On the Campaign Trail with Ed Tibbetts

Iowa Democrats are responding to the television ad that presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain began airing in the state last week.

The McCain ad is called “Accountable,” and the Arizona senator stresses fairer taxes, cleaner energy and more affordable health care.

Democrats today issued a “reality check” on the ad.

They say his health care ideas will leave 273,000 Iowans without coverage and, says Brooke Borkenhagen, the party’s spokesperson, his ”big ideas include hurting Iowa’s farmers by ending federal investment in American ethanol and increasing incentives for Brazilian farmers to import their ethanol to the United States.”

McCain’s made no secret of his disdain for ethanol incentives. Now, the Democrats plan to bludgeon him with it. Expect this to continue right up to November.

Ordinarily, this might be a losing hand for McCain in Iowa. But in a day food prices are high and there are food shortages overseas – and ethanol is getting, fairly or unfairly, some of the blame — his position might win more friends here than it would otherwise. It’s a stretch to see his position as a net plus, but the timing might be better than it ever will be.

Scott County Republicans just picked a nominee for auditor. As expected, it’s Steve Ahrens, the former Davenport alderman.

Republicans met in a special convention this morning at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds. Ahrens was the unanimous choice. He got the 63 votes of the delegates attending.

“I’m ready to get rolling,” he said afterward.

Democrats haven’t picked a  nominee yet, but Scott County Supervisor Roxanna Moritz and ex-Davenport alderman Tom Engelmann have said they’re interested. The Democrats are expected to meet in a special convention next month.

Wes Rostenbach, the auditor who was appointed after Karen Fitzsimmons’ death, has said he’s not interested in running for the job.

As Barack Obama tries to push his way past Hillary Clinton, John McCain continues to run mostly unfettered.

His campaign is putting up a new television ad in Iowa, his second. Jeff Zadosky, a spokesman, won’t say how much the campaign is spending or how long the ad is going to run. He does say the two ads show McCain’s “commitment to the state.”

Iowa is expected to be a battleground state this fall.

The ad, called “Accountable,” pitches simpler, fairer taxes and portable, affordable health care. Cheaper, cleaner energy, too.

The image on the latter is a windmill, not an ethanol plant. That’s interesting. McCain, of course, is against ethanol subsidies.

Not to read too much into it. Iowa has hundreds of windmills, too. But it’s a choice that will likely get noticed.

Anyway, here’s the ad.

Iowa Rep. Jamie Van Fossen of Davenport and former state Sen. Maggie Tinsman of Bettendorf are backing George Eichhorn for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.

Eichhorn is a Des Moines lawyer. He’s one of three Republicans vying to run against Sen. Tom Harkin. Van Fossen and Tinsman were among 33 state GOP leaders, mostly legislators and former lawmakers, who’ve lent their support to Eichhorn, according to a release his campaign sent out yesterday.

This is interesting. The local goverment in Sioux City is mulling a ban on smoking at casinos. Some folks aren’t happy the Iowa Legislature exempted the casino floors from the statewide ban, so they’re thinking about going the rest of the way.

I would think they’d be pre-empted by state law from doing it, but I’m no lawyer. I just cover them when they run for office.

Anyway, here’s the story in the Sioux City Journal, a sister paper to the Times. What do you figure the chances are the city councils in Davenport and Bettendorf will follow suit?

Scott County Republicans are calling a special convention to pick a person to run for Scott County Auditor.

Steve Ahrens, the former Davenport alderman who now works for the city levee commission, is going to run for the post. Bryan Sievers, the county GOP chair, says he’s the only one he knows of who’s doing so.

Delegates will be seated at 9:45 a.m. and the convention will begin at 10 a.m. It’s at the 4-H Building at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds, 2815 W. Locust St., Davenport.

Only precinct delegates are eligible to vote. Registration starts at 9 a.m.

So far, no word from the Democrats on nominating a person to run.

UPDATE: Former Davenport aldermen Roxanna Moritz and Tom Engelmann are seeking the Democratic nomination. Moritz is a county supervisor now. Engelmann works as an accountant. This could get more crowded, too. Here’s my story in Tuesday’s Times. Ex-party chair Karl Rhomberg says he’s “strongly considering” a bid. There could be others.

The auditor’s office should be a local race to watch this year. It’s an open courthouse post, but the auditor also is one of three who make up a committee that fills vacancies on the county board.

The panel had been in Republican control for years, but Rita Vargas election as county recorder a few years ago swung that power to the Democrats. Whichever party wins the auditor’s job this fall will control the appointment committee next year.

First, the Democrats have to pick a nominee, and it could be a tough fight for the nod. Engelmann is touting his background, both as an election official and an accountant. The auditor not only deals with elections but also with other matters, some of them dealing with finances.

Moritz notes her work as an alderman. She’s also won county-wide, and has a lot of friends in the political/labor community. Engelmann can’t claim to have won county wide. In fact, he lost a county wide race. He can argue, however, it was to an incumbent, Republican treasurer Bill Fennelly, who is widely popular.

Moritz, meanwhile, will have to push back against the argument that nominating her will open up a seat on the county board, which is majority-Democrat for the first time in years. Should she get the nomination, then win the general election, it’s likely Republicans will ask for a special election to challenge whichever Democrat is picked to replace Moritz.

This is all insider baseball stuff, but it’s exactly the kind of thing delegates to a reconvened county convention – the people who will make the decision on who will be the Democratic nominee – that will be considered.

No date for the Democrats has been set yet, but the talk is that it will be in the third week of June.

MoveOn.org is launching a new television ad in Iowa tomorrow, the day presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain makes his first general election appearance in the state.

The ad criticizes McCain on Iraq and is timed to coincide with President Bush’s declaration five years ago that major combat operations in Iraq were over.

The ad is below. “Voters need to know Sen. McCain would continue President Bush’s failed policies — in Iraq and elsewhere. A vote for him is basically a vote for a third Bush term,” says Eli Pariser, MoveOn’s executive director.

McCain’s campaign referred my call to the Republican National Committee.

“MoveOn.org is joining Barack Obama and the DNC in maliciously misquoting John McCain. At nearly every event, Obama bemoans the ‘negative tone’ of politics, even while groups that support him are now running negative ads. Now, Obama should prove his rhetoric is more than ‘just words’ and stand up to MoveOn.org,” said Alex Conant, an RNC spokesman.

MoveOn has endorsed Obama. It says it is spending $160,000 on the ad in Iowa and New Mexico, part of a monthlong $1 million campaign. The ad will run for a week.

I posted earlier about John McCain’s new health care ad in Iowa. The Service Employees International Union, which has put up an ad in Ohio and Washington, D.C., attacking McCain, isn’t following suit here. But just the same, here’s a look at the ad. Wouldn’t be surprised to see it here soon.

John McCain is launching his first general election strike in Iowa. His campaign announed today he’ll air a new television ad in the state to promote his health care plan.

Here’s the ad.

The 60-second ad, titled “Health Care Action,” shows  McCain saying the problem with health care is not quality but cost and availability. He’s proposed a $5,000 tax credit to help defray insurance costs.

“I can characterize my approach on health care by choice and competition, affordability and availability,” he says.

McCain’s $5,000 tax credit is familiar to Iowans. At a health care forum in Davenport last October, he pitched the idea.

The credit would be available even to people without tax liability.

Critics say the credit isn’t enough to cover health care’s rising costs because it throws individuals into an expensive individual market.

“The major flaw is it shifts costs onto working families,” said Stephanie Mueller, a spokeperson for the Service Employee’s International Union, which is backing Obama. SEIU is airing ads in Ohio and Washington, D.C., criticizing McCain’s health care ideas.

The ad is airing statewide. The Arizona senator will be in Des Moines on Thursday. It’ll be his first general election visit to the state.

Tom O’Donnell, who served nine years as an aide to ex-congressman Lane Evans, has been picked to be Rep. Phil Hare’s new chief of staff.

O’Donnell will replace Dennis King, who retired at the end of last month.

King, a Florida native, was Evans’ chief of staff for his 24 years in Congress, then went to work for Hare.

“Tom is extremely bright and capable and he understands the values of 17th District families,” Hare said in a statement. “I have the utmost confidence in his ability to lead my entire operation into the future.”

Hare also paid tribue to King, an affable guy who first went to Congress to work for Dante Fascell of Florida. In a floor speech last month, Hare mused that people might wonder how a Duke University graduate with a law degree from Georgetown might be pals with a Rock Island factory worker. “It’s simple,” Hare said. “Dennis cares about the people of the 17th District as much as I do.”