Two local Democrats with shots to cut through western Iowa political tribalism
Harkin says party must be more committed to local races
COUNCIL BLUFFS
Since the Clinton years the Democratic Party has relied too heavily on the celebrity of Oval Office aspirants and ignored county and local level races, a strategy, by turns design and mistake, that leaves Democrats with few officeholders and candidates in vast swaths of Iowa, former U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said during a recent interview in Council Bluffs.
It’s no accident that Harkin made the comments in this southwest Iowa city, where the tireless Jeff Shudak, a union plumber who knows his politics, the people and the region, and has assembled an aggressive campaign in his bid as a Democrat for the GOP-controlled Pottawattamie County Board of Supervisors.
Another local candidate who can cut through the tribalism in western Iowa is in Manilla — former Crawford County Supervisor Dave Muhlbauer, a Democrat who farms and helms a cattle-and-hog operation south of Aspinwall. Muhlbauer is seeking a seat of the Board of Supervisors in November — and he has a message and the local credibility in agriculture and small-town life to be viable.
Should they win, both Shudak, the president of the Western Iowa Labor Federation, and Muhlbauer, a son and grandson of state legislators, have potential for higher office.
It’s essential party building of the variety that seeded the Republican field with Gov. Kim Reynolds, a former Osceola County treasurer, and U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, a former Montgomery County auditor, many Iowa Democrats say.
“We Democrats forgot about local government,” Harkin said. “And I’ve said this before: quite frankly, in Iowa, the Republicans have cared more about local government than Democrats. Look at what’s happened out there. We didn’t focus on those county offices. They are important to people, and we left it, and even somewhat the Legislature also.”
The roots of the problem?
“When Clinton became president it was all for Clinton,” Harkin said. “It was all for the president and re-election. I thought with Obama it was going to be different because he had been a state senator in Illinois.”
Harkin credited former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, a presidential candidate in 2004 whom Harkin endorsed, with developing an effective 50-state strategy focusing on local races, rural swaths of the nation.
“Obama comes in, they get rid of Howard Dean, and it all becomes Obama For America, and everything became just for the Obama White House and his re-election,” Harkin said.
Backing off on local races and relying on top-down party building has been disastrous for Democrats, Harkin said.
“To me, that’s what we Democrats have to do, we have to get back to local government and finding good candidates to run for these offices and supporting them,” Harkin said.
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