Loebsack not on primary ballot?

[pstans]

According to this blog entry (http://heatheryoungblut.blogspot.com/2006/03/second-district.html), Dave Loebsack did not get the signatures turned in in time to be on the primary ballot. Any news on this?

Here is the SOS site that shows who is on the primary ballot:
http://www.sos.state.ia.us/pdfs/Staff/PrimCandList.pdf

[rurallib]

1. Just talked with Lisa at the Loebsack office.

She is checking and will get back to me on it. Good catch.

[tom2]

2. Missed two counties

According to the DMR this morning, they were 3 short in Louisa County and 7 short in Muscatine County. So, they only had enough signatures for 6 counties, when they needed 8. They did not collect much of a buffer, and they apparently can't count. He has been talking about running for months, but couldn't do any better than that?

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060318/NEWS09/603180327/1056

This is really a major screw-up, and it is hard to believe they failed. There was a similar case in Ohio where Charlie Wilson (I think that is right) missed the filing deadline because he did not have the 50 signatures necessary. Evidently Wilson is running as a write-in candidate in the Democratic primary.

Loebsack can still get nominated at the district convention (April 29), but it looks to me like district 4 is our best 2nd tier pickup in Iowa.

In contrast to Loebsack, Selden Spencer only had 2 weeks to get the necessary signatures in 14 of the 28 counties in the 4th district. He turned in petitions for 19 counties on Thursday, a day early, which would have given him another day to gather signatures if there was a problem.

[pstans]

3. I hope this doesn't sink Loebsack

I think Leach is vulnerable and that Loebsack is a quality candidate. This mistake can't help.

[rurallib]

4. Okay folks don't panic. Things are under control.

Guess the Democratic machine isn't maybe quite the well oiled (or oily) professionally staffed group that Republicans have. What happened was a very human mistake which may actually have some dividends.
To the details as best I understand it. The campaign had some interns working on counting and verifying the nominating petitions. In total they had way more than enough signatures. The discrepency lied in a rule that there had to be a certain percentage from a certain number of counties and that is what they missed. As noted above specifically Louisa county was 2 signatures short of their magic number and Muscatine was 7 signatures short.
It is a little embarrassing for those of us here in Muscy county because we have been really growing in the last 4 years and went blue in 2004.
So what this means is that instead of Dave's name being on the primary ballot in June, he will need to be nominated to run as the Dem candidate at the district convention. So he will be an official candidate a month earlier. I am just guessing that Dave will be nominated and chosen.
Major glitch? I don't think so. Few people will remember this in November. Those that do weren't going to be voting for Dave anyway. If the repressives try to hammer this incident it will show that there campaign ain't got much going for it it that is all they can do.
Now for the silver lining. Two things.
1) as a man once said 'when you're name is out there people are thinking about you'. Maybe I am too easy going but I think Dave just got a lot of pub over something that is not that major.
2) The chances of mistakes in his campaign probably just went down dramatically. I would guess they will be extra careful so that such a mistake doen't transpire again.

And Jim Leach still has some stinky votes and a total lack of leadership plus a really crappy administration to defend. As I said earlier, if someone doesn't vote for Dave because of this glitch, I doubt they would ever have voted for Dave.

[ISUGRADIA]

5. "they had way more than enough signatures"

Not really according to the news article, 40 out of 1756 is not much of a buffer at all. Christ,Denny Heath was able to get on the ballot again in CD2 with no organization. Loebsack has been running for months and it's sad that they could not get a simple task like this done right. It won't kill his campaign but it does make him look less than competent.

"Loebsack garnered 1,756 signatures, 40 more than the total number needed, but he was three short in Louisa County and seven short in Muscatine County."