Democratic operative Brad Anderson announced he is running for Secretary of State against incumbent Republican Matt Schultz. Members of his own party aren’t very excited about it. Even liberal blogger DesMoinesDem writing at Bleeding Heartland indicated that he is a weak candidate:
I don’t think Anderson stacks up well against Schultz’s record. He knows a ton about elections, but Republicans will have no trouble caricaturing him as a tool trying to stack the deck for Democratic candidates.
That’s is true, we would. Anderson is a senior partner of LINK Strategies so it is odd that he’d decide to run for this particular office. The same firm that employed Zach Edwards who was arrested and found guilty of hacking into Matt Schultz’ email. With this kind of controversy surrounding his firm related to this particular office his decision to run doesn’t seem to be the wisest move.
How is Mr. Anderson qualified? Being President Obama’s communications director in 2008 and running his re-election campaign in Iowa in 2012 doesn’t make him ready to hold elected office himself. He’s a political operative in an office which governs elections in Iowa. Matt Schultz was a city council member, a lawyer and was familiar with election law. He also ran on a promise to preserve the integrity of the voting process. He favors a voter ID and Iowa embraced that vision and he ousted an incumbent. Bringing in a partisan political operative, like Anderson, wouldn’t be a change for the better.
Also whatever Brad Anderson’s motivation is, it isn’t to preserve the integrity of the voting process indicated by an interview he gave IPTV’s Iowa Press.
“I’m certainly looking at it. I think there are a lot of innovative things that we could do with that office that are not currently being done,” Anderson says. “I think the current secretary of state has wasted a lot of money on fruitless DCI investigations.”
Schultz has culled through state records and come up with a list of 3500 people who could have illegally voted in past elections in Iowa. An agent in the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation is combing through that list, and so far seven people have been charged with voter fraud. Anderson questions the time and effort being spent on the investigation.
“Obviously preventing voter fraud is important to everyone. We all support that,” Anderson says. “There are just different ways to do it.”
Exactly how would Brad Anderson deal with voter fraud? He wouldn’t investigate it? That’s what he is criticizing Matt Schultz for. So he’s ok with illegal immigrants voting? That’s what Matt Schultz has uncovered. His testimony given to the Senate Judiciary Committee pointed to this. Schultz was doing his job as our chief elections officer and Anderson criticizes it.
We need a Secretary of State who will preserve the integrity of the voting process. It doesn’t seem likely that Brad Anderson can be counted on to do that.
Originally posted at the Republican Party of Iowa website.
Shane Vander Hart
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