A national organization known for grooming Republicans for congressional and state legislative offices is pointing its efforts at Iowa's school boards.
Smart move. Today's school board candidate is a legislative candidate in five years, and maybe a congressional candidate in fifteen... but of course we Dems aren't thinking like that:
"People should elect school board members based on the person who will best represent their children and Iowa's schools, not their political parties," said Erin Seidler, press secretary for the Iowa Democratic Party.
Yep, she said "vote for the person not the party." Any wonder Jim Leach keeps getting re-elected? Every election Dems talk about education as a key issue, but when it comes time to take action, we get implicit discouragement.
As for me, I've never voted for a registered Republican for any office. In this town even a lot of Republicans are "Democrats," so to actually BE a Republican is a strong statement of political philosophy. And of course education is ground zero for some of the theocrat's favorite issues - school prayer, evolution (see today's headline Bush: Schools should teach intelligent design), sex ed or the lack thereof, and the whole impose your values on others mindset.
We shouldn't vote against people simply because they are "partisan." Partisanship has got a bad name. We should vote against them based on the issues, and partisanship is a very usefal shorthand in this case.
No, on this one the GOP has it right and we're once again left in the dust. At least on the STATE level. Of course, we know better in Johnson County. Several good school board members with Democratic Party roots have served in recent years: Dale Shultz, Nick Johnson, Aletia Morgan, Lauren Reece, Matt Goodlaxson, and I know I'm forgetting a few. In 2004 we nominated sitting school board member Dave Franker for Congress against Leach.
Not to say we can't do better. The Official Party is losing ground on local issues to other organizations who aren't afraid to do little things like, oh, endorse candidates. In some ways the party's quasi-official status ties our hands; if a conservative Dems wins a primary they're on the ticket whether the party activists like it or not. But in the blogosphere era, issue activists don't buy that. They define "being a Democrat" as taking a stand on issues, even local issues like zoning and development fights, the defining line between "progressive" and "conservative" in this town. Those fights are the most bitter - because that's where the MONEY is.
Locally we had a tough era in the early 1990s with some bitter and divisive local contests, and the party is still gun-shy about that, chasing after conservative rural "Democrats" who could care less while potential activists move in other directions.
As for the school board: watch for the names Patti Fields and Jerry Gilmere in the coming weeks.
Politics, Iowa
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