On the Campaign Trail with Ed Tibbetts

So it’s Thursday morning, the day Rep. Phil Hare’s supposed to appear on The Colbert Report and his staffers pick up a copy of The Hill newspaper and see this headline: “Emanuel tells freshmen to avoid Stephen Colbert.”

Did somebody miss a memo here?

Hare, the Rock Island Democrat, had already gone to the Colbert Report last Friday for a sitdown for Colbert’s ”Better Know a District” segment. The bit is best known for the faux-blowhard’s elaborate efforts to get congressmen so flummoxed they say something dumb.

Sometimes it’s worked really well. You be the judge if it worked with Hare. You can see the segment here.

Anyway, Emanuel’s the guy that headed the DCCC last election cycle and played a huge role in Democrats winning the majority.

He’s a guy that people listen to.

In Hare’s case, though, it doesn’t appear he got the word. Tim Schlittner, Hare’s spokesman, said they hadn’t heard from Emanuel about the subject before his interview — or since it appeared last night.

Schlittner said he showed The Hill story to Hare yesterday morning and he shrugged it off. “Oh, that’s just Rahm,” the congressman said.

Actually, the profile of the 17th District, the 44th in the series, was pretty funny.

Colbert poked a little fun (but just a little) at Q-C institutions. “Nothing runs like a Deere — unless it’s run over by a tractor,” he joked.

He also puzzled over an area with five main cities being called the Quad-Cities and, counting his fingers, came up with this question: “Why would you name a city Bettendorf?”

As for Hare, Colbert got the congressman into a back and forth about the Underground Railroad, which had an important stop in Galesburg.

Here’s part of the exchange:

Colbert: “The underground railroad was against the law. So as a congressman you’re prepared to say there are some laws we shouldn’t pay any attention to?

Hare: “We had slavery, Stephen.”

Colbert: “So you think that slavery was so bad that we could break the law over it, and yet you don’t want Bush to be Lincoln in Iraq Civil War. You see … those things don’t go together.”

Hare: “You’re right, they don’t.”

Colbert: “So you realize now that you’ve made a mistake.”

Hare: “No. It was wrong to break the law to get people out of slavery, yes.”

Colbert: “It was wrong to break the law to get people out of slavery.”

Hare: No, it was…

Colbert: “That’s what you just said.”

Hare: “Let me rephrase.”

Colbert: “Rephrase, or flip-flop because it sounds the same to voters.”

Hare: No. It’s a rephrase.”

Colbert: “So you haven’t changed your mind about slavery.”

Hare: “No, it’s wrong.”

Colbert: “It’s wrong.”

Hare: “Absolutely.”

Yeesh, and Rahm Emanuel was worried.

Says Schlittner: “We have no regrets.”

It’s not exactly the welcome wagon, but it appears it’s getting more difficult for an Iowan to get into Washington, D.C., these days without running into Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The New York senator and 2008 presidential candidate will stop by the Quad-City Development Group’s reception tonight at the Hart Senate Office Building.

The Q-C delegation is in D.C. to lobby legislators and agencies for the area’s priorities.

Clinton earlier visited with delegations from Dubuque and from Cedar Rapids/Iowa City when they made their lobbying trips.

U.S. Rep. Phil Hare’s office says the Illinois congressman’s appearance on The Colbert Report will be Thursday at 10:30 p.m.

Hare taped the “Better Know a District” segment with Stephen Colbert last Friday and it’s due to be on Comedy Central this Thursday.

The segment typically features a tongue-in-cheek profile of a congressional district and then an interview, in which Colbert tries to extract some embarassing comment from the office holder.

No word yet on what he did, or didn’t, get Hare to say. Should be fun watching.

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards says he’s scooped up more than 100 people who used to back Tom Vilsack. Vilsack, the ex-governor of Iowa, abandoned his presidential bid a couple weeks ago.

Edwards, who finished second in the 2004 caucuses, released a list of more than 100 names on Tuesday.