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.
Western Iowa congressional candidate Rob Hubler, the Democratic challenger to U.S. Rep. Steve King, hit seven county conventions in the 5th District Saturday with a speech designed to show party faithful they have a man ready for a fight with the controversial conservative Republican.“The whole thing is that Mr. King is not a representative of the district,” Hubler told Iowa Independent in an interview.
Hubler is the only formal Democratic contender for the seat to emerge as the filing deadline passed last Friday.
In making the rounds at county conventions, Hubler said, “My message was totally at him (King).”
Hubler estimates he spoke to a total of about 1,200 people at the conventions. And he said the partisan crowds were ready for his message about King.
“We got great response,” Hubler said.
King has developed a penchant for seeking the limelight by way of provocative comments that many observers say cross the borders of robust political discourse and jump far into the arena of insult and even racism.
“He is a direct opposite of what a representative is,” Hubler said.
Just over a week ago, King made international news when he suggested U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the leading Democratic presidential candidate, would be something of a smash hit with Muslim terrorists because of the Senator’s middle name, Hussein, and the “optics” involved with him taking the oath of office.
Obama is a Christian, a fact brought home last week as his own pastor became embroiled in a controversy over highly charged remarks.
Hubler thinks the middle-name ploy wears thin with Iowans.
“The burning question on many people’s minds is, what’s my middle name?” joked Hubler in a speech he delivered seven times Saturday. “It’s Louis.”
After King’s slam on Obama hit the airwaves — getting out of the gate in Spencer — it shot around the world. In fact, on MSNBC’s “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann put King atop the “Worst Person in the World” list.
Hubler referenced that in the interview, saying the district at the very least wouldn’t be represented by someone with that infamous national title were he the congressman instead.
King’s reputation offers Hubler potential fundraising opportunities generally not available to Democrats in this rural district, the Democratic contender noted.
Not only is King not backing away from the remarks he made about Obama being a terrorist idol, but the western Iowan has posted the full text on his congressional Web site.
It is a top item on the congressman’s homepage and reads: “Transcript of King’s
Controversial Comments: What May Cause Al-Qa’da To Celebrate.”
Using the Internet and other avenues, Hubler and his allies can use the combustible King, and comments like these, as a lure for money from out of state — or donations from people with no strong political affiliation who are outraged at any number of King’s remarks and looking for a way to vent.
“I see the race developing in the beginning that way,” Hubler said.
But the retired Presbyterian minister from Council Bluffs has been campaigning with his own message for more than a year. He knows many people want to see King gone, and may jump parties or forget their independent-right-leaning ways to vote against the congressman. But they need a viable, respectable alternative, someone they could see in that role. Hubler said it’s his job to make the case he’s that man.
He’s also fighting recent history.
Retired Creston educator Joyce Schulte lost the last two elections by wide margins to King, R-Kiron. In 2006, a weak year for Republicans that even saw the outster of Iowa icon Jim Leach in eastern Iowa, Kingpulled 58 percent of the vote to Schulte’s 36 percent in the sprawling, 32-county western Iowa district. King spent $620,000 compared to just $73,000 for Schulte. Schulte is not running this year.
A son of a Presbyterian minister, Hubler, grew up in Council Bluffs, graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1961. He then joined the Navy where he served on nuclear submarines from 1962 to 1969.
As a veteran, Hubler said he has been appalled by reports of treatment of men and women in uniform at some health-care facilities.
Hubler said he views poverty as a main front in the war on terror.
He worked on some of U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin’s first campaigns for the House in the early and mid-1970s, where he made contacts in wide swaths of western Iowa. He also served as an Iowa field office staff member for former Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Clark of Iowa.
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