Kudos to the Scott County Republican leadership for their recent forthbrightness (yes it is a word) in sponsoring a well-conducted gubernatorial candidate forum in January and last nights followup straw poll at the county caucuses. Those projects were on top of a stellar Reagan Dinner event in the fall. The results of the straw poll were collected and tabulated in yeoman fashion and posted ASAP. Well done. Below is the email distributed with the results and below that my comments.
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I thought it would be a closer spread.
Almost too obvious now: If you show up and make a decent presentation, you garner support. Lahn, Sherman and Steen showed up. Andrews and Feenstra didn’t. (Andrews did participate in the forum and requited himself well, along with all who did. Sherman and Steen showed up at the two largest precinct convocations (not mine). Lahn showed up at three (including mine where I conversed afterwords with him and also his assistant).
Feenstra at least of late has not evidenced that showing up to multi-candidate political events is pretty important, . Now he has congressional duties to be sure, but there is just way too much impression of avoidance out there along with the impression that he must feel he can walk into the nomination by touting the big money support. Well it didn’t get him much last night. It was a dismal showing.
The attitude among the big donors, Feenstra’s early money the usual suspects, is that they can make him inevitable. He is not. They have put a lot of money on a weak or ailing horse. It shows their political acumen as to the pulse of the primary voters. And their judge of horseflesh is horsefeathers. If Feenstra does not transform himself, well it looks right now that he is an also-ran and probably the guarantor of the gubernatorial nomination going to convention.
Going to convention may be the saving grace of the party if it prevents a weak candidate.
The Dems have a candidate apparent, Rob Sand, and his war chest is building for the general. Seven million at this writing. All that need be said is that Sand is a Democrat despite the likes of talk-radio host Simon Conway who is a good man but suffers from not seeing through camouflage when it comes to Sand. The airtime he has given him is humid from slobber. Sand will be beholding to the radical extremists that make up the movers and shakers in that party. He is a snake and we cannot have him without loosing a lot of progress.
Now Eastern Iowa isn’t everything. There are a lot of party votes in Des Moines and western Iowa. But that Feenstra could not muster better here than he did, at least enough to BE an also-ran given the money behind him and his consultancy apparat consisting of the Scott County firm Victory Enterprises, a consultancy that could not win their own back-yard, seems a bad omen. It was a full moon last night but a bad one for Feenstra.
The out-performer was Zach Lahn although Adam Steen won a plurality and is a much more vibrant personality than Feenstra. His handicap for suspicious conservatives will be how close he is to the Des Moines crowd. Is he their back-up horse?
A closer examination of positions and nuances needs to be made for all the candidates. Hopefully that is being formulated by activists and we would love to reference or publish a sound analysis. Maybe they are all similar. On matters of Republican core values they need to be.
Lahn also makes a vibrant presentation and may be able to attract alternative education advocates. Brad Sherman is a solid man and I was a bit surprised he did not do somewhat better. But I believe he is still a contender in these parts. Eddie Andrews, also a good man did not show and that is too bad for him. Touting an Iowa State Fair straw poll just lost luster.
Research continues.
