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Iowa Politics with Jeff Stein — Thu. Jan. 12, 2023

By Jeff Stein Jan 12, 2023 | 5:11 AM

Never A Dull Email In Box
I remember back when Congressman Rod Blum was first elected, taking office in January of 2015. I started getting regular emails from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee saying how Blum was such a failure in office…within days of him being sworn in. In fact, they started criticizing his so-called record before he even had been assigned an office. That hurt their credibility, because it wouldn’t have mattered who was in office or what they had done, so long as the person had an R by their name, the person was evil.
They started again this week against Congresswoman Ashley Hinson. That’s not new, she was on their list from the start of her first term, but I do note they are wasting no time complaining about her as she starts her second term.
Speaking of Congresswoman Hinson, she sent a news release Tuesday night following Gov. Kim Reynolds’ Condition of the State address, with the headline “The Best is Yet to Come for Iowa with Governor Reynolds at the Helm”. It showed up at the same time as another email, this one with the subject “Kim Reynolds wants to destroy Iowa’s Public Schools”–that was sent by the Iowa Democratic Party. They can’t both be right…can they?
Also from Tuesday night’s email in box, this unfortunate example of why fundraising emails that are timed to be sent later can be a problem. At 5:36 p.m., Senator Chuck Grassley’s office sent out a statement indicating that the Senator had hurt his hip and would have surgery later this week. However, at 6 p.m., came an email ostensibly from the Senator, reading “New Year, Same Chuck.”
The text of the email, from his campaign committee, read in part, “It’s a New Year, but for me, not much has changed because I’m working as hard as ever. This morning, I woke up at 4 a.m. like I always do, went on a run, and ate breakfast with Barbara.” It goes on like that, talking about his full day of activity on behalf of Iowans, and then suggests a contribution to his campaign fund.
I never doubt how hard the Senator works…but my guess is that that day was far from normal. And obviously undermines whatever fundraising they had hoped to accomplish.
So that’s what’s filling up my email in box these days…how about you?