*See the update below*
Have to love the mailers… this one is from incumbent State Representative Doris Kelley (D-Waterloo) in the Iowa House District 20 race, not the Iowa Democratic Party. She is running against Walt Rogers a leadership consultant and youth pastor who has served at Orchard Hill Church and Prairie Lakes Church in Cedar Falls. Rogers came within 22 votes of unseating State Senator Jeff Danielson in 2008 (not exactly a great year for Republicans).
So I’m sure Doris Kelley is a little worried and so here come the mailings, as you can see below:
She mentions that Rogers doesn’t list how government can create jobs… probably because he doesn’t see that as government’s job. I know Governor Chet Culver has done such a bang up job doing that.
With education – she challenges his support of homeschooling. How dare he support homeschooling! That takes money away from public schools don’t you know. Shouldn’t we applaud parents taking ownership of their children’s education? Shouldn’t parents be able to choose this if they so desire? What is wrong with supporting parental choice? Oh yes, because she feels the state can educate better than parents or non-public schools. Not only that she doesn’t even trust the local school board to create standards and make curriculum choices that makes sense for their kids. Better to have an unaccountable educational bureaucracy create the standards than a school board who are directly accountable to the community and accessible to parents. The Iowa Core Curriculum that Representative Kelley supports is the extreme position. Rogers believes in parental choice and local control, a position that many within Representative Kelley’s party holds as well. She wants to take away choice and local control.
Then she does fear-mongering with seniors saying he wants to end social security and Medicaid. Well it’s bankrupt and needs to be addressed, but guess what… how is this a local issue in Iowa House District 20? How would Rogers advance that in the Iowa House? Last time I checked Social Security and Medicaid are federal programs. Anyway yes let’s keep up with the entitlement spending! By all means, drive us to bankruptcy! That is a red herring argument and not relevant to the race.
Regarding veterans – has anyone bothered to ask him what his position is? I didn’t realize that was a huge issue in this race? I emailed him to see what his position is, but I noticed that his father-in-law passed away on Thursday so I don’t expect an immediate reply.
Now looking at the last claim that Walt Rogers “received thousands in out-of-state resources throughout his campaign.” I thought I would look into this a little since I can multitask while watching the Hawkeyes play Wisconsin. I will confess I only looked at the last reporting period which in the scope of these races would be the most active.
One thing that struck me in Representative Kelley’s disclosure form is that she raised $48,380 in the last reporting period. Not too shabby for a State House race. Then you go through and look at her PAC contributions which total $31,150. Hmmm… her individual contributions (including fundraisers) total $17,230.
Looking at Walt Rogers’ disclosure form and I see that he has raised $64,879.27. I was expecting it to be riddled with out-of-state contributions. Nope. I found one – For America’s Republican Majority PAC donated $5000 on 9/17/10. That’s it. I even decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and checked all of his contribution filings – nada So where did they get “sources” from? They must have counted the $34.27 “donation” from Yahoo! in California. But that was actually a reverse debit transaction due to a duplication so Yahoo! is not donating to his campaign. His total PAC contributions were $22,800. So his individual donations (including fundraisers) were $42,079.27.
So he almost has twice as many individual donations than PAC donations. Kelley is almost the exact opposite. So his out-of-state special interest donations are not the problem, Representative Kelley’s dishonesty is. I’m sure she won’t be beholden at all to her in-state special interests as they seem to be keeping her campaign afloat.
Another untruthful mailing from another desperate candidate. Next.
Update: Tonight I heard from Walt’s campaign manager, Justin Bartlett, who noted that Representative Kelley’s website doesn’t make any mention of veterans either. Anyone who would like to know here is Walt Roger’s position on veterans:
"Our veterans deserve our gratitude and our full support. When elected, I look forward to working with veterans from all our uniformed services to make sure that state policies reflect just that – our gratitude and full support."
Bartlett went on to say, “- if Doris wants to base her campaign on things she wishes Walt had on his website, more power to her. Her claim about Walt receiving "thousands of dollars" from "out of state special interests" is nothing short of laughable, unless she’s accusing Walt of being a pawn of the Indiana Chalk Art Lobby (he gave Walt’s campaign $1,000 in 2008).”
He also noted the mailings remarks about Medicaid and Social Security, “The other day I heard Steve Deace say that you can tell a Democrat is losing when they start accusing their opponent of wanting to eliminate Social Security and Medicare. Given this mailer and Doris’s new TV ad, I think we’re in good shape.”
Here’s the transcript of Representative Kelley’s new TV ad:
// TV transcript //
[Mr. Rogers singing] [yes, it’s actually Mr. Rogers]“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor…”
[voiceover]Walt Rogers’ Neighborhood is not what we grew up with in the Cedar Valley.
Walt Rogers’ platform calls for abolishing Social Security.
Walt Rogers would eliminate essential programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
And Walt Rogers even opposes vital economic development projects right here in the Cedar Valley.
Walt Rogers’ neighborhood?
Not the type of place you want to live.
[citation: Iowa Republican Platform]Additional Thought: I continued to think about the mailers comment regarding home education and that more kids in a school district that homeschool the less money the school districts would get. Do you realize how asinine that statement is? Did Representative Kelley even stop to consider that kids being homeschooled don’t cost taxpayers one red cent (unless they do an HSAP and then it’s still minimal) and the school district still gets taxes from the family?
2nd Update: I just learned some interesting information about the $5,000 from the For America’s Republican Majority PAC (FARM PAC) – their address is in Virginia, but it’s a leadership PAC associated with Rep. Tom Latham of Iowa’s 4th Congressional District. Walt’s campaign won that contribution in the "Iowa Republican Idol" contest this summer.
