Bill Maske, the current superintendent for the I-35 School District is stepping forward as the first Democratic challenger to incumbent Congressman Tom Latham (R-IA). I think he would have been better off running in 2006 or 2008 (pre-Tea Party). He shared some of his campaign platform with William Petroski of the Des Moines Register on Monday:
Maske said he supports equal pay for equal work, child health care and protection legislation, sexual orientation anti-discrimination laws, financial help for disadvantaged students, and other programs that will help working people and their families. He said his wife and all of his four children work in public service jobs.
Equal pay for equal work… can you point out a Republican who is against that? If there is a disparity in pay it should have to do with experience and education, not race or gender… or is that not what he is talking about?
Was he not around when S-CHIP was passed? What more does he want? Sexual orientation anti-discrimination laws those have been passed, so I suppose he wants to go the way of Canada, maybe not allowing certain Bible passages to be read on TV or the radio? Perhaps he wants to create more of an entitlement culture and/or an even more politically correct environment.
I wonder if he noticed that Americans are really starting to sour on Democrats, and even liberals realize it has to do with health care (which is something Mr. Maske obviously supports). Iowa is still a center-right state, and he is running in a largely center-right district on liberal policies. Good luck with that.
Maybe he should have tried riding the hope-n-change coattails in 2008.
Update: You should check out my post on his candidacy at The Des Moines Register’s From The Right blog… his positions are quite liberal progressive scary.