Herb Strentz: THE GRINCH WHO STOLE IOWA

Among the more biting assessments of the damage inflicted upon the GOP in the 2012 election was this from Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, chair of the Republican Governors Association:

“We need to stop being the dumb party.”

His target was, in part, the anti-intellectualism of the far right of his party — typified by the religious zealots who control the Iowa Republican party.

Iowa may well serve as a bellwether for how well Jindal and his cohorts “stop being the dumb party” — particularly since so much of the campaign for the party’s presidential nomination begins with the Iowa caucuses in January of 2016.

To get a handle on the task facing leaders of the GOP if they are to take back control of the party from the far-right fringe, consider that the political and religious right in Iowa have waged campaigns figuratively akin to General Sherman’s March Through Georgia.

And consider some of the best aspects of Iowa over the past century or more.

Here are four:

1. The Iowa judiciary led the nation by decades in decisions that breathed life into the state motto “Our Liberties We Prize, Our Rights We Will Maintain.” In the 19^th century the Iowa Supreme Court issued decisions on women’s rights, freedom for Negroes and access to public accommodations that presaged national events by as much as a century.

2. An outstanding public education system has been capped by state universities of which the state is justly proud.

3. The Iowa environment and countryside have been captured and glorified in iconic images by artist Grant Wood.

4. Until the takeover by the religious right the Iowa Republican Party was best embodied in the public service of Robert D. Ray, governor from 1969-1983, and recognized as a world leader when it came to rescuing desperate and despairing people. In the 1970s, thanks to Ray, Iowa became home to thousands of refugees from Southeast Asia.

Almost makes you want to sing the Iowa Corn Song!

That is, until you consider the damage done by the religious and political right. Iowa suffered when:

1. Enough Iowans joined a religious crusade against the Iowa Supreme Court in 2010 to vote off the court three justices who were part of a 7-0 decision that read the Iowa constitution correctly and found that the state legislature could not legally ban same-sex marriages.

2. In what we can only hope is a brief relapse, Iowa State University apparently would assure that research at ISU either extols how hog lot odors strengthen our pulmonary system or heralds the loss of top soil as a way to refresh Iowa farmland. That is how one might characterize the desires of the recently ensconced right wing of the Board of Regents of the university system. They want to allow ISU to control or prohibit any anti-Iowa research that might be undertaken by a campus institute established in recognition of Democratic U.S. Senator Tom Harkin.

3. At the same time, Iowa is fashioning a two-pronged effort to end awful pollution of Iowa lakes and rivers and to curb poisonous chemical runoff from farmland. One prong would make the efforts voluntary and provide little or no funds for enforcement; prong two would empower the Farm Bureau and others who have caused the problem in the first place to oversee prong one.

4. Meantime, if you are looking for knowledgeable, public-spirited people who can address the above and other problems, you will find many of them in the legions of Iowans who used to be Republicans in the spirit of Bob Ray. But they have been driven from the party by the right wing and evangelical zealots.

Any hope of turning the party around in Iowa?

One clue may be provided when the Iowa GOP decides what to do with the Ames Straw Poll conducted in the August preceding the presidential election year. The Straw Poll serves two purposes: 1. It raisers millions of dollars over the years for the state party; and 2. It keeps any sane candidates well away from the Iowa caucuses and Hawkeye consideration of who should be the party’s candidate. (The Iowa GOP got a black eye when U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann bought her way to victory in the Straw Poll in 2011.) Abandonment of the Straw Poll or at least radical changes in it would be wise.

Another clue will be provided when the Iowa GOP enacts its 2014 Platform. Will the platform return to conservative values and principles or will it continue to champion social agendas of the religious right?

Unfortunately, “being the dumb party” has paid off for those now at the reins of the Iowa GOP.