"Our Liberties We Prize and Our Rights We Will Maintain"
It has been 15 years since Thomas Frank released What's the Matter With Kansas? Happily, Kansas denied Kris Kobach a trip to the governor’s office of that fair state on Tuesday. Sadly, Iowa had a chance to deny the ugly TrumpBrand GOP a governorship as well. We failed, despite a tremendous early lead for the Dem. Sadly Kim Reynolds gets to follow up the job of minding Terry Branstad’s term by becoming the first woman elected to the Iowa governor’s mansion.
Some of you know that I moved to Iowa specifically for this past Tuesday. I kid you not. I was struggling in Deep Blue Berkeley, CA so we moved to Des Moines to be closer to family and maybe get a little help in the struggle. Over the next two nights I am going to share my thoughts on what I have learned over the past 18 months as a Democrat in Iowa.
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The Map
Pay attention to this map. It will come in handy.
At just over 3 million citizens, Iowa has four Congressional districts. Iowa seems to do everything according to straight lines, so the counties are the lowest unit of districting in state electoral politics.
The other thing to realize is that the districts are balanced for population. These district maps also handily let you know where we live.
Districts 1, 2, and 3 are all smaller than District 4 and are now represented in the House by Democrats. The geographically larger District 4 is all of the rural farmers, etc. who are represented by Steve King (R - Deutschland).
US House Districts — winners
District 1: Abby Finkenauer (D)
District 2: Dave Loebsack (D) *incumbent
District 3: Cindy Axne (D)
District 4: Steve King (R) *incumbent — farm country, more hogs than people
State Government
Governor: Kim Reynolds (R)
Sec State: Paul Pate (R)
State House: Republican (54 — 46)
State Senate: Republican (32 — 18)
What’s the Takeaway ?
Okay, back to the map …
So we have four districts equally divided by population in this state. Three of those districts voted Democrat for US Congress yet somehow the Republicans hold a ridiculous trifecta control over the state government. I’ll ask it again …
What the Hell is Going On in Iowa ?
The short answer is I don’t have a clue. The slightly longer answer is that Iowa is a nice little majority White state that will take some work to move Left over the next two years. I tell you this, look out for Trump in Iowa going into his general in 2020. He will draw huge crowds and “Iowa nice” puts a LOT of lipstick on that particular orange pig. Just a prediction.
Gov Reynolds and Royal Heiress Ivanka doing … science? Meanwhile, the intern is posting #SquadGoals on her insta
And now I will offer what I can make of what I have learned after 18 months on the ground in Trump America with the caveat that I still live in a city and am represented at every level of legislature by a fairly good Democrat.
Iowa is White AF y’all. I mean Yte White, Casper White, Becky with the Good Hair White. ”Tucker Carlson should get a Hate Crime investigation for the dustup at his house this week” White-ass White.
I mean fucking White-ass White motherfuckers eating Cheetos, Wonder Bread sandwiches, and Jello salads with tons of whipped cream White.
So, being that White, Iowa is completely blind to a world that isn’t TrumpBrand GOP friendly. I’m not saying everyone is pro Trump or even straight up racist. They’re just blind to a world that doesn’t look like theirs.
We are still fighting over the conceptual legitimacy of White Privilege in this state. A 10 foot by 2 foot banner reading Black Lives Matter on a church the size of an entire city block caused “unease” in the community. And this came from as many Liberals and Conservatives on this particular issue.
* please see Thing the First *
“Iowa Nice” is just a polite word for cold civility. And by civility I mean the White definition of “can’t we all just agree to disagree” over who we vote for as if your vote for a Republican doesn’t mean that you don’t give a fuck about me or anybody else.
Yes, Iowa invented the call for “civility”.
The Iowa Democratic Party needs new blood and some courage going into 2020. Sure, we sent some Dems to Congress but we lost the governorship and both houses of state legislature. By like a lot.
- gravlax, Des Moines resident
Now, I don’t want to disregard or disrespect Iowa voters. There was a lot of energy and passion from every volunteer I met over the last year and a half. The people recognize what is happening in DC. It’s just that too many of them don’t realize that the same damn playbook is being used by Steve King here in Iowa. King was Reynolds’ campaign chairman and the fact that this wasn’t plastered and graffitied on every flat vertical space in Iowa for the last 18 months is a fucking CRIME.
Campaign malpractice at the very least. Seriously, Fred Hubbell ran as the nice guy and Reynolds and the KingBrand GOP still hammered him like he was the second coming of Harvey Milk, ready to have sex with everyone while smoking marijuana and destroying the Constitution. I’m just saying, I’m sure Hubbell is a nice guy whose heart is in the right place. He just ran a shitty, no coattails campaign.
In fact, I blame our party’s choice of Gubernatorial candidate on most of the electoral results this week. When I say no coattails, I mean no fucking coat at all. Look back at the map. ¾ of our citizens sent a Dem to Congress yet our state is still an ALEC utopia.
I don’t know any other way to read it.
- There have to be a ton of voters in this state who were convinced to vote against the GOP agenda in DC while supporting it here at home
- Or King and Reynolds, et. al. just really ran up the score in District 4
Join me tomorrow night as I try to dig to the next layer of understanding my state’s election 2018 results. For now I think I have painted enough of a picture of the electorate for you to settle in on some of the questions and answers about Iowa politics in your own minds.
(PS: this is just a little glimpse of what Steve King considers “being nice while on TV”)
are you an Iowan?
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