Ok, I’m exaggerating a little. There is an interesting debate going on however between Craig Robinson of The Iowa Republican and Steve Deace of WHO Radio though over the Iowa Family PAC’s endorsement of Bob Vander Plaats and the direction that should be taken toward preserving traditional marriage in Iowa.
I’ve weighed in on that endorsement here, and Mike Hartwig of the Iowa Family Policy Center (of which Iowa Family PAC is a part of) responded, and then my rebuttal.
Today, Craig talked about an email debate that occurred between him and Steve when Steve sent out the following email to several Republican leaders that included a hypothetical that was obviously targeting Governor Terry Branstad he asked for a response from them and he was going to post the answers on his blog:
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am emailing all of you because since the 2008 election cycle you have appeared on our show and either been portrayed by me or yourselves as conservatives, and you’re still considered active in Iowa politics at the moment. One of the ongoing debates we’re having within our vast listening audience is what exactly is a conservative? I’d like to get each of your takes on this on the record for our blog by getting your answer to the following hypothetical question:
Hypothetical: A political candidate knocks on your door asking for your vote. You ask him what he stands for. He says he’ll raise taxes/fees 30 times, the sales tax by 60%, the gas tax by 5 cents a gallon, grow government bigger than the population rate, support state-sanctioned gambling, earn the endorsement of the liberal teachers unions, and appoint pro-abortion and pro-sodomy people to influential positions in the government. Would you vote for him?
I will post both a list of those we asked this survey question of, as well as the responses you send back to me verbatim, on Monday’s blog and we’ll be discussing it next week as well. Please email me your responses by 5 p.m. on Friday if you would like to participate. Thanks in advance and keep fighting the good fight!
Deace posted replies that he received here. While I’m not important enough to have received the email :), he posted the hypothetical on his Facebook page to which I replied:
“No, you vote for either Rants or Roberts.” To which I was given props for a good snark. Robinson pointed out that you could write a hypothetical scenario that would paint Vander Plaats in a bad light as well:
Hypothetical: A political candidate knocks on your door asking for your vote. You have seen this guy hanging around for a number of years. You remember that he supported a tax increase on dirty magazines and videos but now doesn’t even want to consider raising taxes on casinos. He was for a 10% ethanol mandate before he was against it. In his last job where he served as the CEO/Chairman of the Board, he plunged the organization into debt, but despite being the highest paid official with the organization, the unpaid CEO is to blame. Finally, the entire focus on his campaign is to give the office of Governor more power. Would you vote for him?
You could do the same with Rod Roberts and Chris Rants as well if you wanted to. So how is this helpful. They are taking the debate to the airwaves tonight on WHO Radio (AM 1040) from 4:00p-6:00p (CST). If you aren’t in the listening area or don’t have access to a radio you can listen live by going here and clicking the listen live button on the top-right part of the page. I’ll update with a link to the podcast tomorrow.
My question which I leave to you is this – are debates like these helpful or harmful for the Republican Party?