shows that Gingrich’s momentum draws heavily on Republicans who have abandoned Cain, a former Godfather’s CEO who faces allegations of sexual harassment and has stumbled on foreign-policy questions in recent days.

In one instance, Cain clearly did not know that China has nuclear capabilities. The Daily Times Herald asked Gingrich if Cain’s lack of knowledge about a world superpower on a life-and-death military issue should be disqualifying for White House service.

“I think voters have to decide that,” Gingrich said. “It’s not my job to decide it. Different people have different strengths. Herman Cain is a very attractive and very articulate businessperson who has a very impressive background in business. He doesn’t have a background in government. Everybody has strengths and weaknesses.”

La Prensa asked Gingrich’s reaction to an often-repeated line from Cain about constructing a border fence with Mexico so that it can electrocute immigrants, and possibly even snare them in an associated moat stocked with alligators.

“It was a bad idea,” Gingrich said.

He added, “I hope he was joking. I’d like to think he was joking.”

Gingrich then turned to his own immigration plans, calling for control of the border in a way that is “human and practical.”

“I’m working on an immigration program which is firm but at the same time has a human aspect to it that I think most Hispanic Americans would appreciate,” Gingrich said.

Earlier, in a question-and-answer session with voters in the winery, Gingrich said he wanted to impose severe penalties for employers who hired undocumented workers. Moreover, he put forward a plan modeled on the Selective Service System used by the military in World War II in which local committees of citizens could help determine the immigration status of a city’s illegal residents based on factors like how long they’ve lived in the area, family roots and contributions socially and in business.

Gingrich said rhetoric about deporting all illegal immigrants isn’t realistic.

“I think it’s very unlikely the American people are going to break up families,” Gingrich said.

In other remarks to the audience, Gingrich said he is “deeply opposed to raising taxes” in a recession. He said opening up offshore drilling in the United States is a way to boost revenue through royalties. Gingrich also had strong comments on education, saying schools too often seek to provide students with unearned self-esteem and academic diplomas or degrees.

“None of the Founding Fathers would think that made any sense because it’s fundamentally a lie,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich, a former history professor at West Georgia College, reminded the audience that President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for Americans to pray on the radio during the hours after D-Day and at other points in World War II.

A president today would be challenged if he took such measures, Gingrich said.

“We’d probably have an ACLU lawsuit against the president,” Gingrich said.

In the interview with The Daily Times Herald Gingrich said he wants to take federal money away from Planned Parenthood and funnel it into an adoption-promotion program.

“I come out of a background where my father was adopted and I was adopted,” Gingrich said. “We have a very deep sense that this culture has made it all too easy to end a life than to find a way to encourage a life.”

Much of the crowd at the winery stayed after Gingrich’s remarks to watch the movie “Nine Days That Changed the World” about Pope John Paul II’s historic nine-day pilgrimage to Poland in June 1979 created a revolution of conscience that transformed Poland and fundamentally reshaped the spiritual and political landscape of the 20th Century.

Gingrich and his wife, Callista, a former congressional staffer and graduate of Luther College in Decorah, along with a Polish, American, and Italian cast, explore what transpired during these nine days that moved the Polish people to renew their hearts, reclaim their courage, and free themselves from the shackles of Communism. The film was produced in partnership with Citizens United Productions.

CARROLL — Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul says the country is finally catching up to his brand of politics and economic thinking.

For three decades, the libertarian-leaning Texan has preached limited government, a smaller role not only domestically in the form of lower taxes but also abroad, with a less adventurous foreign policy.

“Right now your biggest threat comes from your own government,” Paul said.

More than 100 people turned out Saturday morning in Carroll to hear Paul speak at Santa Maria Winery. Paul delivered opening remarks and then turned the event into a town-hall-style meeting, fielding audience questions.

Paul finished third at 12 percent behind businessman Herman Cain (23 percent) and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (22 percent) in a Des Moines Register Iowa Poll of likely Republican caucus-goers released Sunday.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul reiterated his fiscal message in Carroll Saturday and made clear that he would only seek the White House a member of the GOP. (Photo: Douglas Burns)

“I have no intentions of running in a third party,” Paul said.

In his remarks Paul said that government reaction to crisis should to be pull back, grow smaller and allow free will and the marketplace to work.

“With each crisis it seems like the government grows,” Paul said.

He added, “It just has led to all this debt and all these problems we’ve had.”

Paul called for the immediate withdrawal of American troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan, noting that the United States has been involved in Afghanistan twice as long as the duration of World War II. The two wars are costing the United States $4 billion a month, he said.

Removal of troops would not only correct an entry into the conflicts on what Paul called “false pretense,” but also spur the American economy.

America’s largest defense concern now should be the nation’s economy, the Texan said.

“If we’re in the wrong places at the wrong time, it doesn’t serve our defense,” Paul said.

Paul also calls for cuts in military spending.

“How many weapons do we need?” he said. “Who is going to invade us?”

Paul said his foreign policy positioning should not be interpreted as isolationism. He would use diplomacy, not force, to advance U.S. interests.

“Using force doesn’t work and it’s very costly,” Paul said.

And Paul said he would be consistent.

“We were on the side of bin Laden,” he said. “We were on the side of Saddam Hussein.”

One audience member questioned Paul about farm subsidies. Paul noted that he has represented farming areas of Texas but opposes subsidies.

“I’ve not supported farm subsidies,” Paul said. “I think it distorts the marketplace.”

He added, “Subsidies tend to make people soft.”

Paul said Americans demonstrating now, either in the tea party movements or Occupy Wall Street groups, appear to break into two categories: people who are scared they won’t get their government handouts and those who are tired of paying for big government.

Paul said he is firmly in the latter category.

“To me, liberty is one clear package,” Paul said.

INDIANOLA — U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin’s 34th annual steak fry Sunday afternoon was equal parts a lifting of liberal morale and a lampooning of the GOP presidential contenders now traversing Iowa.

Held under a tent at the rain-soaked balloon fields in Indianola, the signature event for the Democratic senator drew about 300 people.

Tom Harkin (center) and Paul Begala take a turn on the grill at the Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola on Sunday, Sept. 18. (Photo: Douglas Burns/The Iowa Independent)

The audience, largely party activists and organized labor loyalists, heard an old-school, firebrand speech advocating progressive policies and taking on corporate America from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent who still speaks with the unmistakable accent of his native New York City.

Additionally, Clinton insider Paul Begala, an architect of President Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns and White House policies and a cable-TV show regular, keynoted the event in a speech jammed with Texas-sized wit.

Paul Begala

His thoughts on the Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library in Simi Valley, Calif., two weeks ago: “I had a sense that for some of them it was their first time in a library,” Begala said.

Begala also served up about cracks on fellow Texan Rick Perry, the governor of the Lone Star State and a leading Republican candidate for the White House.

“He’s running as a Republican — I thought he was running as a joke,” Begala said.

Begala noted that Perry earned a “C” in animal breeding at Texas A&M.

“I have goats that got a ‘A’ in that,” Begala said.

He added, “Be nice to him (Perry). Talk real slow.”

Begala compared presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts to the models that pose for photos that are included in picture frames or wallets when these items are purchased in stores.

“When we get home we take that out and put a real person in,” Begala said.

Back in Texas, Begala said he had a conversation with a highly successful liberal Democrat and wealthy conservative who ran in the same circles. The liberal looked across the street in his well-to-do neighborhood and spotted a gardener. He said he wanted the gardener’s son to have the same opportunities he did to emerge from working-class origins to the upper class. The conservative Texan had a different take: “That gardener’s son will be my son’s gardener,” the conservative said, according to Begala.

“They (conservatives) believe the only way they can advance themselves is to tear the rest of you down,” Begala said.

Begala said he measures the goodness of people by one of the first questions a human asked in the Bible, when, in the Book of Genesis, Cain, who had just killed his brother Abel, put this query to God: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

“How you answer that question will frankly determine whether you are a good person,” Begala said.

Bernie Sanders

“Social Security, in my view, is the most successful federal program in the history of the United States,” Sanders said.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Social Security will pay benefits to about 56 million in 2011.

Sanders has offered legislation to increase the $106,800 cap on income subject to Social Security taxes, an idea President Barack Obama embraced in the 2008 campaign. This proposal drew some of the most sustained applause at the Harkin steak fry.

“We have to stand tall and say ‘no cuts to Social Security,’” Sanders said.

Sanders said he would fight any Republican attempts to increase the eligibility age for Medicare.

“We are not going to let them raise the eligibility age to 67,” Sanders said.

Sanders said corporate greed is at the heart of American economic troubles.

“The wealthiest people in this country have developed a new religion,” Sanders said. “… Their religion is greed and they want more and more.”

Harkin said Americans should find the environments at Republican presidential debates disturbing. He said he was particularly appalled with the glee with which some Republicans have responded to the idea of people being executed under Perry’s watch in Texas.

“I don’t care whether you’re for the death penalty or not,” Harkin said. “You shouldn’t exult it.”

Harkin acknowledged that Democrats face challenges in the 2012 elections. But Republicans themselves appear to be coming to the rescue, the senator said.

Tom Harkin

His take on U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), the winner of the Iowa GOP Straw Poll last month in Ames:

“Iowa Republicans are going to Michele Bachmann because they find Sarah Palin too cerebral.”

Harkin referenced Perry’s response to a question about what differentiates him from President George W. Bush. Perry replied that Bush went to Yale University while Perry’s alma mater is Texas A&M.

“In other words, Bush is the smart one,” Harkin joked.

Harkin said the U.S. faces a deficit of courage and creativity that fueled the last century under presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy.

Where are the big ideas and bold challenges? Harkin asked.

“The problem is that we’re still driving on Eisenhower’s highways and sending our kids to FDR’s schools,” Harkin said.

ATLANTIC — Joseph Vanstrom doesn’t fear globalization.

And it’s not just because he’s a towering former lineman for Iowa State University’s Cyclone football team.

Vanstrom, an instructor at Iowa Western Community College’s Atlantic campus, is leading a first-in-the-world design technology program aimed at keeping talented people in rural areas, a venture buoyed by a $65.2 million grant from Siemens for product lifecycle management software.

Atlantic Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Megan Roberts, left, Iowa Western Community College instructor Joseph Vanstrom and campus director Ann Pross discuss the facility’s design technology program, an innovative venture fueled by a $65.2 million grant from Siemens.

“Education is not driving this program, industry is,” Pross said.

The Atlantic project is a flagship one for Siemens and has drawn the interest of Gov. Terry Branstad and other state leaders.

“These businesses realize they’re not going to get everyone to physically sit in a location,” Vanstrom said.

As it stands, the program has 10 students (some who travel from other Iowa Western locations) with a capacity for 30. Vanstrom sees it growing even bigger at the Atlantic campus.

The trailblazing program is one of a raft of initiatives that this reporter and Carroll Mayor Jim Pedelty encountered during a full-day tour of Atlantic Tuesday that included stops at a number of businesses, industries and organizations, lunch with the Atlantic Rotary Club and discussions with community leaders like Atlantic Mayor David R. Jones.

“Rural America has to be progressive or we’re regressing,” Pross said.

Jones, about two years into his tenure as mayor, was a key leader as a city councilman in the efforts to work in concert with the YMCA to build a new $6 million facility — one that opened in February 2004 and includes a zero-depth-entry pool, generous workout facility with new equipment and an indoor track, among other features.

“It was something that was needed,” said Jones, who worked with the YMCA and local residents as well as Vision Iowa on the project in the center of the city of about 7,200 people.

Further east, Tom Bashaw, general manager of Ziegler CAT, 951 Park Drive, provided a tour of the facility that is close to celebrating its one-year anniversary.

The 15,000-square-foot business has five service bays, a large parts inventory, and hydraulic-hose-building capabilities. It employs 14 people and offers the complete line of new and used agricultural equipment, including Challenger tractors, LEXION combines, RoGators, Spra-Coupes, White Planters, and Sunflower tillage equipment.

Patricia A. Markham, administrator of the Cass County Memorial Hospital, explains a planned $23.5 million renovation-and-expansion project at the critical-access health-care facility that opened 1968. Cass County Memorial is Atlantic’s largest employer with about 350 people on its payroll.

“We’ve always had an interest to open up our own business, and what’s better than furniture,” Jennifer Miller said.

The 20,000-square-foot facility is celebrating its fifth anniversary and continues to expand its geographic reach for customers.

The Millers are exceptionally pleased with their decision to return to Atlantic.

“The verdict is overwhelmingly positive,” Jennifer Miller said. “It’s a win for us personally and professionally.”

The business employs 10 people, full- and part-time.

A signature community project is the planned $23.5 million renovation-and-expansion project at Cass County Memorial Hospital, a critical-access health-care facility that opened in 1968. Currently the facility has 25 hospital beds, and eight for a behavioral unit. The facility draws 25 outpatient physicians to complement the work of the six family practitioners in Atlantic, said Patricia A. Markham, administrator at Cass County Memorial.

Cass County Memorial, 1501 E. 10th St., is a rural Iowa leader in psychiatry, with two psychiatrists, including one who is degreed with to work both with adults and children, a rarity in the profession, particularly in smaller communities, Markham said.

The expansion-and-improvement project includes a new emergency room and work with the surgery area. There also will be a new inpatient section on the second floor.

Major renovations will occur throughout large swaths of the hospital, including the addition of more oncology department space.

The full project is slated for completion in August 2012. The hospital is Atlantic’s largest employer, listing a payroll with about 350 people.

Megan Roberts, executive director of the Atlantic Chamber of Commerce, said there’s a reason the retail community maintains vitality, that main routes like Atlantic’s Chestnut Street are full of cars, and open-for-business storefronts.

“Atlantic has weathered the economic downturn well,” Roberts said. “We have a strong manufacturing base. We also have a lot of smaller family-owned businesses.”

Wendy Schulz, owner of the Sweet Joy Shoppe, serves up some gelato (Italian ice cream).

Schulz’s two children, Darrin, 17, and Danielle, 16, help mom with the business.

No visit to Atlantic would be complete without a discussion of Coca-Cola. The independent, family-owned Coca-Cola Atlantic Bottling Co. has Tyler family roots stretching back to 1905 in southwest Iowa. The company bottles and distributes Coke products across southwest and central Iowa.

In just weeks, on Sept. 23 and 24, Atlantic will be host to Coca-Cola Days, which attracts visitors from across the United States who are interested in collectibles related to the iconic American drink, explained Dolly Bergmann of rural Atlantic, co-chairman of the volunteer-operated Coca-Cola Museum.

For her part, Roberts, a Clarinda native and graduate of Northwest Missouri State University, is enjoying living in Atlantic with her husband, Adam, a welding fabricator, and their two children.

“In Atlantic there’s a lot of opportunities for young people to be involved at a decision-making level,” Roberts said. “It’s not just a place to live. You can settle in here pretty easily.”

In the future, Roberts said, Atlantic will continue to seek to maximize its proximity between Des Moines (75 miles) and Omaha., Neb. (55 miles). The city is also nine miles from Interstate 80.

“You have an advantage we do not have — it’s your proximity to the Interstate,” Pedelty said.

Pedelty, a member of the Carroll Area Development Corp., which works on regional economic endeavors, said there’s much potential for Atlantic and Carroll to cooperate.

“We are tied together,” Pedelty said. “We are connected.”

Although it might be easy to view recent conflicts in Wisconsin as somewhat isolated, state Sen. Lena Taylor says that would be a major mistake.

Taylor, who is scheduled to provide the keynote address at the Polk County Democrats’ 11th annual Women’s Event Tuesday event, told The Iowa Independent by phone that “this is really a moment in America’s history where we have to determine whether or not we believe in her values and her democracy.”

Lena Taylor

She says her focus has always been fighting for the middle class and the working poor.

“Democracy in the workplace is called collective bargaining,” Taylor said.

Although federal law dating back to 1935 protects the right of private employees to engage in collective bargaining, there are no such protections for public sector employees who choose to unionize. Although Walker had argued that his bill would leave collective bargaining in Wisconsin “fully intact,” the statement was given PolitiFact’s strongest rebuke of “pants on fire.”

Although the Wisconsin bill carved out exceptions for firefighters, police and state troopers, all other public sector unions saw at least a partial reduction of their rights to collectively bargain. Rights for about 5,000 home health care workers and 2,800 employees of the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics, including nurses, were completely repealed, and 30,000 University of Wisconsin System faculty and academic staff had their rights to organize and bargain completely rolled back from an earlier (Democratic) state decision that allowed it.

Due to mostly conservative, but a few liberal, shadowy influence groups chiming in on subsequent recall elections, no one really knows how many millions have been spent in Wisconsin in an effort to either preserve or repeal Walker’s bill. Currently, Democrats remain one vote shy in the Wisconsin Senate.

When Taylor takes the microphone in Des Moines Tuesday night, attendees will no doubt hear much more about the ongoing Wisconsin labor battles, but the Democrat will also be speaking on something far more personal in nature. Although she is the 1,000th senator for Wisconsin, she is only the 20th woman and fifth African American to serve. In fact, she is only the second African American woman senator in state history.

Similar numbers are at work in Iowa, where women hold a slim majority of the state’s overall population but far less than half of state elected offices. When county and local elected offices are combined, it’s been estimated that women serve in less than 15 percent of all elected positions. At the national level, Iowa joins Mississippi as the only states to have never elected a woman to the U.S. Senate or House or as governor.

Taylor muses that her own state isn’t likely far ahead of Mississippi and Iowa when it comes to gender equality for elected offices, noting that the state has only had a few women who have served at the national or statewide level.

“Women play an important role in politics,” Taylor said.

Because most government positions traditionally dominated by males — firefighters and police, for example — were held exempt by Walker and Wisconsin Republicans, the caps and limits placed on collective bargaining in the state will strike more directly upon professions that are traditionally dominated by females, such as teachers and nurses. A recent report indicated that two-thirds of all Wisconsin families in poverty are led by women and, across-the-board in the Wisconsin, women are more likely than men to be poor. For those reasons, the limits on collective bargaining are expected to further negatively impact one of the state’s already vulnerable demographics.

Analysis of Walker’s executive budget, introduced on March 31, by the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health in partnership with students from the University of Wisconsin Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs found that of the proposed $4.2 billion in proposed cuts, $1.7 billion, or 40 percent, are direct cuts to programs that serve Wisconsin women and girls. When programs that predominantly serve women are included, more than 50 percent of the proposed cuts would negatively impact women’s services ranging from health care to legal services for victims of sexual assault, job training to child care and education services.

“We need to engage and we need to be active because we are the mothers of the young people who are coming behind us, and we weren’t always part of the ‘we the people’ in America,” she said.

The annual women’s event in Des Moines is being hosted by Roxanne Conlin, one of several Iowa women who have made unsuccessful bids for federal office.

Republican 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum sat down with Douglas Burns, co-publisher of The Carroll Daily Times Herald and an alum and frequent contributor to The Iowa Independent, to discuss Catholicism in relation to the GOP, rival Michele Bachmann and, of course, some of the social conservative issues well known to those who have seen Santorum on the Iowa stump.

Santorum, 53, was elected to the U.S. House in 1990 at age 32, and from 1995 to 2007, served in the Senate. In 2000, he was elected by his peers to the position of Senate Republican Conference chairman. In 2006, he was defeated by Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., son of a former Pennsylvania governor.

Burns: You’re in an historically Catholic community. It’s named after Charles Carroll, the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence. Why have we only had one Catholic president? You’re seeking to be the second. Is there still prejudice?

Santorum: That’s a good question. The Republican Party has never nominated a Catholic.

Burns: Why is that? And why should Catholics stand for that?

Rick Santorum (File Photo: Lynda Waddington/The Iowa Independent)

So I think that’s probably the roots of it. But you’re asking me an historical question, and it’s not really an opinion. I’m sure there’s a factual basis for it.

But at least today I think what you’d see is that Catholics are pretty much all over the board. I mean, when I was growing up as a kid, pretty much everybody I knew that was Catholic was Democrat. That’s not the case anymore.

The question is whether you’re church-going or not.

If you’re a church-going Catholic by and large you’re a Republican, just like if you’re a church-going Protestant by and large you’re a Republican. And if you’re not church-going by and large you’re not.

So it breaks down more on orthodoxy than it does on anything else.

Burns: If your position on abortion prevails and abortion is prohibited, Senator, what should the penalty be for a woman who obtains an abortion or a doctor who performs one.

Santorum: I don’t think there should be criminal penalties for a woman who obtains an abortion. I see women in this case as a victim. I see the person who is performing the abortion as doing the illegal act, and as a result, I would support some penalties for the doctor, both professional and criminal.

Burns: Traditionally in Iowa, in the Iowa Republican caucuses and at the straw poll, abortion has been a prominent issue. In covering it myself, and of course following what my colleagues statewide and nationally have done, there really hasn’t been a lot of focus on that. Is that a hidden issue that could leapfrog you into a higher finish?

Santorum: I talk about all the issues, because I think people are concerned about all the issues. To get out there and just focus on the economy, you know, that’s part of it. Certainly you can see with Obamacare and the jobs program, I talk about that.
But we’re also a country that as I mentioned before is a moral enterprise. We’re concerned about the health of the family. We’re concerned about the health of a society that doesn’t respect all life. I mean, those are things in my mind that continue to be important and we’ll continue to talk about.

Burns: You talked about some of the other candidates in the Republican field. Does Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (the Minnesotan who won the Ames Republican straw poll this month) clear a basic competency threshold for commander in chief?

Santorum: Look with respect to judgments as to whether the candidates are qualified or not, I’ll leave that to the people of the caucuses to decide.

But I think you do need to look at experience.

You need to look at whether they’ve had the kind of experience that you would feel comfortable giving them this kind of authority.

We saw what happened when someone of limited experience like Barack Obama was elected president. He served four years in the United States Senate. Michele Bachmann served four years in the House.

I think it’s a legitimate question as to whether that is sufficient experience to be President of the United States.

But some might suggest that that’s good, that she hasn’t been involved in Washington politics for long, and that’s a good thing.

Some people say Herman Cain who has no experience and that’s a good thing.

It’s a judgment call on the part of people as to what they believe are the qualifications necessary to be a good leader, and whether they have the qualifications and experience is a judgment call.

I certainly put up the experience I have, and I think that’s an advantage for me.

But some might not think so. There are some who at least in this environment think having no experience turns out to be a positive.

Burns: You’ve been pretty strong in your opposition to gay marriage. Iowa, of course, does have legalized gay marriage. How does the fact that there are a handful of gay couples married in Carroll affect my heterosexual life and your heterosexual life? How does it hurt other people in Carroll, Iowa, that there are folks among us we may not even know who happen to be gay and happen to be married? How does that hurt my life?

Santorum: Because it changes the definition of an intrinsic element of society in a way that minimizes what that bond means to society.

Marriage is what marriage is. Marriage was around before government said what it was.

It’s like going out and saying, ‘That tree is a car.’ Well, the tree’s not a car. A tree’s a tree. Marriage is marriage.

You can say that tree is something other than it is. It can redefine it. But it doesn’t change the essential nature of what marriage is.
Marriage is a union between a man and a woman for the purposes of the benefit of both the man and the woman, a natural unitive according to nature, unitive, that is for the purposes of having and rearing children and for the benefit of both the man and the woman involved in that relationship.

And for the benefit of society because we need to have stable families of men and woman bonded together to raise children. That’s what marriage is.

You can say two people who love each other is marriage. But then why limit it to just two people? Why not three people? Why not 10 people?

If it’s just about love and everybody needs to be treated equally, then why not 10? Why not allowing nieces and aunts to marry? Why not? If marriage means anyone who is in love, well, then, let everybody who is in love get married. But it’s not what marriage is.

Marriage has an intrinsic value to society, and when you cheapen it by saying anybody in any relationship is the same, it’s not. So you undermine the institution No. 1. No. 2, you’re gonna undermine religious liberty in this country. We’re seeing it already.

Anybody who does not recognize what the state says is good and right is a bigot. We don’t give licenses for adoptions to organizations that won’t do gay adoptions because they’re bigots. And a lot of those are faith-based organizations.

Will we go into pulpits and tell preachers they can’t preach that gay marriage is wrong? Well maybe not right away but maybe tax-exempt status is next.

There’s a conflict here because we’ve created something that is not what it is.

As a result of that it will have a huge impact on people’s religious freedom. You see it in every country that has adopted it already.
It will also have the impact of changing our educational structure. You’re seeing that already, too, where young children are being indoctrinated as to what normal is.

Now normal is what the law is.

So now we’re going to see all sorts of information provided to children against their parents’ will because the state says it’s so. It’s coercion as opposed to the collective morality of what the American public wants, and that’s what I’ve been fighting for.

(* = The Blaine Amendement is a failed Constitutional Amendment proposed in 1875 by Republican U.S. House Speaker James Blaine during the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant that would have prohibited public money from flowing to private schools in any form.)

CARROLL — U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-East Texas) says he’s known Rick Perry since college days and dismisses much-publicized comments from the GOP presidential candidate about Texas leaving the union.

“I think those comments were made tongue in cheek,” Gohmert said. “I’ve talked to Rick. I’ve known him since Texas A&M. And I know he has no intention of ever seeing Texas secede. That may play well in some sectors. I think the Civil War pretty well decided whether a state can secede or not. Of course, we’re stronger as a country united and I know he knows that, so we’ll see what he says from here.”

According to Politico, in a March 2009 interview with bloggers, Perry said Texans have a “different feeling about independence.”

“When we came into the nation in 1845, we were a republic, we were a stand-alone nation,” the governor can be heard saying, according to Politico. “And one of the deals was, we can leave anytime we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again.”
It is not the only time Perry has referenced secession.

On another issue related to Perry’s campaign, Gohmert, a congressional ally of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said it was unfortunate that Perry “stepped on” the Iowa Republican straw poll by announcing his candidacy on Saturday in Charleston, S.C., as the major GOP event in Ames was underway.

Gohmert also addressed a question about reported friction between former President George W. Bush and Perry.

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, traveled with social conservatives hoping to make their issues known in advance of the Ames Straw Poll. It marked Gohmert's second trip into the Hawkeye State on behalf of religious and social conservative causes. (Photo: Douglas Burns)

Gohmert said Bush operative Karl Rove has made some unflattering comments about Perry, but he sees no attempt from the former president’s camp to sabotage Perry’s White House bid.

Gohmert joined some of the nation’s most prominent social conservatives in Carroll Friday afternoon to rev up pre-Iowa straw poll support for traditional marriage and the pro-life cause.

Representatives from the Family Research Council, National Organization for Marriage and pro-life organizations combined forces on a “values bus” that made its way through central and western Iowa, stopping just east of the Carroll County Courthouse early Friday afternoon to greet about 30 people gathered for the event.

“It’s a godly foundation that has made America the greatest country in history,” Gohmert said.

Gohmert, a close friend of U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said the Obama administration is leading in a way that breaks down the American family.

Former Colorado congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave said truly pro-life voters need to hold candidates accountable. Specifically, she called for the de-funding of Planned Parenthood, a move Musgrave said would advance simultaneously the interests of the unborn and fiscal responsibility.

“He (President Obama) has appointed pro-abortion justices to the Supreme Court,” Musgrave said.

The Family Research Council’s president Tony Perkins said big government is replacing strong families in the United States.

“We’ve created policies that have struck at the very heart of the American economic engine,” Perkins said.

He singled out the Environmental Protection Agency for criticism as well, saying that federal organization “does nothing more than prevent the creation of jobs.”

In the interview following the event, Gohmert, a former Texas district judge, addressed his views on potential penalties for abortion should his pro-life view prevail and such procedures become prohibited.

“That’s something that I’m open to debate and consider,” Gohmert said. “I just know it’s wrong to take a life.”

Should the penalties be on the level of speeding tickets or capital crimes?

“It is too serious to be a speeding ticket, but at the same time you have to look more at the most informed person in the relationship and that’s the doctor,” Gohmert said. “Often you have a young woman whose been told she never has to worry about the consequences of inappropriate behavior, that we’ll always take care of that.”

That said, Gohmert said he doesn’t think women should be held harmless legally for abortion in a world where it is illegal. But he wants the courts to focus on the doctors.

“I would normally tend toward a harsher penalty for a doctor who persuades a mother to end a life,” Gohmert said. “I think it’s a debate worth having, and I’m glad you bring up the question. I don’t have a settled opinion yet.”

The campaign chairman for presidential candidate Ron Paul Tuesday morning was investigating a link between anti-library recorded robocalls bombarding homes and cellphones in Carroll. The calls urge residents to vote against a new library today to send a message to the Carroll City Council for a decision last winter prohibiting firearms on public property.

Some of the calls originated from the Iowa office of GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul, a Texas congressman who strongly supports the Second Amendment.

“This is nothing we have done,” said Drew Ivers, campaign chairman for Paul.

Ivers did say the Paul campaign had for a time been associated with the Iowa Gun Owners (IGO), a firearms-rights organization that other Second Amendment groups have sought to distance themselves from because of the IGO’s tactics.

“Frankly, they are too abrasive,” Ivers said. “That’s their style.”

The director of the Des Moines-based Iowa Gun Owners, Aaron Dorr, said his organization is not behind the calls, that the IGO doesn’t get involved in local bond issues. But he agrees with the content and mission of the calls in Carroll.

“I’m not saying we’re ashamed of the calls,” Dorr said this morning.

He said Carroll-area gun owners should be frustrated with any decision from local elected officials that strips Second Amendment rights, and he urged people to vote against the library today.

“I hope the folks in Carroll take action to send a message to the town hall on this,” Dorr said.

Dorr speculated that the calls were financed by some individual gun owners, perhaps even people living in Carroll.

Ivers said Paul has a strong track record on gun rights but that the campaign wants nothing to do with the IGO and Dorr.

“He wants to associate with Ron Paul, but he’s not a team player,” Ivers said.

Other gun-advocacy groups said the connection between Paul and the IGO is well-known.

“You will find that the Iowa Gun Owners has fairly significant ties to Ron Paul and their organizations,” said Jeff Burkett, president of the Iowa Firearms Coalition.

The Iowa Firearms Coalition is not involved in the Carroll calls and finds them distasteful and counter-productive to the gun-rights cause, Burkett said in an interview Monday night.

“The Iowa Firearms Coalition most certainly was not responsible for the recent phone bombardment in Carroll,” Burkett said in a follow-up statement.

“We are a pro-Second Amendment organization, and we echo the NRA’s stance against the city council’s illegal ban on firearms, but we simply don’t see any value in trying to undermine efforts in Carroll to build a new library. It’s simply not a Second Amendment issue. There are other options for voicing concerns against the council’s previous anti-gun policy that we advocate which doesn’t involve politicizing the decision to build a library as a Second Amendment issue. I expect that most reasonable citizens in Carroll will consider the balance of the issues in reaching their decision on how to vote.”

Ivers confirmed that the number which showed up on caller IDs in Carroll in connection to the robocalls against the library was in fact one for Paul campaign headquarters.

He said the connection was “not good” for the presidential campaign.

“We are very anti-tactics-that-are-not-ethical,” Ivers said.

A spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association said in a phone interview that her organization was not behind the calls.

“We don’t know anything about those calls,” Rachel Parsons said.

Regardless of who made the calls, the fact that they don’t identify the source is not a violation of Iowa campaign law, said Megan Tooker, executive director of the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board.

Phone calls are not specifically listed as political communications that require attributions as newspaper and radio advertisements do, she said.

“The robocall did not have to indicate who paid for it,” Tooker said.

Tooker said the Legislature has eyed the issue as a potential loophole that needs closing.

“It is an interesting issue, and I know it is something that some legislators are concerned about,” Tooker said.

The calls took issue with the council’s February vote to ban weapons from city property.

“This turned peaceful citizens using these city properties that they helped pay for into prime targets by the criminal class when they know the peaceful citizen is disarmed,” a man’s voice on the call says. “And now city hall wants you to pay more property taxes to expand these really victim zones.”

The caller asked people to vote against the library as signal of support for the Second Amendment.

“We will never approve their attacks on the Constitution and on our liberty,” the call goes on to say. “You can help send that message to city hall by joining us and voting no this Tuesday.”

About 12 hours after the Carroll City Council passed a resolution this winter prohibiting firearms on city property the politically muscular National Rifle Association said it would challenge the vote as an infringement on constitutional rights and an end run around a new state law. The council voted 5-1 with Councilwoman Carolyn Siemann dissenting to prohibit firearms and certain other weapons on city property.

Ironically, library director Kelly Fischbach said the Library Board of Trustees supports gun rights in the library.

“The library board of trustees would defend the Second Amendment just like they defend the First Amendment, if that decision had been left up to them and their policies,” Fischbach said.

AMES — Former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack, promising a church-potluck civility, announced her campaign this morning for Congress as a Democrat in the state’s new 4th District, a sweep of 39 counties in western and central Iowa.

Most of the counties are now represented by U.S. Rep. Steve King, a Kiron Republican with national starpower in conservative circles who has dominated lesser-known opponents in elections over the last decade.

“Iowans are sick of the partisanship and finger-pointing,” Vilsack said.

She added, “I don’t want to score points. I want to make progress.”

Christie Vilsack was joined by her husband, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and other family members at her announcement in Ames. The former Iowa governor had no speaking role, leaving the limelight to the state's former first lady. (Photo: Douglas Burns/The Iowa Independent)

A native of Mt. Pleasant in southeast Iowa, Vilsack, who has established residency in Ames, said she grew up in a home her parents bought with help from the G.I. Bill. She told a crowd of about 100 supporters in Ames that she believes in a “focused” and “sensible” role for government, one that protects Social Security and Medicare but addresses the deficit.

“It offends me when those hard-earned dollars are wasted,” she said.

But corporations and the wealthy should pay more taxes as part of a broader solution to Washington’s budget and services strategy, she said. Right now, Vilsack said, the wealthy corporate sector is not doing its fair share.

“That’s like showing up at a potluck without bringing a covered dish,” Vilsack said.

In her western and central Iowa “listening tours” of recent weeks Vilsack said she heard concerns from many residents about a U.S. House-passed Republican budget that would transition Medicare into a voucher system.

“I firmly believe we can save Medicare without turning it into a voucher program,” Vilsack said.

In her remarks Vilsack referenced Santa Maria Winery in Carroll as an example of the innovative endeavors she wants to champion as a federal legislator.

Specifically, she pledged support for completing the four-laning of U.S. Highway 20. Overall, she said government can assist with infrastructure, roads and the Internet — and otherwise get out of the way of private enterprise.

“In the Midwest we know that compromise isn’t a bad word,” Vilsack said.

Noting that the new 4th District has one of the nation’s highest concentrations of wind turbines, Vilsack said economic-development leaders and communities should work aggressively to recruit companies that make the turbine components, and repair them, to rural Iowa. Moreover, returning military men and women looking for work should be able to find it in the renewable energy sector in Iowa, she said.

“I’m running for Congress to help build those partnerships,” Vilsack said.

In an interview session with The Iowa Independent and other media following the announcement, Vilsack would not say whether President Obama would campaign for her in western Iowa.

“I wouldn’t have any idea right now,” she said. “I’m just trying to get my announcement taken care of.”

Vilsack declined to elaborate on her husband’s recent characterization of the race with King as a “holy war.”

“You’d have to ask him because he’s the one who said it, but for me, it’s going to be a competition, and that’s really important for people, to have a choice and to have a contrast, and I think that I’ll provide that contrast,” Christie Vilsack said. “As i said, I’m interested in problem solving, not partisan fighting.”

Tom Vilack joined his wife at the event along with other family but had no speaking role. He declined to answer questions from The Iowa Independent about his wife’s candidacy.

Iowa joins Mississippi as the only states with the distinction of having never elected a woman as governor or to the U.S. House or U.S. Senate.

“There’s nothing sexist about the electorate of Iowa and it will be exciting when we get a female candidate in Congress,” Vilsack said.

She added, “This for me is as much about being a small-town person as it is about being a woman.”

After being pressed to comment on King, and what she believes his inadequacies are as a legislator, Vilsack was asked if, as a female candidate, she risked appearing weak, not up to the challenge, by not taking the fight directly at King, or returning rhetorical fire against one of the more provocative and colorful congressmen in the nation.

“There are a lot of ways of being tough, and I think every woman in Iowa understands that,” Vilsack said.

One Vilsack supporter, Phyllis Peters, a Glidden native now living in Ames and active in Democratic politics, said the Democratic candidate struck the right tone.

“At this speech and another one she was all about what unifies us,” Peters said. “She did nothing about divisive rhetoric. She’s all about what makes our communities better. So I think it’s refreshing. It’s very different than what you’re hearing from others.”