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.
At least 20 employees of the Iowa Democratic Party have been demoted or fired and a coordinated state-wide campaign was essentially disbanded, replaced by a focus on the presidential bid of Sen. Barack Obama.
Details are sketchy, but the changes could have an impact on November’s legislative races, with field staff that was previously working for down-ticket races now being placed on the payroll of Obama’s presidential campaign and working almost entirely on its behalf.
The Democrats’ prolonged presidential nominating contest forced parties in many important swing states to begin the process of hiring staff before Obama was declared the winner. When the Obama campaign finally made its way back to Iowa, it found “coordinated campaign” plans drawn up and implemented by local operatives who had been on the job for weeks or months.
Several sources familiar with the plan told the Iowa Independent that Iowa’s Democratic elected officials — from Sen. Tom Harkin to the leaders of the Iowa House and Senate — had signed off and paid fees to participate in the coordinated campaign, which is a method by which Democrats pool their resources and avoid certain campaign redundancies. By June 1, Democratic Party employees had been deployed across the state to work on the coordinated effort. According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, by June 20, the Iowa Democratic Party had 28 salaried employees working in its Des Moines headquarters and in the field.
By mid-June the Obama campaign had deployed its own staff to Iowa to lead its general election campaign here, a move that is typical for a presidential nominee. But Obama’s campaign began to assign organizers to parts of the state where the coordinated campaign already had a presence, and insiders began to wonder why. In the past week and a half, the answer to that question has been slowly revealed.
Obama’s campaign demanded that its own staff replace existing staff in places where there was overlap and cast aside several opportunities to cooperate with down-ticket candidates between now and November, another source familiar with the negotiations said. Essentially, the state coordinated campaign was disbanded and replaced by the Obama campaign organization.
By June 27, news had trickled down to the field staff and Democratic county chairs that plans had changed, but the details of the changes were left unclear. According to sources within the party, several regional field directors accepted lesser positions or resigned outright, and field organizers were fired with the opportunity to reapply for similar jobs on the Obama campaign’s payroll rather than the state party’s. Summer canvassers, who have been knocking on doors since the first week of June, were left in place, but some were unsure whom they would report to following the shakeup.
Details of the new plan remain compartmentalized and, in some cases, unfinished, but the biggest impact could be on state legislative candidates, who depend on the pooled resources of the coordinated campaign for much of their volunteer coordination and get-out-the-vote programs. Candidates in close races had already paid the initial fee to join the coordinated campaign — up to about $10,000 each — before word leaked out that the Obama campaign would not participate in the joint effort. Money that was paid into the coordinated campaign by candidates will be used to fund the summer canvass and, if financially possible, to extend the canvass through November. Canvassers will focus on down-ticket races. The rest of the Democratic operatives deployed around the state will report directly — and exclusively — to the Obama campaign.
The situation mirrors what happened in Colorado, where the Obama campaign announced last last month it would not be joining the state’s coordinated campaign and instead would operate alongside it. The move drew criticism from some Colorado Democrats who fear the party will end up duplicating efforts and squandering resources.
Some Democratic activists in Iowa have expressed the same fears. It is still unclear whether the state party and the Obama campaign have worked out all the specifics about how the two groups will coordinate activities this fall.
Tom Henderson, chairman of the Polk County Democratic Party, said it is not unusual for a presidential candidate to put his stamp on a coordinated campaign.
“The Obama campaign is doing what every presidential campaign has done, which is take over the leadership of the coordinated campaign,” he said. “For the most part, I think this was expected.”
The staff of the state campaign was merely reassigned into new positions to accommodate Obama’s campaign, Henderson said. He stressed that this is a good thing for Iowa Democrats, as get out the vote efforts for Obama will benefit Democrats at every level.
“I personally haven’t heard anyone who is angry with the moves,” Henderson said. “I think everyone will end up in a similar position, and even if there are people who are let go, there are so many campaign jobs available right now that no one is going to go unemployed. There are more jobs than people to fill them.”
Gordon Fischer, former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, who endorsed Obama during the Iowa caucuses, said historically during presidential election years there is a tug of war between the presidential campaign and state campaigns over party resources.
“In the past those have been worked out beforehand, because at the end of the day, we’re all working to get Democrats elected up and down the ballot,” he said.
The dynamic of this election year and the changes to the coordinated campaign structure and function are different because of the long presidential primary campaign, Fischer said.
“The primary season lasted so much longer than usual that things like the coordinated campaign got a late start,” he said. “But there is still plenty of time to get everybody on the same page and working towards the same goal.”
When asked about the effect the staffing changes could have on legislative races, Fischer said Obama will bring a lot of resources to the state, and Obama voters will support Democrats up and down the ballot.
“I think we’re going to see a lot of straight-ticket voting,” he said. “This year there is a the potential for a Democratic landslide in Iowa and across the country. I never thought I’d see the day when a Democratic presidential candidate out-raised and out-spent a Republican candidate, but this year it’s going to happen. There is the potential for Obama to outspend [Sen. John] McCain 3 to 1 or 4 to 1, and that is a tremendous advantage to all Democrats. A rising tide lifts all boats.”
Brooke Borhenhagen, press secretary for the Iowa Democratic Party, said in a statement that Democrats in Iowa are united and will work together at the grass-roots level to ensure voters know what’s at stake in November.
“Together, door by door, vote by vote, we will elect Democrats up and down the ticket across our state and we will see the change we all want in Washington when Iowa helps send Barack Obama to the White House,” she said.
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