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Bill Salier
Although U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is alone on the GOP Senate ballot Tuesday, a group is pushing for voters to write in Bill Salier instead of supporting the four-term incumbent.
The group, calling itself “Write-In Bill Salier for U.S. Senate on June 8!” states as its purpose “to send a message to the GOP establishment that we are tired of the candidates they continually serve up. “
We want our candidates not only to *claim* to be conservative, but to *show* they are conservative as well by their voting record. Grassley has failed to do this. If all of us who feel this way write in the same candidate, perhaps our dissatisfaction will show up on the radar, and send the desired message.
Salier became a hero of sorts to Iowa’s social conservative movement back in 2002 when he ran a surprisingly close U.S. Senate primary race against Congressman Greg Ganske. Since that time he founded the advocacy group Everyday America, has worked on several campaigns and is a weekly guest on Deace’s drive-time show on WHO-AM.
He could not be reached for comment about the write-in campaign. But over the past year he has repeatedly discussed a possible primary challenge of Grassley. In April 2009, he told Radio Iowa, “If anybody was ever vulnerable to a primary who is an icon, it would be Chuck Grassley now… People become more and more and more incensed the more they start to pay attention to how far he has drifted.”
During an appearances on the show of Christian radio host Steve Deace last August, Salier renewed the idea that Grassley could face a primary challenge. The statement came in response to a letter to Grassley, penned by GOP state Rep. Kent Sorenson, criticizing several of the senator’s votes that upset conservative voters. Many felt the letter was the fist step of a primary challenge, but Sorenson eventually decided to run for the Iowa Senate instead.
“If he doesn’t right his ship on this, he very well may face a primary,” Salier said at the time. “And if it’s someone who thinks like me on these issues or someone who thinks like Kent Sorenson does, I’ll take everything I’ve got to try to propel them forward.”
No primary challenger ever emerged.
So far, the group advocating for Salier has only 21 fans on Facebook. But Steve Hoodjer of Iowa Freedom Report notes that all the talk of a primary challenge from the right last year “did compel Grassley to track our way, voting against the nomination of Sotomayer to the Supreme Court after the Iowa Gun Owners called him out, abandoning efforts to give ObamaCare a bi-partisan fig leaf, and standing up for Audit the Fed.”
“If the write-ins chalk up a percent or two, perhaps that could have the same effect,” he said.
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