Gubernatorial hopeful Bob Vander Plaats shakes hands will state Rep. Kent Sorenson, R-Indianola, shortly before speaking at a rally opposing gay marriage (photo by Jason Hancock/Iowa Independent).

The Iowa Family Policy Center’s political action committee, which organized the event, used it as an opportunity to formally endorse Vander Plaats in the GOP primary. But in doing so, the group’s chairman, former state lawmaker Danny Carroll, explicitly ruled out endorsing or assisting the man favored to win the party’s nomination, former Gov. Terry Branstad.

“[Gov. Branstad] has failed to boldly address the values that we embrace,” he said. “And even if he were to win the nomination, the Iowa Family PAC would not support him.”

Branstad has had trouble winning over a suspicious social conservative community since entering the race several months ago. But in recent weeks numerous conservative leaders have made statements that they will not support Branstad if he defeats Vander Plaats.

In a primary that’s already had its ugly moments, a sharp divide is forming in the Republican ranks that could hurt the eventual nominee in the general election. In 2002, GOP candidate Doug Gross squeaked out a victory in a three-way primary, but the nearly two-thirds of Republican voters who didn’t support him never truly came home, and Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack was able to easily win a second term in office.

Carroll said he spent 25 years supporting the Republican machine, “but where has it gotten us?”

“You are not answering to a party,” said Carroll, who nearly became the party’s state chair after the 2008 elections. “You are not answering to a political machine. You are not answering to people who sit in high buildings downtown and tell you what you ought to think and how you ought to vote. You are answering to God almighty.”

Opponents of same-sex marriage rallied outside the state Capitol Tuesday (photo by Jason Hancock/Iowa Independent).

State Rep. Kent Sorenson, R-Indianola, also spoke at the event. Last week he followed down a similar path as IFPC, using his endorsement of Vander Plaats to pledge that he wouldn’t support Branstad if he is nominated by the GOP.

Tuesday, his focus was on same-sex marriage, specifically demanding lawmakers pass a marriage amendment. If Iowa allows the courts to decide what it means to be married, he said, they will next turn to issues like gun laws, taxes, free speech and property rights.

“Gov. Culver and the legislature will either listen to us now or listen to us in November,” he said.

When it was his turn to speak, Vander Plaats once again promised that on day one of his administration he will sign an executive order stopping same-sex marriage until the public gets to vote on it. It’s a pledge that’s become the centerpiece of his campaign and something he said he expects to be impeached over. And despite constitutional scholars and each of his Republican primary opponents agreeing that such an executive order is not possible, Vander Plaats has stuck to his guns.

“The Supreme Court does not get to amend the Constitution,” he said, to rousing applause.

IFPC President Chuck Hurley vowed that opponents of same-sex marriage will not rest until a constitutional amendment is passed. And even thought most conservatives concede a ban will not be possible in 2010, Hurley said Christians must keep pushing.

“The homosexual activists have been more diligent than the church of Jesus Christ,” Hurley said, later adding: “If we want Godly laws, we need a diligent church.”

Des Moines attorney Doug Gross

But over the last year Doug Gross has become one of the most polarizing figures in Iowa Republican politics. While still an influential figure, especially among the party’s elite, Gross has become public enemy No.1 for many grassroots conservatives and evangelical Christians.

The anger Gross has drawn in some political circles, when coupled with his longtime association with former Gov. Terry Branstad, is expected to become an issue in the 2010 gubernatorial primary, with one observer saying he could amount to a poison pill for the campaign.

“I don’t believe for a second he’s not involved in the Branstad campaign, but I think he’s keeping a low profile,” said Shane Vander Hart, a conservative blogger and member of the Polk County Republican Central Committee. “That’s probably a smart strategy for Terry Branstad. Doug’s burnt some bridges. He decided to more or less come out against social conservatism, so he’s going to be a drag on the campaign if he was publicly connected to it.”

The story of how Gross became such a controversial figure in conservative politics mirrors the tale of a party’s soul-searching journey towards redefining itself after years of electoral disasters.

Gross did not respond to repeated interview requests from The Iowa Independent.

‘A minority group within a minority party’

After 30 years in control of Terrace Hill, Republicans lost the governor’s mansion in 1998 to Democrat Tom Vilsack. By 2006, Democrats had not only held on to the executive branch, but managed to capture both legislative chambers.

In the fall of 2008, after another series of losses for Iowa Republicans, Gross embarked on a media tour, giving his prescription to fix the party. Gross called on the GOP to be more inclusive and focus less on social issues that are turning off a younger generation of voters.

During a November 2008 appearance on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press,” Gross said the Democrat’s huge voter registration edge and electoral success could be partially attributed to moderates fleeing the Republican Party of Iowa. The party will never be able to regain power, he said, if it continues to have “a litmus test associated with social issues for people in party leadership positions.”

“[Social conservatives] are an important part of our base,” Gross said. “We can’t win without them, but we can’t win only with them and we need to understand that and broaden the tent.”

A few weeks later, Gross did an interview with controversial Christian radio host Steve Deace. In a debate that got heated, Gross repeated his assertion that the party needed to broaden its appeal if it ever wanted to be in power and advance its agenda again.

“Social conservatives are a minority group within a minority party,” Gross told Deace. “If we aren’t broad enough the interests of social conservatives will never be in governance.”

The Republican Party, both nationally and in Iowa, has become perceived as the party of excessive bigotry, Gross said at the time, “whether that be bigotry associated with immigrants or gay rights. We are not that party and we should not be that party. It turns people off. We can be a party of tolerance and respect other people’s views and still further our values.”

Gross and his organization, the Iowa First Foundation, commissioned two polls early in 2009 that he said offers clear evidence that voters are more interested in candidates who focus on economic issues rather than social issues like same-sex marriage and abortion.

Social conservatives argue that line of thinking only alienates the party’s most loyal voters.

“We all know what Mr. Gross’ polls are going to say — that the Republican Party needs to free itself of Christian influence if it wants to win elections,” Deace said after the polling information was made public.”

Conservative backlash

In a blog post, Bryan English, spokesman for the influential social conservative group Iowa Family Policy Center, compared Gross to a “frat boy who has never been as popular or successful as his drinking buddies thought he was back in college.”

“He becomes increasingly irrelevant as time goes on, he continues to refuse to grow up, and people quit listening to how great things were ‘back in college,’” English said.

Conservative blogger Craig Robinson wrote in August that Gross represented one of the main obstacles in Branstad’s path to the 2010 GOP gubernatorial nomination.

“If Branstad does ultimately decide to run for governor, his association with Doug Gross is likely to cause a tremendous amount of grief in the early portion of the campaign,” he said.

Vander Hart told The Iowa Independent about a meeting he attended where Gross’s comments seemed out of line.

“I was at a conservative breakfast club meeting where he said we need to stop picking candidates that are pastors of fringe churches who home educate their children,” he said. “Here you have a huge base within the party that home educate, and then you have evangelicals who wonder what’s wrong with pastors running for office. It was a comment that was completely unnecessary.”

Afterwards, Vander Hart said he was tempted to introduce himself to Gross by saying, “Hi, I’m Shane and I’m a former pastor who home schools his kids.”

2010 on the horizon

Former Gov. Terry Branstad

One person who has known Gross for many years is Steve Grubbs.

Grubbs, a veteran Republican strategist and founder of the political consulting firm Victory Enterprises Inc., said it is strange for social conservatives to question Gross’ loyalty, since he has always has been strong on social issues.

“Doug is a conservative,” Grubbs said. “He was a conservative in 2002 when he ran in the Republican gubernatorial primary against my candidate, Steve Sukup, and he is still a conservative today.”

Because he is arguing for what he believes is the best interest of the party, it’s understandable that he would rub some the wrong way.

“It’s not a surprise, because Doug is challenging a deeply held belief,” Grubbs said. “When you do that there is going to be a strong reaction.”

The problem, according to Vander Hart, isn’t so much what Gross has been saying but how he’s been saying it.

“I understand he’s concerned about running Republicans who are electable, and that the economy needs to be front and center in the campaign,” he said. “I don’t think most people disagree with that. But there are ways to go about saying those things without alienating people, and unfortunately I don’t think he struck that balance.”

Ultimately, how much impact Gross has on the 2010 campaign is still up in the air. Branstad is facing a similar brand of criticism regarding his own social conservative credentials, ranging from his choice of a lieutenant governor that supports abortion rights to his appointment of the Iowa Supreme Court Justice who penned the decision earlier this year legalizing same-sex marriage.

But some are pointing to the 2010 gubernatorial primary as an election just as important to Gross as it is to any of the candidates. Civic Skinny, the anonymous gossip columnist for Des Moines alt-weekly Cityview, said 2010 represents a chance for Gross to “settle the score” with Bob Vander Plaats, the gubernatorial candidate of choice for Iowa’s social conservative community.

Gross and Vander Plaats first faced off in 2002, when both sought the GOP nomination for governor.

A tough and at times ugly primary fight ended when Gross barely avoided the nomination being decided at convention, winning only 35.6 percent of the vote in a three-way race. The nearly two-thirds of Republican voters who didn’t support him never truly came home, and incumbent Vilsack easily won a second term that fall.

“There was bad blood between Doug Gross and Bob Vander Plaats during the ’02 GOP gubernatorial race, especially at the end,” Skinny wrote. “The two ripped one another, nearly allowing Rep. Steve Sukup, as the good guy, to win a razor-thin, three-way primary race.”

Then Gross and Vander Plaats lined up on different sides of the 2008 Iowa Caucuses, with Gross working for Mitt Romney and Vander Plaats working for Mike Huckabee.

Huckabee emerged victorious in a race that turned ugly in public, and even uglier behind the scenes.

“In other words, Gross is still pissed, and one reasons he’s backing Branstad is so he can settle a few scores,” Skinny wrote.

The four-term governor held a pair of meetings with a group of pastors, social conservative activists and leaders Christian organizations last week. Two of those in attendance initially balked at the encounter, criticizing Branstad and comparing him to Democratic Gov. Chet Culver.

Tuesday, IDP Chairman Michael Kiernan’s lammed Branstad for telling the group he didn’t have a plan to reform state government but would appoint a commission to look into the matter.

By Wednesday, Kiernan had moved on to another comment Branstad made, this time about the Iowa Commission for the Blind. Branstad said the organization didn’t get cut during his administration “because the Legislature just couldn’t take the heat from the tap-tap-tap of the white canes.”

“Comments like Branstad’s have no place in Iowa, no matter what party you’re affiliated with,” Kiernan said. “I condemn both the content and the language he used in the strongest possible terms.”

Recently hired Branstad spokesman Tim Albrecht told The Des Moines Register that the criticism was unjustified because the former governor was “merely alluding to [the group's] successful lobbying techniques.” Democrats are desperate to find fault in “the governor’s 16 years of success,” Albrecht said.

The IDP posted the audio of the meeting on their Web site.

By Thursday, even Register columnist Kathie Obradovich was calling for Branstad to apologize, saying he probably would have already “if someone at the meeting had called him on it. But as long as the only ones complaining are Democratic Party officials, it’s easy for the Branstad campaign to circle the wagons.”

Terry Branstad

And for a candidate whose last political campaign took place long before the Internet age and the prevalence of the blogosphere, the reaction on the Web is proving to be a valuable lesson in 21st century politics.

The pair of meetings, which included several pastors, social conservative activists and leaders Christian organizations, initially received poor reviews from at least two of those in attendance who called the former four-term governor “a Republican version of [Democrat incumbent Chet] Culver.”

On Monday, controversial Christian radio host Steve Deace offered more details about the meetings. His sources said Branstad came across as “arrogant” and as “no threat to the [liberal] status quo at all.”

One of the most amazing exchanges came during a discussion about Branstad introducing the destructive gambling industry to our state.  During one of the meetings, Branstad tried to defend his actions by saying he had vetoed it twice previously, but he was getting booed at Hawkeye football games and 70 percent of the voters wanted it so there was nothing else he could do.

That realpolitik answer didn’t sell this audience.

“Someone then asked him what else he was willing to give in on if the public wants it,” one little birdie told me.

It didn’t take long for Iowa Democrats to get in the mix.

Conservative blogger Shane Vander Hart posted audio from the meeting he attended and Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Michael Kiernan honed in on one exchange in particular. When asked by former Des Moines School Board member Jonathan Narcisse about whether he had a specific plan prepared on how to fix or repair state government, Branstad replied “OK, well I don’t.”

Branstad pointed the Committee on Government Spending Reforms, which he established in 1991 in response to a projected $300 million budget deficit in fiscal year 1993. The commission identified nearly $400 million in spending cuts, although both Branstad and legislators disagreed with and ultimately ignored many of the group’s recommendations.

“Now we have to go further,” he said.

Branstad proposed creating another commission made up of Republicans and Democrats, as well as representatives from the private and public sector, to look at reforming state and local government.

Kiernan said that rather than confronting Iowa’s problems, Branstad “created commissions to avoid making tough decisions.”

“Branstad’s entry into the race may excite his wealthy far-right cronies who stand to profit from a Branstad administration, but it’s not good news for anyone who cares about the state’s financial well-being,” Kiernan said.

I can respect McKinley’s desire to get in on the back-and-forth about errors on Web sites, but that was a pretty cheap shot. Anyone who is savvy enough for Twitter should probably be savvy enough to look in a site’s navigation bar before concluding that a page doesn’t exist. (I should also note that the link that McKinley cited as being broken now redirects to the correct page.)

Mapping Iowa’s Fallen Soldiers

View Larger Map for easier navigation.Wanken was injured in September 2007, when he suffered eye, ear and other facial injuries while in Fallujah, and was then transferred to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where he underwent surgery. His parents, Rick and Susan Wanken of Hampton, said that his death was related to the injuries sustained in Iraq.

However, spokesperson 2nd Lt. Jaymie Sicking of the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton in San Diego would not release details about his death, saying it is under investigation.

Wanken was a machine gunner in the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.

Wanken, a 2006 graduate of Hampton-Dumont High School, was the 2005-06 president of the Iowa Jobs for America’s Graduates, Hampton-Dumont chapter. A standout football player, Wanken was named to the Class 3A, District 2 defensive team after his senior year.

In September, Des Moines Register columnist John Carlson reached Wanken by phone a day after surgery to talk with him about a letter he had written to himself and eventually sent to his parents. At that time, Wanken didn’t want to discuss much about what had happened in Iraq, but wanted his friends back home to know he would be home soon for a visit. “I haven’t been home in a while,” Wanken told Carlson. “I just want to get back to Iowa and hang out with my family.”

Wanken did make it back to Iowa for a visit and spoke to students at Hampton-Dumont High School, where he graduated in 2006, Principal Trent Grundmeyer told the Des Moines Register.

“I wasn’t principal here when he was in high school, but he did a very nice job talking to the students,” Grundmeyer said.

Grundmeyer said it was a positive meeting, and that he thanked Wanken for serving his country. “One thing I remember specifically about what he said is that the news media doesn’t catch exactly what’s going on over in Iraq. People don’t see all the really horrific things, but they also don’t see all the positive things,” Grundmeyer said. “He had been injured pretty badly. I could tell … there were scars on his jaw and it was a challenge for him to talk.”

Wanken’s body arrived at the Des Moines International Airport Tuesday before being transported to Hampton.

Wanken was the 66th person with Iowa ties to die in Iraq or Afghanistan since March 2003.

The biggest secret, of course, is the raw vote total from the Democratic caucuses.  That’s still hush-hush.  But the second-biggest mystery is how the absentee votes break out by precinct.  Current Iowa law, drafted in an age when the only absentee voters were shut-ins, service people and expatriates, requires that all absentee ballots across a county be counted as a separate precinct.  The law forbids auditors from releasing any breakdown below the county level.

But Iowa’s absentee voting rate has soared since 1990, when the law was changed to allow any voter to vote early for any or no reason.  And as parties have targeted early voting, they’ve been starving for data.  House File 2132, sponsored by Rep. Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, would direct auditors to count and report absentee ballots by precinct.  This could affect not just election reporting, but the Iowa caucuses as well.As early voting increased during the 1990s, it had an impact on caucus results.  It wasn’t so much that the overall rate went up.  The issue was that even within a county, absentee rates tend to vary sharply by precinct.  Urban voters like the convenience of early voting, while in rural precincts, the social tradition of neighborhood election day voting is still alive.  In Johnson County in 2004, absentee request rates by precinct ranged from 17 percent to nearly 57 percent. 

The Democrats’ delegate apportionment formula for caucuses was based on election results by precinct.  But since absentees weren’t included, urban voters were in effect taking caucus delegates away from themselves by following the Democratic Party’s constant advice to vote early. 

The Democrats addressed this in the late 1990s and modified the formula.  But the new formula is based on the number of Democrats requesting absentees by precinct, since breaking out the actual absentee count by precinct is still illegal.  Those requests are multiplied by a percentage, to account for independent and Republican absentee voters who voted Democratic.  But even that assumes that non-Democrats are voting Democratic at the same rate across a whole county, and penalizes precincts where a lot of independents vote Democratic, such as student precincts.

The system of counting absentees by county also affects the appearance of results.  The Democratic Party has made a stronger absentee effort in recent cycles.  That leaves a disproportionate share of Republicans left to vote on Election Day, and makes it look like Republicans are “winning” more precincts because more Democrats are lumped into that one big absentee precinct per county.

Rep. Mary Mascher, D-Iowa City, is chairing the subcommittee handling the bill.  Her county, Johnson, had the highest absentee rate in the state in 2004, with more than 50 percent of voters requesting early ballots.  Worth County was on the low end, with only a 14.6 percent absentee rate.

Mascher says the bill as amended would apply only to partisan primary and general elections.  “The intent is to get a better tracking on the Democratic-ness or Republican-ness of any given precinct,” she said.  “It helps us do a better job targeting races and candidates.”

Rep. Mary Gaskill, D-Ottumwa, is also on the subcommittee and has a unique perspective as the former Wapello County auditor.  “It’s just a tough thing for auditors to have to do, especially with the huge turnout this year and on-day registration,” she said.  “They’ve also had changes in handling absentee ballots which will be time-consuming.  We’re trying to figure out how to make it as easy as possible.”

Still, Gaskill said, there’s political interest in the bill.  “Both parties are very interested, because so many more people are voting absentee,” she said.  “They’re doing their work by precinct, and they can’t tell how effective they are.”

Gaskill said equipment may also effect implementation.  “It was a lot easier with a central count system” where all ballots were brought into the courthouse and counted on one machine.  The federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 mandates that all election day ballots are counted at the precinct, to allow voters a chance to fix errors.  Mascher says most equipment could handle the change, but implementation could be delayed past the 2008 presidential election.  That would give auditors until the June 2010 primary.

Despite the political push to early voting, some small counties still have low absentee rates.  Gaskill is concerned that ballot secrecy may be compromised in small precincts if only one or two people vote absentee.  But Mascher says an amendment could waive the requirement for precincts with fewer than 10 absentee voters.