Winners And Losers

John Deeth does a great job (from an obvious but not obnoxious leftward bias) of picking Winners and Losers for the recent elections in Iowa.

I was out of state and involved in other matters while most of this election season was going on, but this final section is the best part:

Losers - Johnson County Republicans. This was a target-rich year for Republicans, and my party's soft white underbelly was exposed in many places. (Pat Murphy winning with just 51 percent in Dubuque?!?) And the Iowa City bar issue was a major wild card; student precincts actually leaned a bit more Republican than the rest of The People's Republic.

Democrats left a quarter of the Iowa House uncontested, while Republicans did much better at finding candidates. But the exception is in my county. As they have for several cycles, Republicans scored a complete goose egg on candidate recruitment. Not that she wouldn't win big anyway, but Mary Mascher hasn't seen a GOP challenger since 1996. Dave Jacoby's challenger actually left the GOP to run as a Libertarian. When the Libertarians outscore you in candidate recruitment, you have a problem.

That is interesting the Republicans just write off Johnson County.

Not that they have much of a chance there, but at least give it a college try once in a while!

When you've lost the conservative dude that publishes the Coralville Courier, you're in trouble!

This blog has bitched for years about what a rotten job the RPI and other Republican groups in Iowa have done. Not being able to field candidates worth a shit to knock off the likes of Boswell, Braley, or Loebsack in a landslide year for Republicans nationwide and one in which Branstad and Grassley cruised to victory, is a downright disgrace.  So is leaving Democrats in State seats uncontested.