Dear Friends,

LISTEN TO THIS WEEK’S PROGRAM:

(01:50) A conversation with Dennis Kucinich;
(20:58) Questioning Iowa’s red-state status;
(39:40) Iowa landowners vs Goliath, with Jessica Wiskus;
(53:38) Restaurants: Drawing the line on local, with Kathy Byrnes.

Dennis Kucinich

I first met Dennis Kucinich in 2003 when he ran for president. Unlike most politicians, when Dennis took a position on an issue, you knew exactly where he stood. There was no equivocation, no weighing of political nuances, no corporate donors to appease. Refreshing and, alas, rare.

I hope you’ll listen to my discussion with Dennis, which covers the sorry state of the Democratic Party, the Biden administration’s misguided foreign policy, and how “free” trade treaties have eroded the economic foundation of our country.

Here’s a quote from my interview with Dennis: “The Democratic Party used to stand for the small farmers trying to resist monopolies. Now you have agribusinesses that don’t give a damn about the soil, and we see taxpayers’ money helping facilitate the destruction of millions of acres of farmland to create shopping malls for the purpose of marketing goods from China.”

Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand

Subscribe to The Dennis Kucinich Report.

One Democrat I respect and admire is Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand. After the 2022 election, Rob took exception when I said that Iowa had become redder than Alabama. He presented the following rebuttal:

• Iowa had the 2nd-most split-ticket voters of any competitive state in 2022. In fact, the vast majority of Iowans who voted to reelect me also voted for Attorney General Tom Miller and Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald, both of whom lost narrowly.

• The nonpartisan Inside Elections publication set Iowa’s partisan baseline after the 2022 elections in between Georgia and Ohio, both of which have Democrats in the US Senate. Next closest to Iowa is North Carolina, with their Democratic governor. More Republican-leaning are Kansas and Louisiana, with their recently re-elected Democratic governors.

• The average US Senate race margin in 2020 was 18.1%. Iowa’s was 6.6%.

• The average US House race margin in 2020 was 28.8%. Iowa’s was 10.5%. Leave out Iowa’s 4th District, and the other 3 Iowa districts averaged a margin of 1.3%!

• From Inside Elections, among all states, Iowa still ranked as the 10th most evenly divided.

• Iowa is one of only 3 states that each party has won twice in the last 4 presidential elections. Iowa had the most Obama-Trump swing counties of any state, and nearly twice as many as the 2nd place state, Wisconsin.

Rob’s stats are well-thought-out and meaningful, and I’d expect nothing less from an auditor. I understand how, when compared to traditionally solid-red states like Alabama, Iowa’s entry into extreme redness could be seen as a passing disruption from its otherwise purple past.

But what statistics can’t convey is the fact that most rural and working-class Iowans have lost faith in the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP). As long as the IDP’s primary focus remains urban, Iowa Democrats are on track to remain as politically impotent as Alabama Democrats.

There’s a way out of political irrelevance, but it will take a revolution within the Democratic Party. Here are some of the core problems, as I see them, and possible solutions:

• PROBLEM: The Democratic Party, both in Iowa and at the national level, is controlled by an elite cabal whose primary concern is to defend the status quo. That’s a problem, as indicated by a recent Gallup poll that found only 23% of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going.
• SOLUTION: Throw everyone off your state’s Democratic State Central Committee (SCC) who thinks the status quo is working. Here’s a specific test: toss any SCC member who feels Hillary Clinton was right to say in 2016 that “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.”
• PROBLEM: Under the Elite’s control, the Democratic Party has lost touch with rural and working-class voters. It’s now losing Latino and Asian voters as well.
• SOLUTION: Every state faces populist challenges that progressive Democrats could get behind. In Iowa, when Democrats held the trifecta in 2006, Democrats should have championed pivotal, high-profile issues like hog confinements and money in politics. Recently, Iowa Democrats blew another chance to stand with disenfranchised voters when the Party’s “leadership” failed to oppose CO2 pipelines and defend farmers, property rights, and the environment.
• PROBLEM: The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has basically wrested control away from state parties, centralizing strategic decisions within the Washington, DC, beltway. The DNC often subverts a state party’s primary election by hand-picking Elite-friendly candidates, even though these candidates usually lose.
• SOLUTION: Add a plank to the state party’s constitution saying that DNC meddling in elections will not be tolerated, and that any candidate hand-picked by the DNC will be openly rejected by the SCC.
• PROBLEM: Specific to Iowa, the DNC’s “Shadow App” doomed the 2022 caucuses to failure and set the stage for the DNC to eliminate the Iowa Caucuses.
• SOLUTION: Hold the 2024 Iowa Caucuses in spite of the DNC. Make a big deal of it. Invite neighboring states to partner with Iowa. Remind the Elite that rural America matters, progressive populism is alive and well in the Heartland, and we’re not going down without a fight.
• PROBLEM: The public airwaves have been sold off to big corporations. Their talking heads are nonstop mouthpieces for the most extreme Republican agenda. It’s impossible to understate the powerful impact these stations have on elections and public policy. In Iowa, listen to WHO 1040 AM for validation of this truth.
• SOLUTION: Every Democratic SCC and candidate should prioritize pushing Congress to restore the Fairness Doctrine and repeal the provision of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that allows corporations to own multiple radio signals in a market. In the meantime, listen to and support community radio stations.

Back to Rob Sand. The way I see it, he’s Iowa’s only statewide/congressional Democratic elected official for two reasons. First, he’s different. He’s young, a straight shooter, speaks his mind, and uses humor to get his point across. He’s also a bowhunter from rural Iowa. Rob’s rhetoric is progressive and populist. In short, he’s a lot like Tom Harkin. These qualities helped him win in 2018 and squeak by in 2022. But … and this is a huge “BUT” …

Second, Rob got lucky. As it stands, the IDP is an albatross around Rob’s neck. If the Party doesn’t get its act together, if it remains an anemic shadow of its former self, Rob won’t win in 2026. He won this time by only 2,893 votes — despite being a dream candidate, despite raising a whole lot of money, despite Governor Reynolds and the Republican Party shunning his opponent.

The truth is, if Rob had had strong opposition last year, he would’ve lost. But I wouldn’t have blamed him. I’d have blamed the Elite within the Democratic Party.

To summarize the challenge facing Rob and other progressive Democrats, I turn to Andy McKean, the long-time Republican lawmaker who switched to Democrat after Trump was elected.

Andy had always won his rural district handily, so he figured voters would re-elect him even after switching parties. In a May 12, 2019, column in The Atlantic, Andy wrote, “I want the people I represent to know that I’m still the same Andy McKean today that they knew yesterday. We still share the same basic values, are proud of our families and our communities, and want to make Iowa an even better place. I’ll continue to work for the same goals and priorities that I always have during my years in public service.”

In November, 2020, Andy lost by over 1,200 votes. The Republican Party had certainly changed. Andy wrote, “I found myself more and more uncomfortable with the stance of my party on the majority of high-profile issues, such as gutting Iowa’s collective-bargaining law and politicizing our method of selecting judges.”

But the Democratic Party had also changed, and not for the better. Granted, it’s not bat-gauno bonkers like the Republican Party. But it’s badly out of touch and in need of an extreme makeover.

One more thing: Let’s be clear that “progressive” is not the same as “liberal.” A liberal politician is a tax-and-spend defender of the status-quo. Progressives challenge the status quo and fix structural inequities to create more opportunity for average Americans without taxing them to death.

Thanks for reading, listening, and taking action. Please consider donating to our work.

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Ed Fallon