Leonard Boswell's 527

When Republican Jeff Lamberti challenged Congressman Leonard Boswell two years ago, Boswell found himself on the receiving end of attack ads from a Republican “527”, one of those shadowy groups that can raise unlimited money without dislcosing the identities of their contributors. The phenomenon has taken its nickname of “swiftboating” from the 527 attack ads made by Vietnam swift boat veterans against John Kerry in his 2004 race for the White House.

This year's Democratic Congressional primary in Iowa's Third District has seen its share of negative campaigning. While the Fallon campaign tried to keep the focus on issues and only went after Boswell’s voting record, the Boswell campaign has rarely missed the chance to attack Fallon personally. But in a reversal of the 2006 Congressional contest, Boswell now has a 527 group in his corner – “Independent Voices”, chaired by Boswell supporter Richard A. “Red” Brannan of Ankeny – doing its best to swiftboat Ed Fallon. No return address or other information about the group appears on its mailers.

A week before the primary, Independent Voices sent three mailers attacking Fallon. One was on ethanol, claiming Fallon was against ethanol subsidies, but offering no vote or statement by Fallon to back up the claim. The other two were much more pernicious, attacking Fallon for his lone vote against the 2002 bill prohibiting sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or daycare. Both were repeats of criticisms made by Boswell earlier in the campaign.

Ironically, the first of the sex offender mailer arrived in mailboxes the same day as the endorsement from The Des Moines Register, which cited Fallon’s lone vote against the bill as the right one. The mailer prompted a second Register editorial dedicated to praising Fallon for his vote against the bill, now roundly criticized by prosecutors and police, as well as those who work with victims of sexual abuse. Bleeding Heartland did a good piece on this.

All the mailers gave the telephone number of Fallon’s campaign headquarters and encouraged recipients to phone Fallon to tell him off. But most voters seemed to find the sex offender mailings especially distasteful. Sources in the Fallon campaign confirmed that the calls they received ran heavily in their favor, and included many previously self-identified as undecided or as strongly supporting Boswell who, after receiving the mailers, switched to Fallon.

The Fallon campaign challenged Boswell to reject the support of the 527, but no such repudiation has been forthcoming.

Red Brannan, a developer, was a Polk County supervisor who lost reelection after sneaking the Prairie Meadows development past the public. He is a registered Democrat with a Boswell for Congress sign in his front yard.

No differences between Fallon and Boswell??

A front-page article in today’s The Des Moines Register was no doubt intended to be a fair-minded comparison of incumbent Congressman Leonard Boswell and progressive challenger Ed Fallon in IA-03, and there was some good content in the piece. But the theme of the article, expressed in its headline, “Boswell, Fallon clash on style, not key issues,“ was just another Boswell campaign talking point.

Boswell himself has claimed that there aren’t many policy differences between himself and Fallon on the issues, no doubt to deflect attention away from his record and to justify the personal nature of his attacks on Fallon. The record says otherwise.

One of the pieces of literature produced by Fallon’s campaign is called “Differences Between Fallon and Boswell,” the most recent edition of which is dated May 12th. Each section begins with a bolded sentence describing Fallon’s position on the issue, followed by bullet points detailed Boswell’s votes, always including bill numbers and the dates of votes. It highlights differences on 22 issues: the Iraq War, the PATRIOT Act and warrantless wiretapping (including Boswell’s support for retroactive immunity for the telecoms), torture, money from PACs and paid lobbyists, the ban of soft money in campaigns, fast-track authority on trade and free trade agreements, tax breaks for big oil and gas companies, CAFE standards for gas mileage, offshore drilling for oil and gas, expanded use of coal, factory hog confinements, a group of other environmental votes under one heading, the Common Sense Budget Act, earmarks, use of the franking privilege, the role of superdelegates, bankruptcy reform, the estate tax, prescription drugs for seniors, the National Missile Defense Program, No Child Left Behind, and immigration reform. Yet somehow the reporter didn’t see any of these 22 areas as “key issues.”

Instead, we read a description of the candidates’ personalities, with stories of how Boswell asked a group of Iowa Democratic senators to stop cursing, and how much Fallon likes to garden. In the latter case, the story at least fits into Fallon’s commitment to sustainability and other environmental issues. But where is the political relevance of the cursing story?

Let’s take just the first of the differences – the Iraq War. It is a glaring example not only of differences between the two candidates, but also of a singular lack of leadership on Boswell’s part. In the vote to give President Bush the authority to invade Iraq, most House Democrats voted against it. Iowa Republican Congressman Jim Leach voted against it, standing up to his own party’s president. As a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, Boswell should have exhibited some initiative for assessing the quality of the intelligence being used by Bush to drum up support of the war. He didn’t. Republican Senator Lincoln Chaffee made a trip across the river to the CIA to be briefed, and he was so unimpressed with what he heard that he voted against giving his own party’s President the authority to invade. Boswell simply defends his vote by saying he trusted Bush.

Of course, Boswell has here tried to minimize his differences with Fallon on this issue, saying that he doesn’t believe Fallon could have said No to President Bush (even though most House Democrats managed to do exactly that). In Fallon’s case, we know he was publicly speaking out against the war before it started. We also have the resolution he introduced in the Iowa House against the war, in which he accurately predicted the debacle that the war has become.

But to make his own failure of leadership worse, Boswell told the editorial board of The Des Moines Register that he changed his mind on Iraq in December of 2005 when he attended a meeting at which he suddenly realized that there was no plan for exiting Iraq. Despite this “conversion” over three years after his vote to go to war, Boswell didn’t start changing his votes on the war until 2007.

Instead of being straightforward about having been wrong and acknowledging that Fallon and others were right, Boswell has tried to blame Fallon for the Iraq War, based on Fallon’s support of Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential bid. Boswell and his campaign have dropped Nader’s name at every opportunity and sent three glossy mailers blaming Fallon for Bush’s election. The mailers are based on the cynical premise that Iowa voters won’t remember that Gore carried Iowa or that Boswell voted for the war. And the mailers have displayed mind-boggling chutzpah: they tout Boswell as “standing up to George Bush” to stop the Iraq War.

But, according to at least one reporter for The Des Moines Register, this either isn’t a key issue or it’s one where there are only differences of style between Fallon and Boswell. At least we now know that Boswell doesn’t like to use the “F” word in public. The Republic is safe.

Fallon Poised to Win in IA-03

Ed Fallon has been having a great week in Iowa's Third District. The EENR-endorsed challenger to Blue Dog Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell picked up the endorsement of The Des Moines Register and has had a week of extremely positive press. This has been due in part to Boswell's refusal to debate, changing his excuse from time to time, but mostly claiming he is too busy in Washington to debate -- even though Congress is in recess. After he turned down all 12 debate offers, several groups hosted an empty chair debate with Fallon on Wednesday night. An hour before the debate, Boswell appeared on a local radio program, "Outdoors with Outdoor Dan," and minutes after it started he was at a reception elsewhere in town.

Another factor has been a series of negative mailers from Boswell's campaign and from a 527 group headed by a Boswell supporter. The latter sent a mailer attacking Fallon for being the lone vote against a 2002 bill forbidding anyone on the sex offender registry from living within 2,000 feet of a school or daycare. Ironically, the same day the mailer arrived, The Des Moines Register endorsement came out, citing Fallon's lone vote as the right one on a law now almost universally criticized by prosecutors, police, and those who work with victims of sexual abuse. The mailer included Fallon's campaign phone number and encouraged people to call and complain, but the campaign reports that calls are heavily running in favor of Fallon and include formerly undecided and Boswell supporters who have switched to Fallon because of the sleazy mailer.

The really good news, however, is in the numbers. There was one poll of the race over a month ago by Research 2000, which showed Boswell with a large lead. The poll, based on 400 voters, was conducted by the same outfit that underestimated Fallon's performance in the 2006 gubernatorial primary by 100%. They had predicted he would get 13% in the three-way race, but he received 26% of the vote. But I've gotten access to the Fallon campaign's internal numbers, and they are impressive.

Fallon's campaign has been conducting an extensive voter ID effort that is based on more than 20 times the number of voters as the Research 2000 poll. I've talked with the scientist who examined their data and made changes to remove bias. The numbers show a consistent lead for Fallon across the district. I checked with them as recently as this morning, and their numbers show Fallon continuing to climb and Boswell having plateaued. If the Fallon people match or surpass Boswell on GOTV (and they will!), Fallon wins.

Iowa's Third District is well on its way to replacing a pro-Bush Democrat with a progressive Edwards Democrat. The big concern is whether the onslaught of negative mailers (three in two days this week) and TV commercials will suppress turnout for Fallon. If you could make a donation to his campaign, it could help him counter the attacks from Boswell and the 527.