Permit me to translate Gov. Terry Branstad’s remarks about Bruce Braley..

This would be about Bruce Braley’s stunningly inept campaign stumble*, by the way. Governor Branstad:

Branstad, who talked with reporters Wednesday after an Iowa Statehouse bill signing ceremony to revise Iowa’s corn promotion checkoff, was unrelenting in his remarks about Braley’s criticism of Grassley.

“I think it is awful. I think it is terrible, that somebody running for office in Iowa would go to Texas to raise money from trial lawyers and then put down our senior senator and the farmers of the state of Iowa,” Branstad said. “And I think that this is something that Iowans will not forget. Agriculture is something that is important to this state, and we were there in the nation’s Capitol to honor one of the greatest humanitarians of all time who was a farmer, who became a great agriculture researcher and saved a billion people. And it is just unthinkable.”

Continue reading Permit me to translate Gov. Terry Branstad’s remarks about Bruce Braley..

DGA spent 800K… attacking Obama.

Doofuses.

I believe that the topical response to this would be “You’re doing it wrong.”

Major Dem donors who wrote checks to the Democratic Governors Association funded a below-the-radar campaign that attacked Pres. Obama and other Dem all-stars, all in hopes of knocking off a strong GOP challenger.

[snip]

Iowans for Responsible Government is a 527 group founded by Rob Tully, the former state Dem Party chairman. Reports filed with the Internal Revenue Service this morning show the group raised $782K and spent $767K in the second quarter. That money came entirely from the DGA, in 3 contributions in May and June.

…And that money was spent trying – and failing – to get rid of Terry Branstad in the primary by claiming that he was a liberal Obama supporter.  If it had worked, it might have revived Chet Culver’s collapsing campaign; as it stands, it’s over three quarters of a million dollars of Democratic money piled on the ground and set on fire.   Branstad can now point to pretty much any criticism that he’s not conservative enough and plausibly claim that it’s just more Democratic smear-mongering.  He’s already started.  I imagine that Reps. Bruce Bailey and Leonard Boswell aren’t too happy about this, either: both need top-ticket support this cycle if they want to survive. Continue reading DGA spent 800K… attacking Obama.

#rsrh QotD, Iowa DOOMwatch edition.

On Iowa governor Chet Culver’s (D) steadily-… there isn’t a good word, really.  ‘Eroding’ isn’t dynamic enough and English doesn’t really have a word for the process of explosive decompression.  Anyway, Jim Geraghty sums it up:

If Culver’s approval among Republicans goes any lower, it will be easier for PPP to just list the supporters individually than provide a percentage: “Culver’s approval rating has dropped from 4 percent to Floyd.”

But to be fair: Floyd will be like a rock.

Moe Lane

PS: Terry Branstad is apparently the front-runner for that race. Sorry: this one I’m not really checked out on.