Gubernatorial Debate

[IA_Seth]

Just wanted to post a reminder that there will be a debate broadcast this evening from 7-8pm on KCRG-TV9 for those of us in Eastern Iowa (do the QCs get KCRG?).

It will be live and has been talked up as possibly being heated, so it should be interesting!

Don't miss it if you are able to see it.

[pstans]

1. I'll be watching

and cheering on Fallon!

[Debi]

2. Checking in for the Culver Campaign

I'll be watching!!

d.

[Bluzmann57]

3. No we don't get KCRG

Hopefully, they'll get their collective heads out of their collective asses and debate here in the Quads. Think I'll call KWQC and WQAD to plant a bug in their ears.

[Debi]

4. Hey, Bluzmann are you going to District Convention? n/t

[Bluzmann57]

5. No. I was asked to, but work calls

I need this job and it's more important to me than the District Convention. And I only have so much vacation time, so...no convention for me. I do volunteer to do some stuff, like canvassing, etc. And a local Union is always looking for good Union brothers and sisters to call people, so I do that too.

[Debi]

16. Bummer you can't go, but cool that you're active when you can be

Wonder if anyone from the 1st District that posts here will be at Convention...anyone seen LincolnMcGrath lately???

[IA_Seth]

6. Soo....

What did y'all think of the debates?

I don't have a whole lot of time to get into everything in depth, but I have to say I was pretty impressed with their messages.

Sal! If Sal Mohammed didn't have the language barrier I think more people would consider him. His ideas are very different, and I think such a fresh perspective would be great. His ideas to get more people involved in the management of the state and our resources seem almost socialistic in a sense, and I mean that as a compliment! All of his great ideas aside, I think unfortunately the majority of viewers probably tuned him out within the first 5 minutes. If this were a competition, I'd say he's gotta be last, purely on his communciation skills.

Fallon. Wow, what can I say about the guy. He did very well, and was the one candidate to hold Blouin's feet to the fire regarding the IDED statistics and corporate welfare. I was impressed. He made tremendous strides toward gaining my support. He almost makes you think he can win, even when up against a mountain of Nussle money.

Culver. I loved his one-year of college credit during high school coupled with his one year free in-state tuition. What a huge difference that would make toward alleviating the brain drain, enlivening our population, and drawing businesses to our state. We wouldn't need corporate welfare if we had a workforce that was so highly educated. Culver was good. I wish he would have took on the corporate give-aways a little more than he did, he was pretty tame in that regard. Very impressive when it came to education.

Blouin. Ah, Blouin. I was waiting for him to blow his top and I guess I was impressed he didn't after hearing of his behavior in Ames. Of course he touted his "record" as head of the IDED, but I think Fallon really showed a lot of what he said to be exaggerations. I this were a competition, I'd say he came in 3rd.

So, who came in first, Fallon or Culver? I don't know really, I liked them both. If one of those two can win I would really like to see them collaborate on their ideas.

Any other thoughts?

[Debi]

7. Seth - I agree with your analysis

Fallon was calm and poised and relaxed and informed - it was hard not to like him. He seemed like the most ready for the job.

But......Culver does still have an impressive war chest and I can't let that just go by the way-side. Chet came in #2 in this forum, but the overall Chet package I think it still #1. (On edit - I LOVED Chet's comments about early childhood education and about his kids - I think that was the most unrehearsed and realy part of his presentations. I can't fault the guy for falling back into campaign speech mode on his plans for Iowa's future - but the part about college and ECE seemed more important to him than anything else).

Blouin - hmmmm what can I say? He served in Congress (30 years ago) He was a teacher (40 years ago) he was head of IDED....like THAT's a plus right now AND he's the only candidate who was able to LOSE an ELECTION as an INCUMBENT in a NON-REDISTRICTING year (we didn't want him representing us in D.C. why the HELL would we want him Governing us here at home???? Culver & Fallon have NEVER LOST an ELECTION MIKE!!! And he just barely held his temper when Chet & Ed disagreed w/him (and what the hell? He had to read his closing comments? Like he doesn't know by NOW why he wants to be our Governor?) Also His swipe at Culver about getting a waiver to open up the HAWK-I program - SO WHAT that Bush is president NOW - it's not going to be forever - hopefully when our new Governor is seated a newly Democratic controlled Congress will be in place to make sure Iowa can expand the program. I felt like Blouin was living in the dark ages attitude of "well, this is the way it's always been so this is the way it will stay" what, Mike like women's rights? Grrrrr.

And Sal! Man, I fear that Sal may have had the best ideas of the campaign - I just cannot understand a word the man says. I subconsciously tuned him out (which is a sad commentary on me, because I TRY to listen to everyone's ideas). I'm glad he was included, though. He got on the ballot and deserves the same time and press treatment as the other candidates.

I say

Fallon #1 (put overall Chet has the #1 campaign)
Culver #2
Blouin #3 (and only because I could not understand all Mohammad said)
Sal #4

BTW - did Blouin mention his running-mate EVER? I thought she was his ticket to Democratic unity? What happened w/that???

[IA_Seth]

8. Culver/Fallon

Lol, Debi I expected that much from you! I have to say in the overall scheme of things I am still leaning Culver, but Fallon seems to have made great strides lately. His message last night really went over well (even with the non-political folks I had made watch with me), my fear is that without the money to get that message out the way the others do, he will fall by the wayside.

And I forgot to mention, there was one point in the debate that Fallon called Blouin out pretty clearly and effectively on the IDED data and as the camera panned out Blouin had peaked back around Culver (which isn't easy to do, geez he is huge) and looked as if he was spitting venom at Fallon. I wish I would have heard what was said, or had a better close up of his face.

I wonder why none of the candidates brought up Blouin's electability factor last night?

[pstans]

9. Fallon will have money to do TV ads

They have raised almost $30,000 in less than 2 weeks to meet their media budget and purchase ads to run in May. I can't remember how much they budgeted towards media ads, but it is a enough to see Fallon ads on TV and hear them on radio.

[Debi]

10. Right you are

Fallon has already bought air time up here in Black Hawk County - I assume he's purchased air time all over the state for the last two weeks of the race.

I just keep going back to how much money he has compared to other candidates. Blouin spent $170,000 for one week of state wide ads. Multiply that by four and you get....hold on here...$680,000, over a half a million dollars more than Fallon is going to put into air time. I will be hard for Ed to get his very good message heard when he's showing 23x less ads than Blouin. (That doesn't take into account Culver or Nussle or all the other primary ads out there). I'm afraid he'll get lost in the shuffle.

Just MHO

[IA_Seth]

12. Damn you Debi...

I was trying to convey the same point but obviously I work a little more than SOME people.

Copycat.

[Debi]

14. All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy

All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy
All work and no play makes Seth a dull boy

[IA_Seth]

11. That's good...

I am glad to hear that he will be represented through the media, however a $30,000 budget will probably leave his ads few and far between when compared to the flooding of ads from Culver and Blouin, not to mention the PAC ads, the negative ads sponsored by Republicans, etc.

Believe me, I believe in Fallon's message. I think his slogan should be "If not now, when?". We'll see who comes out from the Primary...I really hope that regardless of who it is, all of the candidates unite and contribute to defeat Nussle.

[Debi]

15. If not now, when??? That was Rob Tully's drum to beat

and Nussle slaughtered him!

However, better than Heart and soul of Iowa (If Blouin is our heart and soul we really ARE and old state!!!) :P

[IA_Seth]

17. Fine!

So I am not original! Whatever, I thought it sounded good anyway. Wouldn't that suck to use the same slogan of someone that Nussle already walloped once?

And that, folks, is why I am not a campaign manager.

-----

Oh yeah, and thanks for giving me flashbacks to being scared shitless as a child from "The Shining". I remember watching that movie when I was really young and being scared out of my mind that night. I've always wanted a hedge-maze-thingy since I saw that though.

All work and no play makes Seth a rich boy
All work and no play makes Seth a rich boy
All work and no play makes Seth a rich boy
All work and no play makes Seth a rich boy
All work and no play makes Seth a rich boy
All work and no play makes Seth a rich boy
All work and no play makes Seth a rich boy

[Debi]

18. Seth, you are becoming my favorite DUer!!!

:thumbsup:

[Debi]

13. Maybe the 'electability' issue is one that is public knowledge

I mean, really, why would the guy voluntarily leave Congress? in the last 30some years in Iowa NOBODY (except for Berkley Bedell - who made a term limit pledge and KEPT IT) left Congress voluntarily unless it was to run for another office (Senate or Governor). Smith, Nagle & Blouin were all voted out of office (Nagle in a redistricting battle against Nussle, Smith in Gingrich's republican revolution and Blouin.....why the hell did Blouin get voted out of office????? Anyone????)

Oh, well, Seth will get whiny if I keep beating the Blouin is a bum dead horse so I'll let it go....for this post :P

[rurallib]

19. Comment on Sal Mohammed

My wife and I both admire Sal for his courage to fight a fight that is seemingly impossible. And the language barrier is a tough one for him to overcome.
One problem I have had with Sal is that his ideas resonate of business BS that I used to hear about once a month. Often they sound good on the surface. Businesses often boil strategies down to some simple slogan and the real meaning gets lost. Sal has one of these slogans (actually an acronym which I cannot remember - SMART maybe?) with some explanation behind it. But as I sat through one of his speeches last winter thinking of his approach, the slogan approach reminded me so much of the middle management that I used to listen to as they spewed the latest company slogan.
Hope that doesn't sound too critical. Just so much reminds me of middle managers who would would do anything to kiss up to their superiors(?) as they trotted out inane idea after inane idea. And the bottom line for all the sloganeering was to cut jobs and make those left work harder for less.
I'll never forget one called "stretch goals". Every management person had to come up with some amount of work to be done using about half the workforce needed and no overtime. Had some resignations due to that mess. Eventually took down the CEO.
Again I do not want to sound like I am shooting at Sal Mohammed. I truly admire him for his quixotic quest. I am just extremely leery of people who think that a slogan is what will motivate people. No matter how good the slogan is.
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I could only watch a bit of the debate. I still like Fallon. He seems to have the clearest and most consistent message. Electable? Remember people in Iowa chose Kerry over Dean in part because of the "elect-ability". Hell, Kerry looked like Lincoln. In the end I think Dean may have been a better candidate. He had a clear and consistent and progressive message.

[Debi]

20. SMART

SMART objectives - specific measurable achievable relevant and time-bound.

I have no clue what that means :silly: