On the Campaign Trail with Ed Tibbetts

I’m a few days late with this, but the L.A. Times had a story last week about the importance of certain activists in the presidential caucuses. They focused on the Democrats and, in particular, Clinton County’s own Jean Pardee.

Jean is the county Dem chair and a representative on the state central committee. And, as much as anybody, she’s very much in touch with what Democrats in the area are thinking.

Here’s the story.

Scott County Democratic Chair Sue Frembgen also is a part of the piece.

Interesting passage about the courting she got from Howard Dean and John Kerry back in ‘04. And, according to the article, how Kerry’s visit to the Rock Island Arsenal helped to win her backing.

Frembgen is an Arsenal worker and a union official.

In fact, Kerry, Dean and Dick Gephardt were all playing up to the Arsenal last cycle. Dean promised to bring jobs back to the island, while Gephardt wrote a letter objecting to putting some Arsenal jobs in competition with private industry.

Those with longer memories will recall back before the 2000 caucuses, Al Gore, while courting local support, announced that the Arsenal’s factory had been taken off a list of agencies required to compete with private industry in what is called an A-76 competition.

Interestingly enough, the 2008 cycle hasn’t seen that kind of attention paid to the Arsenal. Not yet, anyway.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 10:37 am and is filed under On The Campaign Trail. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.