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by Jen Green

Primary day is tomorrow in my home state of Iowa. Some things have happened over the course of this truncated campaign that have me wondering.

What does it say when six Republican candidates for a district house seat are asked by the largest newspaper in the state to name their top three issues and only one of them includes life among his top three?

In Iowa’s House district 37 there are six Republicans running in this primary. The one who mentioned life in his “top three” is Matt DeVries. In his interview with the Des Moines Register, Matt said as the third thing he listed, “the right to life is the most fundamental right and must be listed separately. I am unreservedly pro-life and will work hard to pass a life-at-conception bill, remove funding that goes to abortion providers and limit the number of abortions in the state.”

I am friendly with another candidate in the race, and knowing her as I do, I reached out to Stacey Rogers to find out why she didn’t list the seminal issue in her list. She replied right away:

Hey! Sure– I’ve had the same three issues on all my literature and tried to hit the same points in every questionnaire. I chose those points because, after looking at my opponents’ websites and literature, those three points are what I think distinguish me from the other candidates. 

To my knowledge, each candidate in this race is pro life and pro traditional marriage, and holds those beliefs in a sincere way. That’s why I didn’t list them in the top three for the Register questionnaire. I haven’t, from the beginning, chosen to highlight issues where I share a belief with any opponent.

I’d also point out that my candidate profile was published on ankeny.patch.com today and that the headline was that I supported ousting the remaining justices. I’d also point out that it was stevedeace.com who first published my open letter to Chief Justice Cady asking him not to stump for gay marriage at my swearing in ceremony; so, it’s not that I’m milquetoast on social issues. It really is just that I didn’t see them as distinguishing myself from the crowd (and it is a crowd in this race!).

Speaking of differentiating,  what does it say when Iowa’s largest pro-family group chooses to endorse just nine candidates (out of scores of them) in the primaries and four of them are incumbents who have voted not once but twice to continue taxpayer-funded abortions by voting for the HHS bill at the end of the last two sessions? Representatives Dolecheck, Klein, Koestner, and Fry all voted twice for the bills. Representative Tom Shaw, who The FAMiLY Leader also endorsed, voted against the HHS bill twice. In fact, as we’ve mentioned before on this site, last session only four Republicans voted against the bill, this time seven did. That’s out of 60, by the way.

And speaking of Iowa’s Republican-lead house, we’ve already asked this question once on this site, but it bears repeating: What does it say when the Republican party of Iowa in general and the House Majority Fund in specific is spending donor money to pit Republicans vs. Republicans in the primaries? We keep hearing that fundraising is down due to all the “Ron Paul” people in leadership, right? Well, why aren’t they saving up precious resources to make sure Republicans maintain their House majority against the nasty Democrats in the general election?

Instead, this past week we saw more mailings paid for by RPI across the state promoting incumbents over their primary challengers. From what I can tell, their primary challengers are tea party-types who are tired of the establishment cronyism.

And while we’re on the topic of the establishment, What does it say when the state’s most pro-establishment GOP website puts out a hit piece on a candidate for Iowa’s Republican National Committeewoman . . . before she’s even decided that she’s going to run and before she’s made any kind of official announcement? The fact that KIm Pearson served her state and her constituents impeccably during her two-year term goes completely unaccredited by some–but instead whom she supported for president in the caucuses becomes her biggest sin and the fact she actually tries to hold the Republican party to the standards it claims it has.

What do these things say? And are we listening?