After losing seats in the state House and Senate for four elections in a row and giving Democrats control of both legislative chambers and Terrace Hill for the first time in decades, Republicans hoped a victory in this rural southeastern Iowa district would be just what the doctor ordered to show they’ve finally turned things around.

Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn told The Des Moines Register the campaign was “a pivotal election and could set the stage for even more victories in 2010,” and in an e-mail to supporters July 29 he called the race “our spring board to a new Republican majority in 2010.”

As is often the case in politics, though, things don’t always go according to plan.

Now that the votes have been counted and the Democrats have managed to narrowly hang on to the seat, Republicans say they always viewed the election as a long shot, and that coming close provides a moral victory the party needed.

But some quietly question the strategy employed by Republican leadership of building up expectations for the race. Others are being more public, asking whether the loss will have more impact than it deserves because of the party’s tactics.

Jeff Patch, a former press secretary for Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Latham, said on paper the district was going to be a hard pickup for Republicans. But party officials made it a point to paint a picture that the race represented a bellwether of the party’s resurgence, creating an illusion that Burgmeier was the favorite to win.

“If the Republican Party started out saying the things they are saying now that the election is over, stressing that it is a district that was in Democratic hands for more than a decade, stressing that there is a Democratic registration advantage, I think they’d be in a better position now,” he said. “The story line now is that Republicans didn’t measure up to what their expectations were. That was an unfortunate tactical mistake that they made.”

Staking the party’s momentum to this race was not wise, Patch said, since Burgmeier was an underdog from the start.

“I think the popular sentiment going in was that this was the Republicans’ race to lose, and part of that is because the party built that storyline,” he said. “But if you look at the data of the district, it is completely the opposite.”

Democrats have held House District 90 for more than a decade and have an advantage in voter registration numbers of 7,211 to 6,427, according to figures from the Iowa Secretary of State. (Voters with no party affiliation outnumber both parties.)

Democratic Gov. Chet Culver won the district in 2006, and Barack Obama carried the district in last year’s presidential election.

Democrat Curt Hanson, right, defeated Republican Stephen Burgmeier in the special election Tuesday to represent District 90 in the Iowa House.

“This was a pretty big swing and a miss for the Republican Party of Iowa,” said Jeff Link, a veteran Democratic operative and founder of the consulting firm Link Strategies. “They should have worked quietly and made a big deal out of a surprise victory rather than raise the stakes and bring all this attention to the race and then come up short.”

Tim Albrecht, a Republican strategist and publisher of the conservative news aggregator TheBeanWalker.com, said the fact that the GOP were able to compete in a district where Republicans didn’t even field a candidate in 2008 is a step in the right direction.

“Republicans essentially turned a lock for Democrats into a competitive race,” he said. “They almost pulled off a long shot upset. It’s a sign that shows growing momentum for the GOP as they head into next year’s elections.”

Get out the vote

When looking for the foundation for the Democrats’ victory, many are pointing to early voting. The Iowa Secretary of State’s office received 1,731 absentee ballots from Democrats and only 747 from Republicans.

Giving Democrats a 1,000-vote head start on Election Day is not a good strategy for success, Patch said.

“I don’t think Republicans can win in 2010 unless they craft a strategy to overcome that problem,” he said, adding: “There is some disagreement within the party over just how important the early-voting program is. I think it is clear that it is a deficiency that Republicans need to overcome.”

The Iowa Democratic Party has heavily targeted absentee ballots in recent elections, racking up huge margins long before polls open on Election Day. By contrast, Republicans have focused on a so-called “72-hour strategy,” hoping to turn out the party faithful during the final days of an election.

In April, RPI Chair Strawn emphasized the need for his party to improve its early voting efforts, saying a focus on Election Day was no longer good enough.

Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn

“We just need to make sure that Election Day isn’t just Election Day anymore,” he told a panel of journalists on IPTV’s “Iowa Press.” “It’s election 45 days, election months. We need to start our campaigns earlier.”

Almost immediately after Burgmeier was chosen to run for the seat in July, GOP operatives and interest groups like Iowans for Tax Relief and the Iowa Family Policy Center were on the ground in the district.

And yet Democrats still vastly outperformed Republicans in early voting.

Albrecht said while the disparity in absentee voting is a major concern, he is confident the party has learned its lesson and will build an effective infrastructure going forward.

“I think the Republican Party of Iowa has good, steady, savvy leadership in place,” he said. “They are going to learn from this election and going forward build a strong campaign for 2010.”

Growing the party

Another concern the party must address is expanding their voter base as a whole, Patch said. Democrats currently have a statewide voter registration lead of more than 100,000. The upcoming GOP gubernatorial primary could go a long way towards narrowing the voter registration gap, but ultimately the party must broaden their appeal to independent voters and conservative Democrats.

“The bottom line is that if they can’t win in Democratic districts that are marginally competitive, like HD90, there is no way that they can retake the majority in the legislature or retake the governorship,” he said.

And unfortunately for Republicans, the political environment in House District 90 is “actually a little bit more favorable for Republicans than the statewide environment,” Patch said. While a Democrat has held the district for 13 years, the last time the seat was open in 2002 the race was decided by only 55 votes.

Despite the loss, Patch believes the party understands its problems and will correct them before voters go to the polls in the fall of 2010.

“I don’t think anyone in the Republican Party is excited about [Tuesday’s] result,” he said. “But I think they can see the light at the end of the tunnel after huge losses in 2006 and 2008 if they can make the necessary changes.”

Albrecht said he looks at the numbers from Tuesday’s election and sees hope that the Republican Party of Iowa can compete anywhere in the state.

“Democrats should be sweating that this election was so close,” he said. “I think the party showed it will invest in its candidates, and that will help candidate recruitment and fundraising.”

At the end of the day, Link said part of the GOP’s strategic error might be that the party’s leadership began to believe their own hype.

“Maybe they started to believe their own press a little bit,” he said. “They’ve gotten a lot of attention for changing things up and being more aggressive and trying to be better as a party. Maybe they just started to buy into that too much.”

Ultimately, though, HD90 is one of 100 House districts, and even if the GOP had won it would have had little overall impact, Link said.

“I think the Republicans looked at this and wanted to make a statement,” he said. “It backfired.”

Hanson will replace former state Rep. John Whitaker (D-Hillsboro), who was appointed to a position with the USDA. The balance of power in Iowa’s lower legislative chamber remains unchanged, with Democrats holding on to a somewhat volatile 56-44 majority.

Democrat Curt Hanson, right, defeated Republican Stephen Burgmeier in the special election to represent District 90 in the Iowa House.

Tuesday’s turnout was low compared to recent presidential elections but high for a special election, with 8,046 voters casting ballots in the district, which spans Jefferson County and parts of Wapello and Van Buren counties.

The race, which lasted just over one month, focused less on issues of local importance and more on trivia.

Both campaigns released television advertisements featuring cartoons.

The National Organization for Marriage bought more than $80,000 in ads to support Burgmeier, an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage rights. Two other groups — Iowans for Tax Relief and the Iowa Family Policy Center — seemed to play a central role in the Republican’s campaign, which spent more time criticizing Gov. Chet Culver and Democratic bigwigs than talking about Hanson.

For his part, Hanson received less help from third-party groups, but he enjoyed the undivided attention of the Democrats’ statewide organization. Party volunteers descended on the district from across the state, and surrogates — including U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin — made appearances on his behalf.

Iowa Democratic Party Chair Michael Kiernan was quick to release a statement after the results were in. “Democrats have been successful in the last two election cycles and tonight because we have recruited great candidates, followed through on the promises we’ve made and are governing the state responsibly,” he said.

Republicans downplayed the result, implying that they never should have won the race anyway. “While we are disappointed, the fact that Republicans nearly won a solid Culver-Obama legislative district shows that Iowans are not pleased with the status quo and one-party rule in Des Moines,” said party chair Matt Strawn.

House Minority Leader Kraig Paulsen (R-Hiawatha) sounded a similar note in his statement. “While we’re disappointed in the outcome of this race, it is not a surprise,” he said.

Iowa House District 90 (Source: www.legis.state.ia.us)

Hanson’s path to victory

In an election this close, almost any single factor could have made the difference.

Hanson built his margin of victory with absentee ballots and strong support in Jefferson County, where both he and Burgmeier live.

Of all 8,046 ballots cast, 4,805 came from Jefferson County. Hanson’s roughly 600-vote margin there was too much for Burgmeier to overcome, even after winning the more rural parts of Van Buren and Wapello counties that fall within the district.

For a race that was supposed to be decided by turnout alone, both sides exceeded expectations.  It is even possible that the Burgmeier campaign met its internal vote goal, only to find that its turnout projection was too low. (Otherwise, it would be hard to explain why he had [some] volunteers waving at cars on election day rather than making phone calls or knocking on doors…)

Hanson banked a lot of votes early, allowing his campaign to focus its time and resources on a narrowing universe of voters, maximizing efficiency.

It was a textbook Iowa Democratic campaign, designed to push Hanson across the goal line with little fanfare and a lot of direct contact with voters. And it worked.

Republican Stephen Burgmeier, left, and Democrat Curt Hanson are running to replace state Rep. John Whitaker in Tuesday's special election.

Campaign headquarters for both major-party candidates – Republican Steve Burgmeier and Democrat Curt Hanson – anchor two corners of the town square. Inside, volunteers used hands-free cell phones to check in with volunteer canvassers, making sure no voter had been missed in a door-knocking campaign that seemed frantic. In a campaign that is set to last barely longer than a month, opportunity lies behind every door.

The vacancy in House District 90, which includes all or parts of Jefferson, Van Buren and Wapello counties in southeast Iowa, was created when U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack tapped Hillsboro farmer John Whitaker to head the Farm Service Agency in Iowa. Whitaker was a state legislator since 2002.

House District 90 by the numbers

The district is made up of an eclectic mix of historic riverfront towns that have retained much of their 1880s look, Amish settlements, century farms that have remained in the same families for generations, and one larger town that couldn’t be more different from the rest of the district: Fairfield, the Jefferson County seat, has about 1,500 votes at stake. About one-third of the population there practices Transcendental Meditation, a relaxation technique popularized by Maharishi Mehesh Yogi, founder of the local Maharishi University of Management (M.U.M.).

Iowa House District 90 (Source: www.legis.state.ia.us)

Democrats outnumber Republicans district-wide, with 7,189 voters compared to the GOP’s 6,419. No-party voters are the largest bloc with 7,997. Those numbers, combined with significant “get out the vote” efforts from both major party campaigns, mean next week’s election could come down to the wire. And, as with almost any special election, because turnout will probably remain low, any single factor could make the difference.

“The district has been Democratic, but in a special election, anything can happen,” said Iowa Democratic Party Executive Director Norm Sterzenbach. “It comes down to who turns out.”

One indicator of turnout is absentee voting, which can offer a glimpse into each candidate’s relative strength going into election day. By that measure, things look good for the Democrats. According to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, voters had returned a total of 2,156 absentee ballots by last Thursday. 1,308 came from Democrats and only 603 came from Republicans. No-party voters mailed in only 243 ballots, a sign that both campaigns are more focused on turning out their base rather than persuading unaffiliated voters to support them.

The total number of absentee ballot requests, including ballots that have been sent to voters but not returned to county election officials, reflect a similar margin between the parties.

Although party registration does not necessarily dictate whom a voter will support, most special elections are decided by which side better turns out the base of their party, so it is a useful, if not definitive, point of data.

GOP sees opportunity among conservative Democrats

Democrats have held District 90 for the last several election cycles, but one unknown factor going into Tuesday’s election is how contentious political issues at the state and national level might filter down to the local race. Sterzenbach said that most, if not all, legislative campaigns are waged on local issues, but in a special election, “everything matters a little bit.”

The GOP may see opportunity in the fallout from this year’s Iowa Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, from President Obama’s efforts to reform health care, or from Gov. Chet Culver’s I-JOBS plan, for instance.

So far, all of the television commercials released by the Burgmeier campaign and its allies have focused scrutiny more on statewide and national issues than on Hanson himself. The National Organization for Marriage has spent more than $80,000 to promote Burgmeier’s opposition to same-sex marriage, for instance, not mentioning Hanson in their commercial at all. Iowans for Tax Relief released a television ad attacking Hanson for being in the same party as Culver and as George Soros, a billionaire businessman who has donated to liberal causes nationally, but who has not been tied to the Hanson campaign in particular. These sorts of messages may be intended mostly to rile up the Republican base, but they could also serve to shave away at the Democrats’ advantage in absentee ballots by making more conservative members of the party nervous about their candidate.

That group of voters – Democrats on paper who are social and fiscal conservatives at heart – is significant in House District 90, said Fairfield farmer Phil Gevock, who has been a Burgmeier ally in many local government disputes over the years.

“In this part of the state, you have a fair number of what you’d call old-line conservative Democrats, the Blue Dog Democrats, who are Democrats only because FDR saved their family farm,” Gevock observed. “That type of Democrat is conservative on every issue down the line, but they still register Democrat because their parents might roll over in the grave if they didn’t.”
“Of any of the Republicans who have run in this House district in the last 12 years, [Burgmeier] probably stands a better chance of getting more crossover vote than any of them,” Gevock said.

If Burgmeier wins the support of many conservative Democrats, it could be because he used to be one of them. He ran for Jefferson County supervisor two times, first as a Democrat and then as an independent, before finally winning the seat as a Republican in 2000. Burgmeier says he’s always been fiscally conservative and opposed to abortion rights, so his move away from the Democratic Party didn’t represent a huge ideological shift on his part. “I felt more and more that the longer I stayed in the Democratic Party, the more of an outsider I became,” he said.

Third-party candidates unlikely to affect the outcome

Campaign yard signs have become ubiquitous in House District 90, adorning the lawns of the stately homes on either side of Iowa Highway 1, Fairfield’s main thoroughfare. Barn signs dot the surrounding farmland for miles. The two major-party candidates’ signs were designed and produced professionally, offering a stark contrast to the crude hand-painted signs promoting the candidacy of one of the other candidates in the race.

In all, two independent candidates – both from Keosauqua – are also vying for the seat in the Iowa House. Dan Cesar, representing the virtually-unknown Fourth of July party, and Douglas Philips, who was nominated by petition without a party affiliation, are making things interesting, but aren’t likely to change the election’s outcome.

Tolerance for third-party candidates runs high in House District 90, but the third- and no-party candidates are more punctuation marks on the district’s uniqueness rather than part of its political foundation. Cesar, who was incumbent Whitaker’s only opponent in the 2008 election, lost by a large, double-digit margin.

“My guess is they would probably take just a little bit of support away from [Burgmeier],” Gevock said, “but on the other hand, people who will vote for those guys probably wouldn’t have voted otherwise.”

Philips admitted in an interview that he does not expect to win Tuesday, but he said that if he can convince just one individual to take on the two-party system and expose it as broken, his candidacy will have been a success. “I think there has been an understanding, in this district at least, that the status quo two-party system is broken,” Philips said.

The rural-urban divide

Burgmeier himself thinks his chances of winning are good. Based on his reputation as an advocate for property rights and an opponent of eminent domain, he says he has earned solid support among the district’s rural residents, particularly in Van Buren County, where there are about 5,200 votes up for grabs and exactly zero traffic lights.

But in Jefferson County, a more densely populated part of the district where there are twice as many eligible voters, the stakes are higher. Burgmeier supporters know their candidate will have to do well there to win, and that could be a challenge.

Conventional wisdom dictates that to succeed in Jefferson County, a candidate must win the support from meditating members of the community, who are difficult to lump together politically because they include Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens and former members the now-defunct Natural Law Party. In recent elections, to the extent that the group votes as a bloc, it seems to be based more on rural-urban lines than strictly ideological ones.

The same could be said for many other voters in Fairfield, where Burgmeier’s answers to questions related to municipal airport expansion and rural subdivision paving have angered some residents.

But Burgmeier’s supporters, who acknowledge that rural voters alone will not be enough to deliver a victory for their candidate, say he still enjoys a solid reputation for giving all groups a fair hearing, even when he sides with rural interests over municipal ones.

“He’s never shut anyone out,” Gevock said. “He’s always listened and treated people with respect.”

Of course, no one was saying that Hanson, who declined to be interviewed for this story, would do otherwise. Both Hanson and Burgmeier are well known and respected throughout the district. A retired Fairfield High School driver education teacher, Hanson taught hundreds of today’s voters to drive. Burgmeier is a three-term county supervisor and father of five who has umpired Little League for 23 years. Both are known for their honesty, fairness and accountability.

In other words, when residents of House District 90 speak of either candidate, they usually have nice things to say. But that doesn’t mean Tuesday’s election is on everyone’s mind. At Revelations, a Fairfield coffee shop, café and used book store whose sandwich and pizza menu is loaded with the locally grown produce offered at the twice-weekly farmers market up the street, chatter is as likely to be about the Beach Boys’ Labor Day concert at the Fairfield Middle School as politics. Tom Gamrath, a prominent community leader and long-time main street business owner, steers clear of the subject as best he can.

“For some people, it’s really important, but the people who run the parties are typically the ones who are really into it,” Gamrath said.

Who will get his vote?

“I’d rather not say,” Gamrath hedged. “I have to do business in this town.”

Beth Dalbey edited the Fairfield Ledger from 1996 to 2001. An award-winning journalist, she has also edited newspapers in Adel and Des Moines.

Former U.S. House Speaker Sam Rayburn

Hairdo narcissist John Edwards, who ended up being the cliche John Grisham-novel character he resembled outside the paperback pulp for two campaign cycles in Iowa, is now one more casualty in a parade of family values politicians.

The Edwards cheating episode, full of stature-sucking and biography-diminishing details, such as his purported mad dash for a bathroom in which to hide when confronted by a reporter at a California hotel early one morning after a reported meeting with his mistress and alleged lovechild, provides great evidence of what the United States is sorely missing: more single politicians.

Enough with politics as Christmas-card photos. Ditch the wives, kids and dogs and start living for God and country.

Some of the most effective political advocates have been, believe it or not, single.

One of the top legislators this nation has seen was the late Speaker of the U.S. House Sam Rayburn of Texas, a man who served in that position for 17 years during World War II and after.

He was a bachelor who could be found smoking, drinking moderately and reading Westerns when he wasn’t shepherding through legislation or advising presidents. But he was always on the clock. If a reporter found him in a hotel at 2:40 a.m., Rayburn no doubt would have been smoking a cigarette with his mind on a meeting with John Kennedy or a strategy to bring southern and northern Democrats together — not the couching of lies about bedding a former Manhattan party girl.

Sam Rayburn’s lifestyle sure wasn’t the fluffy stuff of family centered television commercials. But his work, his 48-year career in Congress and his commitment to the nation made him a legend. The most prestigious House Office Building in Washington, D.C. is named after him, and in 1961 he was the only speaker in history to earn a standing ovation.

Here is The New York Times obituary on Rayburn:

He was 30 when first elected to Congress in 1912.

In 1927, Mr. Rayburn married Matze Jones of Valley View, Tex. They separated almost immediately and the marriage was dissolved a year later.

Mr. Rayburn subsequently lived a bachelor’s life but, contrary to some reports, it was not a lonely one. A moderate drinker, he enjoyed parties and accepted many invitations, particularly if the event was to be a small dinner where politics would be the main conversational topic.

It was an almost daily ritual for him to “visit with” a few close friends, as he put it, in a hideaway that he maintained on the ground floor of the Capitol.

Rayburn’s integrity was exemplary. He never took campaign money from lobbyists. He viewed the people of his district and his valued colleagues as his “family.”

And the nation is better for him.

Rayburn would surely get my vote over the current cast of “family men” running for offices in Iowa and across the nation.

See the Mission Freak Web site for more bands and MCM events.

Essayist and fiction author Ben Marcus is MCM’s featured keynoter on Saturday afternoon at The Mill. Marcus is the author of “Notable American Women,” “The Father Costume” and “The Age of Wire and String” and will likely draw a local writerly crowd into the classic Iowa City venue.

Mission Creek Midwest is a local version of a west coast music expo that began (and still flourishes yearly) in San Francisco. MCM began when local founders Andre Peery and Tanner Illingworth came to Iowa City and started their east-central Iowa version with the Mission Creek brand name.

The fest has expanded its team of show producers. There are now five MCM producers plus a “street team.” Together, they organize shows, create posters, and deal with venues, booking and bands.

Some people have compared MCM to the legendary (and epic) SXSW fest in Austin, Tex. But SXSW is a music expo put on by the music industry for the music industry, so the comparison falls short.

Illingworth told the Iowa Independent that, “With Mission Creek, we are trying to put on a festival for Iowa City.  It’s a celebration of the arts and culture we have right here at home, not to mention all around the Midwest.  People come to Mission Creek to have fun for four days and experience some music that they aren’t going to see other places, not even SXSW.”

The Mission Freak Web site is the official space for festival news. Those interested can purchase festival passes on the site.

As part of the festival, Iowa City-band Illinois John Fever is playing at The Mill on Saturday night.

A year ago at Public Access Television’s studio in Iowa City, I.J.F. played “Biological Radio”:

“I have a theory about No Child Left Behind,” Kozol told more than 400 people who gathered to hear his reading. “I believe the right wing’s agenda underlying No Child Left Behind is not to help students on the bottom end of the spectrum, but to serve as more of a shaming ritual in the public spectrum to soften the ground for vouchers.”

Kozol, an award-winning author, has recently dedicated his time to public-education advocacy, in particular the NCLB Act, which is currently being considered for reauthorization by the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP). “It’s time for me to bring this battle back to Washington,” said Kozol, who has been lobbying all of the HELP committee members except one. Kozol, ironically, has had trouble getting access to the committee’s chair, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., his own state’s senator.

Frustrated, Kozol fasted this past summer to get Kennedy’s attention and protest NCLB. After Kozol had lost 30 pounds, his doctor put him on a limited fast, and, before he withered away, Kennedy agreed to meet with him in early November. Based on his meetings with other members, Kozol speculated why Kennedy, who co-authored NCLB, was reluctant to meet with him. “Kennedy thought No Child Left Behind would bring a lot more money into education, but what he didn’t realize is that the Bush administration would consistently underfund the legislation’s mandates year after year.”Although Kozol didn’t follow the traditional Prairie Lights reading format, he did thread the book’s content into his non-scripted lecture. His latest book, “Letters to a Young Teacher,” chronicles Kozol’s back-and-forth discourse with first-year teacher “Francesca,” who teaches inner-city first-graders in Boston. “This is the first cheerful book I’ve ever written,” Kozol told the crowd of educators. His other award-winning books; “Death at an Early Age,” “Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools,” “Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation,” and “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America,” expose the dark underbelly of the funding inequities facing inner-city schools — which serve a disproportionally larger rate of minority students

Kozol visited Francesca’s classroom on several occasions to do field research and to visit with the kids. Often, Kozol said Francesca put him on the spot by having him lead the teaching, or, as he puts it, “work as an unpaid substitute.” No stranger to teaching in inner-city Boston, Kozol’s teaching career began in Boston 30 years earlier, when his life was transformed by history during the civil rights period.

In 1964, Kozol had returned to the U.S. from Paris, where he had lived after attending Oxford University in England. He had planned on pursuing a doctorate degree in English literature at Harvard, but the news of the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi struck Kozol’s sense of justice. “That was the first time it dawned upon me that a terrible injustice had occurred in our nation,” Kozol said. “I couldn’t understand why it had taken so long for me to see what was happening to minority students in our schools. They are the outcasts of our ingenuity.”

Three years after the murders, Kozol landed his first teaching job in the Boston public school system, where he was fired during the final week of the school year. “On a whim, I decided to pick up a Langston Hughes book of poems at our local communist book store, I mean Harvard University book store, and I read one poem. The next day I was fired for `curriculum deviation.’”

Despite being fired, Kozol was hired by the top suburban school system in Boston, which doubled his previous salary while cutting his class size almost in half, from 35 to 19. “It was then I realized and learned how unjust our country can be to children – a gratuitous self-inflicted wound for a modern Democracy, if you will,” Kozol said. “We have the tools and means to provide every student with a top-tier education, and the fact that we don’t do this is as if we’re committing an act of social suicide. It’s not just that it denigrates people, but it’s something deeper than that and more pathological. We boast that we’re the greatest country, but we could also be the most decent and wisest nation in the world, but we are not.”

During his stint with Francesca and her students, Kozol gathered combined observational research to examine NCLB by putting a collective face on the legislation. While observing Francesca’s rapport develop with her students, Kozol witnessed a mystical chemistry evolve. “There’s nothing like that kind of chemistry in NCLB, which is more fear-based.”

“Francesca refused to teach a test-prep lesson, refused to drill her 6-year-olds for standardized exams, but rather, instilled her own sense of contagious jubilation and exhilaration into learning,” Kozol added. “In the end, most of her kids did very well on their exams, which suggests that the satisfaction found in the act of learning is always more effective, and certainly more enjoyable than learning from a feared exam.”

While traveling around the country and visiting schools, Kozol also witnessed another trend regarding the mission statement of schools located in urban school districts. “Children in these schools are being trained, specifically, to help achieve economic purposes. At a school in Columbus, Ohio, they had a mission statement posted on the wall of a first-grade classroom that read: `The mission of our school is to develop products that will sharpen our nation’s competitive edge in the competitive market place.”

Francesca’s response to this, when Kozol told her about it was: “Why would I give a damn about the global economy in my classroom? Better yet, why should first graders be worried about this? I refuse to steal away their childhood.”

Kozol highlighted a number of other consequences related to the fallout of NCLB, including the toll it has taken on new teachers entering the profession. While out recruiting teachers, Kozol observed that the quality of teachers entering the profession today is far superior to what he witnessed during the `60s. “Francesca is one of these people; however, 50 percent of her peers quit within the first three years of teaching,” Kozol said. “And, invariably, the number one reason these teachers quit is attributed to the current mania of testing that’s being forced upon them by the federal law of NCLB.”

Julie Englander, the host of Prairie Lights Live, asked Kozol why teachers are reluctant to express their feeling about the problems that exist in the public school system. Kozol argued that, traditionally, teachers have been trained that a professional doesn’t engage in anything provocative or overtly adversarial. “Another reason I think teachers are often silent right now is because this right-wing juggernaut has put everyone on the defensive, so they’re scrambling to pump out these test scores,” Kozol added. “Teachers are the best witnesses as to what happens in the classroom, not the think tanks or bureaucrats who run around pushing their testing agenda. Teachers need a national network where their voices can be heard.”

Putting his words to action, Kozol helped create “Education Action,” an online network for teachers, parents, students and community members who want to advocate for justice in the public schools and start holding politicians accountable. “There is something deeply hypocritical in a society that would hold a little third-grade girl accountable for her performance in a standardized exam, but does not hold the president and Congress accountable,” Kozol said. Education Action’s web site has a number of suggestions for revising NCLB.

Kozol, who says he has been under constant fire by members of the political right wing, refuses to give any ground when it comes to standing up for restoring a more just and equitable education system. “I don’t care what they do to me now. I’m too old to bite my tongue,” he said. “No matter who I am and no matter what the price is to pay, I intend to keep on fighting in this struggle.”

Jonathan Kozol signs books after the event

Participants vary from ages 3 to 8. They have no prior knowledge of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s cleavage, former Sen. John Edward’s salon bills, or Gov. Mitt Romney’s make-up expenses. Questions about their racial backgrounds and socio-economic status were met with eye-rolling, blank stares and more than one request for pre-payment of promised lollipops. Their legal agents have all consented to allow participation so long as no photographs are taken and names are changed to protect the innocent.

Without benefit of party affiliation, statements on issues or even names, participants were shown photographs of the 2008 presidential candidates taken from either official websites or campaign literature and asked to share their thoughts on the person in the photo.

Six-year-old Tim rubbed his nose as he looked at the photograph of Republican hopeful Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas. He looked and rubbed for several seconds before saying, “When my tie is too tight for church, my head turns red like that.”

“I don’t think his head is red,” said Bobby, age 8, looking over Tim’s shoulder at the photo. “I think he’s mad at somebody.”

Two more children — Audrey, age 7, and Carl, age 5 — rejoined our group after a quick shower in the splash pad when the photo of Illinois’ Democratic Sen. Barack Obama was placed on the table.

Carl’s hand shot up and he waited until called before quietly expressing his dismay: “His momma should have told him to wear sunscreen!” The four nodded solemnly in agreement at this remark that is, no doubt, more of a comment on their predominantly Caucasian surroundings than on Momma Obama’s possible neglect.

Beth, age 8, took only a brief glance at the photo of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton before lamenting the Democratic hopeful’s color choices. “When I grow up, I’m going to wear pink all the time,” she said. “And, if you are going to dress up, you should always wear earrings. Do you think she’s wearing high heels?”

“Papa!” said Jeremy, age 3, when showed a photo of Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Another Republican hopeful, Gov. Mitt Romney, should invest in a little hair color according to Emily, age 8, who said, “He looks like my first-grade teacher. I didn’t like him because the white hairs always made him look like we woke him up.”

Her hair advice extended to Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd whom she called “shocking” before staring even more closely at the photo. “I think he’s wearing a wig,” she said. “The hair on his head and the hair by his eyes are different colors.”

Tim, however, pulled the photos of Dodd, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, former Sen. John Edwards, Congressman Ron Paul and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in front of him and smiled. “They have sexy dimples — just like me,” he told the group.

Participants unanimously agreed that Sen. Joe Biden’s photo was “scary.”

“He looks like the principal at school when the lunchroom is too loud,” said Annie, age 7.

Tina, age 6, said she liked the look of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. “He looks like Santa — with a big tan,” she said.

After another short discussion on the benefits of sunscreen, a photo of former New York Gov. Rudy Giuliani was pushed to the top of the pile.

“Oh, my word!” exclaimed Audrey. “Harry Potter glasses!”

Excitement remained high until a detailed inspection of Giuliani’s photo produced no lightning bolt scar.

Notice was taken of Congressman Tom Tancredo’s eyes, and participants decided he “needed an earlier bedtime.”

“My mom has lotion for her eyes,” noted Bobby. “It stinks, but she likes it.”

Although other photos remained to be viewed, participants began to lose interest. With lollipop payments in hand, all but one ran off to swing sets, water fun, Iowa sunshine and carefree living.

Beth watched closely as the photos were neatly stacked and placed back into the bag. When her attention was mistaken for hope of additional payment she responded, “No, it isn’t that. Why was there only one girl?”

Sometimes all it takes is one thoughtful question to cut through all the nonsense.

Conservative news outlet CBN did the digging and found that in 1996, Thompson wanted the Republican convention to do away with the party platform. "It's the most useless device I've ever heard of," he told a Memphis paper in April.

In August, a week before the convention, the AP described Thompson as "a pro-choice defender in a party with an anti-abortion tilt," and quoted the senator:

(Thompson) said the party must avoid distracting issues and focus on electing Bob Dole as president. "We need to concentrate on what brings us together and not what divides us."

At MyDD, Jonathan Singer writes:

The last thing a candidate who appears to stand for nothing needs is the news that in his past he wanted to get rid of his party's platform altogether, preferring his party to instead stand for nothing — or at least not admit to the American public that it stood for something.

And as damaging as the fact that Thompson in effect argued that the Republican Party shouldn't admit to standing for anything in particular might be to his campaign this cycle, only slightly less problematic are the reports that he was pro-choice and that he wanted the issue of abortion to be effectively excised from the GOP.

An undeclared candidate has the appeal of an empty glass: people can fill it with whatever they want.  Anyone else remember the boomlets for Colin Powell in 1995, or Lee Iacocca in 1986-87?  Fred Thompson is far more likely to actually enter the race, but once he does, Republican caucus-goers are likely to demand more concrete answers on issues than "let's not have a platform."