Ed Fallon Is Going To Lose

Updated below:



Via a mass email from Ed Fallon:

While Leonard Boswell is an honorable man who has served with dignity, I feel his positions on many key issues are wrong.

Boswell accepts donations from PACs and lobbyists. Of the $600,167 he raised between February and September 2007, 73% came from PACs. During my 14 years as a state representative and when I ran for governor, I refused donations from PACs and lobbyists and won’t accept them in my congressional campaign either.

In 2003, he voted for the Iraq War and has continued to support additional funding with no timetable to bring the troops home. I opposed Bush’s war from the start and believe we need a more diplomatic approach to foreign policy, not just in Iraq but throughout the Middle East.

In 2005, Boswell voted to provide $14 billion in tax breaks and incentives for oil and gas companies. He also supports greater use of coal. I have been a leader in the fight against government handouts to big business. I support a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants and have helped lead efforts in Iowa to fight global warming.

Boswell voted for No Child Left Behind. I have always spoken against this unfunded, ineffective mandate, and believe NCLB should be repealed, or at a minimum severely overhauled.

Boswell supported the Patriot Act, and in August 2007, voted for a bill to increase unwarranted surveillance on the American people. Iowa’s other Democratic Congressmen, Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack, voted against it. I have a long track record of fighting for civil rights and personal liberties.

In November 2007, Boswell joined Congressmen Steve King and Tom Latham – both Republicans – to vote for a NAFTA-like trade agreement with Peru. I am a vocal opponent of NAFTA and other so-called “free” trade agreements and believe in fair trade that protects American jobs, our environment, and workers’ safety.

While I enjoyed seeing Ed Fallon stick it to The Man in the Iowa Legislature and even supported his chance at becoming governor, I have to say that if Fallon's reasons for going to DC are to outlaw coal-fired power plants, be against free trade, negotiate with terrorists, and allow terrorists to plot to kill us and blow things up without the government having the right to wiretap, well then I guess I can't support such a candidate.

I'd rather have a warmonger who wants to torture evildoers.

And as much as I don't really care for Boswell, he sure beats a Republican like Jeff LAMEberti. Yes, he does.

But that's not saying much.


Update: A reader writes in the comments:

When Fallon ran for governor, you wrote a post supporting him because you agreed on a lot of the issues. This year you just spouted a bunch of panic mongering bullet points so you could get back to being a dickwad about something else.

Yes, I remember that post. That's back when Ed Fallon was a viable candidate for a position suitable for him.

On the issues of trying to get fat PAC money out of state politics, eliminating factory farms that cause environmental problems, out of control taxpayer-financed corporate welfare and TIFs, busted budgets, and pushing addicts to treatment rather than prison, I'm totally with Fallon. He would have been an excellent governor. I bet Fallon would have vetoed more crap out of bills to the point where he would have made Mitt Romney look like the first 6 years of Bush 43. That would have been awesome.

Fallon was preaching "energy independence" for Iowa at one time, but now he wants to ban coal-fired power plants. It's bad enough the coal industry in Iowa is for all intents and purposes shut down while at least 95% of reserves sit in the ground. Let's instead pour all manner of fertilizers and chemicals on the land and till everything that you can get a blade into until it all erodes away. And why? To make inefficient hooch so that Detroit automakers get a break on the CAFE standards.

Oh well. I figured I'd get some shit from the nutroots who are targeting "Bush-dog Democrats" like Boswell. I can go on the record and say Boswell is a helluva lot better than a Republican like Lameberti but I still get no love from the cranky anti-war leftoids because they only see things a certain way. You girls have got to Move On. The surge worked! Sometimes you've got to give war a chance.