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Originally Posted by Skip  Do you have anything that I can look at regarding Loebsack's dirty campaign? I recognize that Jim Leach (who is a great person) ran an imamculate campaign which may have made Loebsack's look worse in comparison.
I thought Vilsack acted admirably in the office of governor and followed his principles rather than the polls of the day (see eminent domain bill veto). |
I can't find any videos of the campaign ads he was running, but knowing Leach refused to run television ads (as he deemed it a sign of a lack of integrity, as he would have to spend more time fundraising than legislating if he was going to have the money necessary to do so) he ran ads that never mentioned his record, Leach's record, anything either has or even intended to ever do, or anything specific either intends to do (except Loebsack promising Universal Health Care - obviously a promise someone seeking a freshman seat in the house of representatives can expect to fulfill...). Every ad was a bunch of common multi-cultural Johnson County-type Iowans sitting around a table and one will say "You know, Jim Leach is a good man, but he's lost touch with common Iowans". "Yeah, he's definitely gone Washington" and then somewhere they throw "Universal health care" into every single ad. It didn't present a single reason for someone to vote for either, not even suggesting at a justifiable reason to vote for either (except, of course, those too ignorant to realize freshman congressmen have about the same power over legislation as my dog), he just played on pure knee-jerk emotion.
And Vilsack, his "principles" tended to be dictated by his further political ambitions (the views of whoever might get him the next step higher), so yeah, you're right that he didn't care much about what Iowans thought.