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.