On the Campaign Trail with Ed Tibbetts

Hillary Clinton’s camp released a list of more than 100 women who are backing her candidacy.

Former Iowa Attorney General Bonnie Campbell and ex-lieutenant governor candidate Andy McGuire are on the list.

Just two Scott County names: Rep. Cindy Winckler of Davenport. And, as of today, Scott County Recorder Rita Vargas.

Vargas said this afternoon it was a tough decision, but it’s time for a change. “I want to see a woman president before I die,” she says. Vargas, who is a favorite among local Dems, adds that Clinton did a “phenomenal job” in the debates.

A look at the list, which you can find here, shows a lot of names out of Polk and Johnson counties.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems a lot of the profiles of Barack Obama’s years in the Illinois Senate usually quote our Denny Jacobs.

Take today’s New York Times piece on the Obama years in Springfield. The story starts off with how Obama, who’d been a community organizer, didn’t really fit into the wheelin’ and dealin’ atmosphere of Springfield.

Says ex-Sen. Denny: “One of my first comments to Barack was, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’”

You can read the whole piece here.

Jacobs is a good go-to guy for Obama’s Springfield years because, of course, he knows him (they were poker buddies). But, for reporters, the added bonus is he’s so darned quotable.

Thus, the front page of the New York Times.

There’s something patriotic about the new defense spending bill in the U.S. House of Representatives. It has 1,776 earmark requests.

Get it?

The Porkbusters web site lists all the requests today, including seven from the Q-C congressmen, Phil Hare and Bruce Braley. You can find the whole list here.

Hare’s four submissions and Braley’s three are quite modest, actually. Two dozen lawmakers had double-digit requests.

Rep. C.W. Bill Young, a Republican from Florida, led the pack with 60. In second was Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, with 59.

Hare asked for $15 million. Braley asked for $9 million.

Some of the local requests were for the Rock Island Arsenal; also they’re pitching for the on-board oxygen generating systems made by Davenport’s Carleton Life Support Systems.

Critics, and a lot of citizens, too, label all these earmarks pork. But I’m guessing to the folks at Carelton and the Arsenal, this stuff doesn’t oink.

The other stuff – well, that’s another story, right?

Congressional Republicans have targeted Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa.

The House GOP’s political arm have added Braley to its four-month old web site aimed at telling the “real story” about Democratic freshmen.

The National Republican Congressional Committee debuted the site in March, saying it was aimed at 11 endangered Democrats. It added Braley a couple weeks ago. There are about 30 members on the site. So far, Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., has been spared.

You can see the site here.

For each of the targets, there’s a laundry list of House votes and, in some cases, the site features a video of the congressman put to music. In Braley’s case, the video is, strangely, of Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the House Democratic caucus. The song is Linda Ronstadt’s “You’re No Good.”

The site is aiming to leverage the power of the web to push back against the new members. 

Asked why Braley was chosen, Ken Spain, a spokesman for the Republicans, says the GOP is keeping a “close eye” on the 1st District seat and commented: “We chose a number of freshmen Democrats we believe have compiled some pretty egregious voting records.”

Asked to respond, Jeff Giertz, Braley’s spokesman, took pains to note “it’s not Iowans who are attacking Bruce Braley here. It’s a Washington group offering more of the same.”

“The people of Iowa know Bruce Braley’s record of accomplishment very well,” he said.

If Republicans have targeted the district, they’re doing it quietly.

The 2006 GOP hopefuls all appear to have walked away from another bid. And even local Republican activists say they haven’t heard of anybody out there who’s willing to take Braley on.

We’re only six months into the year, but if there is to be a successful effort mounted in what is a Democratic-leaning district, it will take quite a bit of money. Meaning whoever runs will have to start raising money soon. That’s hard to do quietly.