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.
When Barack Obama speaks frankly about his youthful drug use in a generic sense on the campaign trail here, voters often respond positively to the Illinois Democrat’s straightforward handling of the personal failing. In fact, many see it as revealing a canyon-sized difference between Obama’s Generation X candor and the equivocation of Baby Boomers like the Clintons on such matters.
That said, when polls are examined more closely, and the question is posed to voters not on drugs generally but specifically on cocaine (which Obama admitted to using in his best-selling memior,”Dreams From My Father,” by noting that he did “maybe a little blow when you could afford it.”) the results show some potential vulnerabilities for the senator.
His Democratic opponents haven’t seized this issue a in high-profile way. But Republican presidential Mitt Romney has challenged Obama on the drug angle, perhaps presaging a general-election strategy, while two western Iowa conservative Republicans see the issue as having no traction and being fraught with tripwires for their party if mishandled.“I think it’s important for us not to go into details about the weaknesses and our own failings as young people for the concern that we open kids thinking that it’s OK for them,” Romney said.
What will be facinating to watch is whether Americans’ views on cocaine will play out in the election booths as a defining factor or anything close to that. If it does, that could spell trouble for Obama.
A survey of 1,010 adults conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University finds many Americans voice concerns about candidates who’ve used cocaine.
Adults in the survey were equally troubled over prospects of a president who tried cocaine in his youth, something Sen. Barack Obama has admitted. Only 34 percent said they think most Americans would accept this while 58 percent said it would not be acceptable.
In a New York Times poll in June, 74 percent of respondents said they did not think most people they know would vote for a presidential candidate who has ever used cocaine.
“In the few polls that explicitly ask about cocaine use in a presidential candidate (as opposed to the softer more generic ‘Drug Use,’)” says one Washington, D.C. insider, “Seventy-four percent say cocaine use makes a person unfit to be president. It’s the highest negative apart from ‘no government experience.’ Put differently, never in the history of the presidency has a front runner openly admitted to using cocaine. So now that Obama is talking about the drug use more often, I am absolutely certain it’s because he and his team know that the cocaine issue is going to roar forward. It will be a major issue if he is the nominee.The GOP will ride it hard and he is trying to inoculate.”
On the ground here in western Iowa, the co-chairman of the Carroll County Republican Party, John Werden, a county attorney who has handled many cocaine-related cases, says Obama’s admission should not be disqualifying. What’s more, Werden has a different take on the Obama drug question than Romney, the candidate the long-time western Iowa prosecutor is supporting in the Iowa caucuses.
“As a father and a prosecutor I’m not willing to write off anyone for good public service because of bad things they’ve done in the past,” Werden said.
This doesn’t mean Werden doesn’t find Obama’s drug admissions troubling in one respect. In working with people addicted to drugs, Werden said, there are always concerns that they will grasp on to comments from successful, high-profile people about use and abuse to justify their own actions.
“In an indirect way, it absolves them and in some circles encourages drug usage,” Werden said.
Both Werden and veteran Iowa journalist Chuck Offenburger referenced the late Iowa icon Harold Hughes, a popular U.S. senator and governor who was open about his battles with alcohol. Iowans were ahead of their time in accepting this, a history that could play out in Obama’s favor with his contemportary admissions of past drug use.
“Everyone knew he (Hughes) had a problem with alcoholism,” Werden said. “And that was back in the 1960s before many people even accepted there was a thing as alcoholism.”
In southwest Iowa, State Sen. Jeff Angelo, a Republican from Creston and an evangelical Christian, thinks his party enters dangerous waters if it attempts to go after Obama on cocaine use, which Angelo thinks would be old news by the time the nominating process is complete.
“No, I don’t think that we can,” Angelo told Iowa Independent. “We were all really outraged about many of the allegations against George W. Bush.”
Angelo says a 24/7 news cycle takes the shock value out of stories, cuts the legs out from underneath “news” that only years ago would have been catastrophic for candidates.
“I think the voters at this point have become rather numb to these kinds of revelations,” Angelo said. “I just don’t see it being used as a viable issue.”
In fact, he sees some Christians being potentially drawn to Obama for admitting a flaw and seeking redemption.
In respone to a question from Iowa Independent on a conference call this morning, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, also does’t see the cocaine question as having any traction with Iowa voters. And he doesn’t see how Republicans make it work in a general election.
“I suppose they might try,” Harkin said. “I mean, they’ll try anything. I think as long as you’re open and honest and above board I think more people will say at least he’s honest about it, admitted it, and is moving on. A lot of people make mistakes in their lives and have done something that was illegal.”
Harkin added, “I think that was one of this Bush’s selling points when he ran for president. He admitted he’d been really a heavy drinker and all and kind of pulled himself together and overcame it. What the heck. I think that says a lot about a person.”
One influential Obama suporter in Iowa, former state Democratic Party chairman Gordon Fischer this morning told Iowa Independent that George W. Bush would have been wise in 2000 to use the Obama strategy of today on revelations of personal shortcomings. A story about a Bush DUI broke late in the general election cycle and posed serious problems for the campaign, Fischer said.
“If he had talked about it in the primary process people would have said that was dumb but what else do you have,” Fischer said.
Fischer said he’s been to many Obama events and has never heard anyone raise the question of Obama’s past drug use.
“Drug use has never come up, not explicitly or implicitly,” Fischer said.
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