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High Spirits, And A Sense Of Mission In Senate District 22

High Spirits, And A Sense Of Mission In Senate District 22

by | Nov 9, 2012

Charles Schneider, West Des Moines City Council, Senate District 22, IowaTonight was a night for Central Iowa Republicans to bounce back from Tuesday’s less than exciting election results.  Due to the passing of Pat Ward (whose loss was felt and reflected on tonight several times), Republicans needed to nominate a new candidate to run against Desmond Adams on December 11.

The special convention called to make the nomination select attorney and West Des Moines City Councilman Charles Schneider.

Six people ran.  The other five were Clive Mayor Scott Cirksena, Republican Activist Connie Schmett, Valley High School History Teacher Greg Hanson, Pat’s husband John who is an attorney, and former Waukee City Councilman Isaiah McGee.

You can see my twitter comments here.  Kevin Hall at TheIowaRepublican.com live blogged here.

The convention was a bit of a challenge from a vote counting standpoint because voting in these conventions is, according to state law, done proportionally based on the number of Republicans that voted in the last general election, which for this seat was in 2008.  Redistricting after the 2010 census created a situation where determining how those votes fell into the existing precincts would be impossible, so each precinct got a voting weight of 1. However, since each precinct had different numbers of delegates, one with 7 apparently, each delegate got a portion of the 1 vote for their precinct.  So the numbers in the first ballot had fractions, and the second had decimal points.

There was only one motion brought from the floor, which was a request before the balloting to disqualify both Schneider and Ward because (as I grasped the delegate’s comments) as lawyers they are beholden to the Iowa Supreme Court.  The specific section of the Iowa Constitution that he was referring to is Article III, section 22:

Disqualification. Section 22. No person holding any lucrative office under the United States, or this State, or any other power, shall be eligible to hold a seat in the General Assembly: but offices in the militia, to which there is attached no annual salary, or the office of justice of the peace, or postmaster whose compensation does not exceed one hundred dollars per annum, or notary public, shall not be deemed lucrative.

It was clearly a stretch understanding of the text, and the chairman quickly ruled the motion out of order.

Each ballot took about 25 minutes between voting and counting.  I was expecting to have at least 3 ballots before having a winner declared.  All six candidates are highly qualified and are well respected in the community.  Reaching a decision in two ballots was both a surprise and a relief … wrapping up by 9:00 PM meant I could get home at a decent hour!

The most encouraging part of the evening was listening to everyone with a positive attitude about moving on from Tuesday’s losses.  Although winning Senate District 22 will not swing the balance of power to Republicans in the Iowa Senate, it does move the party one step in the direction of building a majority in 2014.  If Republicans are successful at winning this seat, it has the potential to create long-term momentum.

This will be a hard race.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the Democratic opponent, Desmond Adams, is a strong personality and tells a compelling story.  Look for Desmond to work this campaign from a moderate position.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As an aside, I met Charles Schneider while I was working in my garden one summer’s day in 2007.  He was walking the ward to introduce himself as a candidate.  He impressed me that day, and I’ve spoken with him a number of times since and have sought his help on a few city related issues.  He’s always had time for me, always friendly and does everything he can to ensure his constituents are getting the level of attention they need.  He has a lot of people’s respect in West Des Moines, and I hope he does well in the special election on December 11.

It was good to see and chat with Kevin Hall from TheIowaRepublican.com, Gary Barrett from WHO Radio, and Bill Petroski from The Des Moines Register.  Bill will be covering the Iowa Senate this coming session.

I also got to spend some time with former Polk County Republican Party Chairmen John Bloom and Ted Sporer, David Fischer from the Campaign for Liberty, my Statehouse Representative Chris Hagenow, State Senator Jack Whitver, Republican Activist Kathy Ford, Scott Cirksena’s wife Julie and his mother (I’m embarrassed that I’ve forgotten her name), and Ryan Keller who is the Polk County Republican Party Executive Director.  Everyone I talked to was very upbeat about the future of the Republican Party.

The Day After Reveals Terrible Night For Republicans In and Out of Iowa

The Day After Reveals Terrible Night For Republicans In and Out of Iowa

by | Nov 7, 2012

There are plenty of numbers to sift through in the coming days, and trust me I have a lot to say about the things that caused last night to be so unnecessarily disappointing.  For now here are just a few quick reads–the total postmortem is certainly pending.

1)  Final Results in Iowa are: Congressional Victors= King, Latham, Braley, and Loebsack.  Iowa Republicans hold the House but lose seven seats (53-47), and Democrats hold the Senate 26-23 with a special convention in SD 22 upcoming.

2)  The lack of money, and the allocation of the relatively little money Senate Republicans did have, surely ended up costing control of the Senate.  On the flip-side the Democrat strategy that we talked about leading up to last night proved to be brilliant.  There is no doubt that they out-raised Republicans financially and then outplayed them tactically.  There is some fascinating stuff going on in this area that we will be laying out in the coming days.

3)  Close races in the Senate and the House were plentiful.  In these cases Democrats being able to harness their union machine to turn out the vote often can eat up and then surpass small Republican voter registration advantages–on the surface it looks like that is exactly what happened in many races.

4)  Having studied the crucial Senate races very closely the last few months, there is no excuse at the State Party level for that poor of a showing by Republicans.  Having such a robust Iowa Caucus earlier this year with a huge slate of candidates, combined with other external forces, should have guaranteed at the minimum a good night for Republicans that had a chance to be great.  The fact that this did not happen will cause even more upheavals between Iowa Republicans and RPI.

5)  The number one excuse you will hear from vested Republicans statewide is that “it was a bad night nationally for nearly all Republicans and that explains our poor showing here”.  That is not going to cut it for me–and I doubt it will for many.

6)  Proof of the terrible night Republicans had nationwide was that Rep. Allen West of Florida was defeated last night.  This is a large blow to the Tea Party as Mr. West, though he has a penchant for pushing the envelope too much with his mouth, was a fantastic voice on fiscal and military issues.

 

Much more will be  coming in the following days…a tough night for the cause to be sure, but with the election now over we must stay tuned into the issues that will be shaped by them.  Let us not forget that first and foremost politics is about issues–not elections.

Final Results In–Republicans Fail

by | Nov 7, 2012

Larry Kruse was just declared to have been beaten by around 1,400 (via his campaign chair Matt Green who came from the auditors office).  Therefore Democrats will control the Senate and have a 26-23 majority going into the Special Election in SD 22.

Tough night all around….signing off.

Update–One more seat decided

by | Nov 7, 2012

Just crossing the wire, SD 30 race called for Democrat Jeff Danielson over Republican Matt Reisetter.

This is a big blow to Republicans as Reisetter was a rising star in the GOP and the Republicans are now painted into a corner.  Simply put–they need to Larry Kruse to hold onto the lead he has in SD 42 and for Dennis Guth to hold his lead in SD 4.

At this point Republicans need these two things to happen just to reach a tie if they are able to win the Special Election in SD 22.

Iowa Senate Races Turn Into Mini-Florida 2000

by | Nov 7, 2012

Closing in on 2 a.m and the Secretary of State Site still not posting 100% of precinct results…and things couldn’t be tighter.

Here Is Where We Stand

You can tell by looking at the Live Senate Tracker Post below that all the verdicts are in except for 3 seats.  Republican hopes of gaining control are resting on Larry Kruse in Senate 42 and Matt Reisetter in SD 30.  If both of these seats go Democrat Republicans will not take control of the Senate.  For control Republicans need to bank for certain SD 4 (which I think they will), which will bring them to 23 seats and get either SD 42 or SD 30 and add it to Pat Ward’s former seat in SD 22 in the following weeks.

Will update as soon as possible, but it is looking like the final tally may not come until the morning.

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