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.
Former Gov. Terry Branstad is getting a lot of attention lately as he ponders a return to politics after more than a decade out of office. And with a an appearance in northeast Iowa to speak at a fundraiser for state Sen. Pat Grassley on his schedule, Sioux City Journal political reporter Bret Hayworth decided to take a look back at Branstad’s last competitive campaign, the 1994 GOP gubernatorial primary.
Former U.S. Rep. Fred Grandy, R-Iowa.
The race, which saw Branstad challenged from his left by moderate Republican Congressman Fred Grandy after 12 years in office, was contentious and, at times, ugly.
Hayworth came across a Journal story about Grandy packing up his Congressional office after narrowly losing the primary 52 percent to 48 percent. Flying in the face of party unity, Grandy declared he would “hold his nose and vote” for Branstad, despite what he considered an underhanded and unnecessarily nasty campaign. He was particularly upset with Branstad’s accusations that Grandy was a carpetbagger, having moved back to Sioux City to run for Congress in the 1980s.
Grandy lived in Sioux City through the age of 14.
From Hayworth’s blog:
Grandy said Branstad had a strategy of “win at all costs… even after eight years in politics, I naively assumed in the governor’s race you would have a real discussion of ideas, not an attempt to see who was the truer Iowan, or by association, the most dangerous of the candidates.”
“I’ve always believed in a spirited dialogue and my attacks, although critical and sometimes pointed and frequently sardonic, have never been designed to be personal petty assaults on people,” Grandy told [the Journal at the time].
A lot has changed since 1994. Instead of being the darling of the social conservative movement, now Branstad is being attacked by it for his association with gambling, choosing a lieutenant governor who favors abortions rights and for appointing the state Supreme Court Justice who penned the decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
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