In late October 2007, while members of the Republican party and White House officials worked to kill an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Grassley instructed Senate Finance Committee aides to distribute positive talking points directly to Republican members of the House that Grassley believed could be persuaded to support the bill. In doing so, Grassley usurped Republican leadership in the House and took his case for the bill directly to rank-and-file Republicans. To add further insult to injury, it was reported that instead of presenting the talking points to Republican leadership, Grassley instead presented them to Democratic leadership before their distribution.

“It makes no sense to negotiate with members who are trying to kill the bill,” Grassley explained on the Senate floor when describing his actions in relation to SCHIP. He went on to call Republican criticisms of the legislation “a very sad mischaracterization of the bill.”

While Grassley has not forthrightly asserted his attentions toward current health care reform is to “kill the bill,” other members of his party have not been so timid.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who is rumored to be considering a presidential run, said, “The Republicans should kill the bill. It’s a bad idea.”

U.S. Rep. Dave Camp, of Michigan and the ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said that if the “health care bill wasn’t dead before, it should be now.”

Jim DeMint, a Republican senator from South Carolina, infamously told opponents of reform on a July conference call that “if we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo — it will break him.”

Grassley, who perhaps understands Congressional chess matches better than most, hasn’t gone that far. Instead he has called for the process to be slowed and reassessed, and for the opportunity for more Republicans to have input on the bill.

“It’s not about getting a lot of Republicans. It’s about getting a lot of Democrats and Republicans,” Grassley said. “We ought to be focusing on getting 80 votes.”

Facing an election that might be the most tenuous he’s seen in years and threatened with a partisan primary, Grassley further emphasized this point by saying that he would not vote for a bill that lacks significant Republican support.

What Grassley has omitted from his numerous public comments is how he will overcome what he understood to be true years ago: It makes no sense to negotiate with members who only seek to kill the bill.

Or, as U.S. Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) said, “If they refuse to compromise, then who’s killing the bill?”

Both men have said previously that they are considering challenging Gov. Chet Culver next year. But in order to do so they would have to give up their current office, and most observers consider them safe bets for re-election if they do stay put.

Northey told the Associated Press’ Mike Glover that he is “leaning toward running for secretary of Agriculture,” but that his final decision would come this summer.

Vaudt said he hasn’t officially made up his mind, but according to Glover, “seemed more focused during the interview on his accomplishments as auditor.”

This comes on the heels of former Gov. Terry Branstad and Vermeer Corp. CEO Mary Andringa telling the Des Moines Register Wednesday that they will not run in 2010. So far, only Sioux City businessman and two-time gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats has officially thrown his hat in the ring.

However, former Republican Party of Iowa Political Director Craig Robinson reports on his blog that state Rep. Christopher Rants of Sioux City is beginning to “lay some ground work for a potential campaign,” visiting Davenport, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and Council Bluffs in the days since the legislative session ended. Rants said previously that Culver’s handling of the same-sex marriage issue would make him more likely to run for governor in 2010. Despite being ousted as minority leader late last year, Rants took a leading roll in the waning days of the 2009 session, spearheading his party’s efforts to overturn the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision and casting one of only three votes against changes to the state’s sex offender laws.

Others who have indicated they are exploring a run include former state Sen. Jeff Lamberti of Ankeny, state Rep. Rob Roberts of Carroll, Ames businessman and GOP financier Bruce Rastetter and U.S. Rep. Steve King of Kiron.

Francis Thicke

Francis Thicke, an organic, grass-based dairy farmer near Fairfield, has formed an exploratory committee to consider a 2010 run for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture.

Thicke, and his wife, Susan, process milk on their farm and market it locally through grocery stores and restaurants. The couple believes there could be a major economic impact in the state if more farmers would market locally. It could, according to Thicke, “create thousands of new jobs and help revitalize rural communities in Iowa, as well as provide Iowans with fresh, nutritious food.”

“Iowa’s investment in ethanol production has brought economic development to agriculture, and we need to protect that investment,” he said. “However, it is time to reassess, and consider how future investments in renewable energy can be better targeted to profit farmers and better protect our natural resource base.”

Thicke, who holds a doctorate degree in agronomy and soil fertility, served with the U.S. Department of Agriculture as national program leader for soil science. He primarily worked with the USDA Extension Service. He has also been a frequent speaker at conferences and workshops in Iowa and across the nation on topics ranging from local food systems and economic development to organic farming practices to sustainable farming.

He has also served on the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission and the Iowa Food Policy Council at the appointment of then Gov. Tom Vilsack, and on the Iowa Organic Standards Board at the appointment of then Gov. Terry Branstad. He currently serves on Iowa’s USDA Technical Committee.

If Thicke, a Democrat, decides to place his name on the 2010 ballot for Secretary of Agriculture, he could face incumbent Bill Northey, a Republican who farms near the Spirit Lake area.  Northey has also been mentioned as a possible Republican challenger to Gov. Chet Culver.

Other trial baloons have already been floated by the likes of State Auditor David Vaudt, Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey, and vocal social conservative Bob Vanderplaats.  Culver has not officially announced that he will run for reelection, but given his strong fundraising numbers since 2006, it is considered almost certain.

The five-term Republican said “converstations are taking place” about what his campaign team might look like and who is likely to support him. However, he does not have a timetable for making his decision.

“I think I bring a different kind of philosophy as a candidate, one that might separate me from others and would be helpful to the Republican party now,” Roberts said. The party has “distinct points of view of the values of the Republican party and the direction it should take.”

“A campaign for governor should be more about leadership than about issues, about who is capable of leading not just the party, but the state,” he said.

Sioux City businessman Bob Vander Plaats officially entered the race last week. Other Republicans, like state Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey, state Auditor David Vaudt and businessman Bruce Rastetter have also said they are interested in challenging incumbent Gov. Chet Culver in 2010.

In House District 37, Republican Renee Schulte has been declared the winner over Democrat Art Staed by 14 votes. Linn County Auditor Joel Miller told the Cedar Rapids Gazzette that Staed is going to ask for a recount, which he must do by 5 p.m. Monday.

In House District 1, incumbent Democrat Wes Whitead was declared the winner by 60 votes over Republican Jeremy Taylor. Taylor has since asked Woodbury County Auditor Pat Gill for a recount.

In Senate District 10, incumbent Democrat Jeff Danielson defeated Republican Walt Rogers by 14 votes, sparking Rogers to request a recount.

Ron Olson, who grew up in rural western Iowa, now leads a firm of 180 lawyers in Los Angeles.

One of the more powerful men in the history of Hollywood, studio boss Lew Wasserman, had some advice for a Manilla, Iowa-kid-turned Los Angeles lawyer.

“Ron,” said Wasserman. “You stay out of the limelight because it will only fade your suit.”

But one can only keep spectacular success under wraps for so long.

Ron Olson, 67, born in Carroll and raised in Manilla, a son of an insurance salesman-broker, is a primary lawyer at Munger, Tolles & Olson, the firm that American Lawyer magazine just named No. 1 in the nation. It is the first time the magazine has ranked a Los Angeles firm at the top.

Olson, a close, lifelong friend of the late Kenneth Macke, the former Target CEO from Carroll, is featured on the front cover of that leading legal publication looking very much like a man who belongs there.

It would be an understatement to say he comes highly recommended.

One of the more high-profile American financiers in history, Warren E. Buffett, has relied on Olson as friend and counsel for years.

“I could go on for pages about Ron — all very favorable — but there is a lot going on here so I will keep it short,” Buffett wrote in an e-mail. “Ron is a great friend and a great adviser. My wife and I made him a trustee under our will. That’s about as good an endorsement as anyone could have.”

In a phone interview from California, Olson said Buffett knows how to bring out the best in people.

“He makes friends that are very close,” Olson said.

A former Drake University halfback (when they played Division I schools), Olson projects the physical confidence of someone who even in his 60s might just believe he could still gain 10 yards if the linemen could find him a glimmer of light.

With a confident countenance, the twinkle of an office oracle, he has the commanding presence of someone able to provoke a settlement or plea bargain by just opening the door.

He has more than enough resume to back up the magazine-cover image.

Munger has represented Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in recent deals.

“They’re very responsive,” Buffett tells American Lawyer. “They get results, and they get them fast. You are dealing with extraordinarily high-quality people.”

Warren Buffett (right) and Ron Olson at Fenway Park on Sept. 9. Buffett threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Red Sox game that night.

Olson himself represented the Yahoo! Inc. board of directors in its recent merger with Microsoft.

He has represented Paramount’s chairman and the Spanish-language television Goliath Univision.

“I have a foot in Hollywood and a foot in what I would call the more traditional corporate practice,” Olson said.

Earlier in his career Olson battled in the courts for some of the men who shaped television and film — such as Norman Lear, the trailblazing creator of “All in the Family,” featuring the iconic Archie Bunker and dealing in such a raw, honest way with race and class that the show retains a relevance even in reruns today.

“These were probably the greatest television writers of all time,” Olson said.

Olson counseled Lear and other members of the creative community against Family Viewing Time in the 1970s, a period early in the evening that the Federal Communications Commission exercised tight control over — to the famous suffering of “All in the Family” and other cutting-edge programs.

“(President) Nixon and his people got it in their head that television had gotten too violent and there were too many sexual innuendos,” Olson said. “They wanted to clean up television.”

A U.S. District judge eventually ruled that the government had coerced the networks. Olson’s legal arguments literally affected the way tens of millions of Americans would spend their evenings. They could watch what they wanted.

“As a result of the case, the family hour ended,” Olson said.

If Olson had success navigating the intersections of law and Hollywood, it is in part because he excelled at choosing mentors, like Wasserman, the late Universal Studios titan, who in cutting a deal for actor Jimmy Stewart that involved a percentage of the profits in “Winchester ’73” changed the balance of power in movies to the big stars and directors.

“He was the giant,” Olson said. “There was no one bigger.”

In decades of high-profile legal work, Olson also earned an international reputation.

He represented the Republic of the Philippines against the family of deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, who left with a treasure trove of cash and other riches when they sought exile in Hawaii.

Olson helped trace the Marcoses’ ill-gotten gains. So what about the 2,700 pairs of shoes Imelda Marcos famously left behind in just one palace?

“We didn’t take those away from her,” Olson deadpanned.

Olson has a lengthy record of pro-bono work on behalf of disabled clients and Native Americans and other parties.

His firm, as the Los Angeles Times notes, also does quite well with keeping an eye on the bottom line. The firm’s revenue per lawyer increased 11 percent to $1.14 million last year, The Times reported. The firm’s total revenue was more than $200 million with 180 lawyers.

The man on the cover of American Lawyer at the top of this organization in one the nation’s largest metropolitan areas is still very much connected to the rural Iowa of his youth.

Olson not only has a 4-month-old Black Labrador, for pheasant hunting, of course, but a farm between Audubon and Kimballton, where corn and soybeans grow and cattle are raised. He returns for planting and fall hunting and on some other occasions.

Olson’s parents, Clyde “Blue” and Delpha (Boyens) Olson, were living in Aspinwall at the time of his birth, but he grew up in Manilla.

His father was a successful general broker and insurance salesman.

“My father had an especially strong presence in Manning, selling insurance to most of the major farm-to-market truckers and used Herb Kuel’s tavern as a place for receiving messages from farmers who wanted to see him,” Olson said.

Delpha Olson worked as a teacher, starting in the Great Depression, during which time she cut wood to heat the school and scooped sidewalks.

She grew up on a farm east of Irwin and for her junior and senior years of high school went to Harlan so that she could obtain “normal training.”

“That was, in those days, a way to get a teacher’s certificate without going to college,” Olson said. “There was no way for her to get back and forth between Irwin and Harlan on a daily basis for high school. Therefore, she moved into a little room above the nickel and dime store.”

Olson’s mother started teaching at the grade school then based in Aspinwall.

“She and another woman, Lucille Rowan, whose husband operated the barber chair in my grandpa’s tavern, taught all eight grades, acted as the janitors, shoveled the snow in the winter, and built the fires,” Olson said. “For all of that they were being paid $40 a month and, because this was in the midst of the Depression, mom was unable to cash the first four or five checks because the local bank holding the school district’s money had closed.

“Based on the many former students who have been part of my life, I think mom was a much beloved teacher. Later in life, she continued to teach Sunday school at the local Lutheran Church in Manilla and piano lessons. At her funeral, I took note of the fact that her piano students may not have progressed as far in their piano studies with my mom as they might have with others, but I was sure that nobody could have taught them more about love. She was special.”

The family lived in Manilla among a number of relatives. For his part, Olson graduated from Manilla High School in 1959.

“I did all the things you do in small-town schools — played all the sports, band, chorus, and even an opera, ” Olson said. “It was a great opportunity. It was like having the whole town rooting for you. I know Ken Macke felt the same way, and ever since I’ve had the same feeling — a feeling that the whole town has continued to root for me.”

Through the years, Olson with Manilla ties, and Macke, a Carroll native, shared western Iowa roots with success on larger professional stages.

“I think there’s a lot of what we grew up with in western Iowa,” Olson said. “Part of it is just as simple as you learn how to work. That’s an important aspect of anyone’s career. You learn how to work and you learn how to respect people. Growing up as he and I did you really didn’t have a sense of anyone being rich or poor. You didn’t have to have someone validated by some fancy credential. It’s a place of very few excesses. I think that’s wonderful.”

It’s an experience he shares with his wife.

Olson and his wife of 44 years, Jane (Tenhulzen) of Denison, have three children: Kritstin McKissick of Denver, a graduate of Harvard University and Johns Hopkins University with experience at the World Bank for which she was, among other things, the country officer for Nicaragua; Steven Olson, a Stanford University and University of Michigan Law School graduate who is in private practice in Los Angeles; and Amy Duerk of Missoula, Mont., a graduate of Carlton College (where she was captain of the soccer team) and the University of Michigan Law School. She has worked for the Environmental Protection Agency as well as a law firm in San Francisco. She now practices law in Missoula.

American Lawyer recently featured the father-son tandem of Ron Olson and Steven Olson among its “paternal powerhouses” along with such notable figures as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and his son Eugene, and former Secretary of State James Baker III and his son.

Olson’s wife, a University of Nebraska graduate, started a journalism career in Denison. Olson recalls many instances in which his courted gal ran off to cover stories, leaving his plans changed for the evening.
“She was a committed journalist,” Olson said. “You know the type.”

While he was in law school she worked as a writer for the Ypsilanti Press in Michigan and, later, during his time in England she was a journalist in Oxford, England.

Ron Olson has a younger brother, Dr. James Olson, now living in Seattle, Wash.

Following high school Olson headed to Drake University — although he had an opportunity to go to the Ivy League.

“I was really the first in my family to go to college,” Olson said. “Today, I recognize the difference between Drake and Dartmouth, but in those days it looked an awful long ways away.”

At Drake, Olson played halfback and was involved with student government and debate.

Olson recalled the old-school practices of the 1950s in which two players competing for a starting job would be thrown into a pit, with the one emerging getting the spot.

“That was pretty tough going,” said Olson, who played halfback.

Members of the Drake University backfield in the early 1960s are pictured. From feft are Paul Kassulke, who played for 10 years with the Minnesota Vikings, achieving All Pro status several years; Terry Zang, who went on to play back-up quarterback to Bart Starr with the Green Bay Packers; Jim Evangelista, who became a high school coach in Chicago; and Ron Olson, a Manilla native who now leads a top national law firm.

He remembers a strategy the two Drake friends employed to surreptitiously hydrate themselves at practice as coaches wouldn’t let players drink water in an effort to toughen them.

Olson and Macke would bury lemons in the field the night before, dig them out when coaches weren’t looking the next day and chomp on the fruit for the fluids.

Excelling at Drake, Olson was accepted at the prestigious University of Michigan Law School. He did well there and earned a Ford Foundation fellowship. Studying in Oxford, England, in 1967, Olson started a lifelong friendship with former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., a candidate for the presidency in 2000.

Olson played on an American basketball squad with Bradley, a Rhodes Scholar.

“My job was to feed Bradley,” Olson said. “I was point guard, but I wanted to be sure he did the shooting.”
It’s a strategy that’s worked well at Munger, Tolles & Olson, where Ron Olson for 30 years has worked to find the nation’s top legal talent — and get them the ball, so to speak.

His endgame: develop young lawyers into great lawyers.

“Focusing on dollars and cents wasn’t enough,” Olson said.

With last week’s announcement that Sen. John McCain is essentially conceding Michigan and its 17 electoral votes to Barack Obama by pulling his presidential campaign out of the state, many are wondering if the Republican nominee will abandon the Hawkeye State soon.

Sen. John McCain speaks in Cedar Rapids last month (photo by John Deeth).

Despite the fact that the previous two presidential elections were decided by razor-thin margins in Iowa, recent polls have shown Obama with anywhere from a nine to 16 point lead here. He also has a sizable advantage on the ground, with more than 40 offices around the state, compared with just eight for McCain. Add to that the growing voter registration gap, which favors the Democrats, and Iowa begins to look less and less like a swing state.

During a conference call with reporters following the Michigan move, the McCain campaign said it would focus on Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Hampshire and New Mexico. Iowa didn’t make the list.

So is Iowa still a battleground?

McCain’s campaign in Iowa remains confident that the Hawkeye State is still competitive, and they think negative messages about Obama are the key to the state’s seven electoral votes.

“Sen. Obama purchased his home with the help of a convicted felon and started his political career in the living room of a known terrorist,” said Wendy Riemann, Midwest regional communications director for McCain, on Monday.  “These are not qualities that resonate with Iowa voters, and as a result they’ll be casting their vote for John McCain.”

After weeks of being on the defensive due to his perceived lack of strength on economic issues, the McCain campaign is trying to shift focus towards Obama’s past, especially his fairly thin ties to Bill Ayers, a former Vietnam-era radical who advocated violence against the government, who is now a college professor in Chicago.

Obama has responded to the Ayers attack, which initially emerged during the Democratic primary a year ago, with a Web site that quotes press reports that call it “phony” and “exaggerated.”

With voting in Iowa already under way and Election Day less than a month from now, most agree the race is about to get ugly, and Iowa could be ground zero for the negative ads to start flying.

Candidates are leery of walking away from Iowa because of how cheap it is to maintain a campaign here, said Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University.

“You get a bigger bang for your buck in Des Moines compared to Detroit,” he said, citing the fact that Detroit is the 11th largest market in the nation, compared to Des Moines which stands at 71st. “So even if they are beginning to doubt whether they can be successful in Iowa, it doesn’t cost them much to give it one more try.”

At this stage of the campaign, nothing is more precious than a candidate’s time. McCain has made two recent trips to Iowa, but his most recent campaign stop in Des Moines was mocked by Mike Murphy, a former chief advisers to McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign, who wrote that McCain should cede the state to Obama.

Sen. John McCain visits the Iowa State Fair in August (photo by Dien Judge).

Bush won Iowa in 2004 because of his strength among evangelical Christian voters, Goldford said, a group that has been suspicious of McCain in the past. Two-thirds of those voters supported former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee during the January caucuses. In fact, McCain came in a distant third in Iowa, behind Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

But Tim Hagle, an associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa and adviser to the school’s campus Republicans, said the addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the ticket went a long way to ease the conservative base’s concerns over McCain’s stance on issues like global warming, immigration and campaign finance.

“We’ve seen a huge increase in the number of volunteers since she was added to the ticket,” Hagle said.  “She has really fired up the base.”

Steve Grubbs, a Republican strategist who ran the Iowa campaigns of Bob Dole in 1996 and Steve Forbes in the 2000 caucuses, said that, despite the polls, he still believes the race in Iowa is dead even and that the Hawkeye state will see more McCain visits before Election Day.

Riemann added McCain has promised Iowans he will return to the state before Nov. 4, and she is confident he will fulfill that pledge. The Quad-City Times is reporting that McCain may visit Davenport this Saturday, although it is still not confirmed.

But Hagle concedes that the McCain campaign doesn’t seem to be focusing on Iowa nearly as much as Bush did in 2004, when he won the state by only 10,000 votes.

“Four years ago, Bush or a surrogate was in Iowa nearly every other day through the summer and up until the election,” he said. “We just aren’t seeing that kind of attention this time.”

If the McCain campaign, which has a finite amount of money to spend after accepting public financing, thinks it may be losing states with more importance than Iowa, it will pull out and shift resources where they are most needed, Goldford said.

“If McCain is losing Florida or Ohio, Iowa suddenly just isn’t important,” he said. “They’re going to spend their limited resources where it will be the most useful. Right now, I guess they think Iowa is important. That could change.”

The Des Moines Register's headquarters at 8th Street and Locust Avenue in downtown Des Moines.

Expenses were up and revenues were down, and despite a great deal of effort to avoid turning to job cuts, Washburn said there was nothing more she could do.

Since then, the paper’s parent company, Gannett Co., announced that 1,000 jobs would be eliminated companywide, including 600 layoffs. Two weeks after Washburn’s announcement, Laura Hollingsworth, president and publisher of The Des Moines Register, delivered the news everyone had been dreading: 12 full-time and three part-time positions would be eliminated. Another 11 vacant positions would not be filled.

The first to go were Farm Editor and 30-year Register veteran Jerry Perkins and award-winning feature writer Ken Fuson, both of whom took buyouts. Next up were Jane Norman from The Register’s Washington bureau; S.P. Dinnen, a senior business writer; Jeff Bash; the paper’s multimedia graphics editor; Mike Malloy, a sports reporter; and community newspaper contributor, and Carl Benskin, who worked in the newsroom’s production department.

With friends and colleagues leaving, many inside the newsroom of “The Newspaper Iowa Depends Upon” are feeling the strain, and morale has sunk to what some say is an all-time low.

“We’ve been through cuts before, but we run a pretty lean newsroom and have made money for Gannett,” said one veteran Register reporter. “Also, The Register has historically been a strong, award-winning paper with a national reputation. Those seemed to insulate us from the drastic cuts they did to some of the other papers they downsized. We thought that Gannett wouldn’t dare gut us so badly, that they wouldn’t want to be seen as destroying a great paper. Wrong assumption.”

Register executives did not respond to attempts to get comments for this story.

Most of the newsroom employees contacted for this story said they appreciated the fact that Washburn has been candid with them from the beginning about the challenges the paper faces. But the reality of the situation, as well as the way in which the layoffs were handled, has some upset.

“I’m glad they said something to us early on,” said a reporter who has been with the paper only a short time. “But when the memo came out on a Friday, we were left with the weekend to wonder if we had jobs on Monday when we came back. This dark cloud was hanging over our heads, and really, it hasn’t gone away.”

Another employee said he witnessed a young staffer led down to the Human Resources Department by their boss.

“The employee thought, this is it; I’m being fired,” he said.

But as it turns out, the staffer was simply being given a different job assignment, and when the employee asked why their boss didn’t say something beforehand, his response was reportedly, “I was told not to do that.”

In the memo to staff, Hollingsworth said that while there were no plans for further staff reductions at this time, she could not say definitively that the layoffs were over. One newsroom employee said most understand that it’s no longer a matter of whether more cuts will come, but when.

“People who have poured their lives into the newspaper for a couple of decades now are wondering when the axe will fall on them,” he said. “A decade or two back, they never would have wondered that, because they worked hard, never worrying whether they were putting in more hours than they were being paid for. Now they are wondering whether the next round of job cuts will come before Christmas or right after Christmas.”

Fuson, a 24-year Register veteran, said the atmosphere in the newsroom is just what most would expect.

“There’s a lot of sadness about colleagues who lost jobs, and plenty of fear and concern for the future,” he said, adding: “What I don’t see is any less commitment to the work. People here are working like crazy to adapt to this new age. I recently covered a story at the State Fair. A photographer was shooting the event with a video camera and a still camera – at the same time. I joked that he’ll have cymbals on his legs next year. I’m not sure how we could have done much better covering the Postville raid, the Parkersburg tornado and the spate of floods. I was as proud of our effort as anything I’ve ever seen here.”

When describing the mood inside the newsroom, several longtime employees brought up the closure of the afternoon Des Moines Tribune in 1982, a move that cost 60 journalists their jobs when the staffs of the Tribune and Register were merged.

“There’s always been a feeling that corporate cares more about profit margins and taking care of the top executives than editorial excellence and taking care of the rank and file, but the gloom and doom now is unprecedented in my time,” one newsroom veteran said. “I can only compare it to the cuts made when the Tribune folded. The way things are going, that period might turn out to be the good old days.”

Another employee described the newsroom as much quieter than it used to be.

“And it’s not like when the Tribune closed. That one blindsided us,” he said. “This time, everyone is aware of circulation problems and we have, I think, come to accept the realities of corporate America.”

While morale is certainly low, the newsroom is still committed to putting out a quality paper.

“People are busting their behinds to do good work,” one employee said. “It would be a lie to say morale is good this week, but I’ve seen it worse. The pendulum always seems to swing back, and I’m thinking it will again.”

In July Gannett reported a 36-percent plunge in second-quarter profits. The company earned $233 million in the second quarter, compared with $366 million in the same period a year ago. After announcing the job cuts, the stock immediately jumped 11 percent, but then just as quickly dropped back 10 percent.

Gannett does not break down earnings by individual paper, so the financial solvency of The Register is hard to quantify. But the paper’s circulation figures, like those of newspapers around the country, are pointing downward. Circulation has fallen virtually every year since 1994, when The Register’s daily circulation stood at 184,959 and Sunday at 318,542. By 2007 those numbers had fallen to 146,050 daily and 233,229 on Sundays.

Fuson, who has been quick to point out that it was his choice to take a buyout and that he wasn’t forced to leave, said the resilience of the newsroom in the face of a difficult time is inspiring.

“It’s not as bad as when the Tribune closed, but it’s close,” Fuson said. “At the same time, you’ve got people trying desperately to maintain and enhance the Register’s quality and role, not knowing what they’re job is going to look like, or even if they’ll have a job, in six months. It’s actually inspiring to see how much people here still care about the Register.”

Today's front page (Courtesy: The Newseum)

Carolyn Washburn, The Register’s vice president and editor, told a gathering of editorial employees Thursday afternoon that the paper had done as much as it could to reduce expenses, but that it wasn’t enough. According to several sources at the meeting, Washburn said that in the coming months there would most likely be a reduction in payroll in the editorial department.

Sources say Washburn spoke mostly in generalities and “claimed” she hasn’t made up her mind as to what or when, but it is expected that the layoffs will come soon. When asked by a staff member if buyouts would be offered, a practice that has been used at other papers around the country, she said that decision has not yet been made.

She did, however, mention the success of the 10 community papers and the company’s niche publications, like the weekly Juice, leading those in attendance to believe those publications are safe and the cuts will come from the Register’s newsroom, which at last count had around 200 full-time staffers.

“There is not a lot of positive work being done in the newsroom,” one staff member said. “All the old heads think they are going to be cut (because of high salaries), and all the young bucks think they are going to go.”

Several staffers said they were upset because the paper is sending an editorial writer to Finland and Canada and two reporters to the Olympics while getting ready to cut staff. They think the money would be better spent keeping reporters in Des Moines.

In an interview this afternoon, Susan Patterson Plank, the paper’s vice president of marketing and digital development, downplayed the newsroom staffs fears and said Thursday’s meeting was scheduled a month ago to discuss projects and priorities for the rest of the year. The topic of layoffs was brought up, she said, but only upon questioning by the staff.

“It’s a question that comes up,” she said. “But we didn’t announce any layoffs. We depend on businesses like retail and real estate that are going through tough times, and so we’re going through some tough times. So we’re certainly evaluating things.”

Plank said like many businesses, The Register cannot rule out future staff reductions, but there are currently no concrete plans to move in that direction.

The discussion did not come as a shock to most of the staff, according to sources who attended the meeting. Last month Gannett Co. Inc., The Register’s parent company, reported a 36-percent plunge in second-quarter profits. The company earned $233 million in the second quarter, compared with $366 million in the same period a year ago. The year-earlier profit was boosted by gains on the sale of several newspapers. Excluding those gains, the decline in earnings was 18 percent.

Gannett does not break down earnings by individual paper, so the financial solvency of The Register is hard to quantify. But the paper’s circulation figures, like those of newspapers around the country, are pointing downward. Circulation has fallen virtually every year since 1994, when The Register’s daily circulation stood at 184,959 and Sunday at 318,542. By 2007, those numbers had fallen to 146,050 daily and 233,229 on Sundays.

In May the paper reduced the width of its pages. In a story explaining the move, Washburn said it was to make the paper “easier to handle” and more readable, however most observers viewed it as a way to cut printing costs.

Several Gannett papers have announced staff reductions recently, including The Honolulu (Hawaii) Advertiser, which announced in mid-July that it is laying off 54 employees – about 9 percent of its workforce – because of a downturn in advertising revenues. The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., announced today that it will trim 20 jobs and continue freezing an unspecified number of open positions.

According to a study released last month by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), 59 percent of the 259 newspapers participating in their survey had reduced full-time newsroom staff over the past three years, mainly because of financial pressures. Roughly the same number (61 percent) also reported a decrease in their overall newshole — the physical space in the paper available for stories.

PEJ’s 2008 “State of the News Media” report found that since 2000 newspapers had shed 5,500 jobs, or roughly 10 percent of the workforce.