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Tag: iowa state fair
Late Night Roundup: Donald Trump — Get To The Chopper!

Late Night Roundup: Donald Trump — Get To The Chopper!

The late night shows focused on the latest spectacle in the presidential race: Donald Trump showing up at the Iowa State Fair, where candidates are always supposed to act relatable and down-to-earth, in his helicopter.

Larry Wilmore actually admired it: “There is no pretend in his game at all! ‘I am not a commoner! I am not one of you! I am one of me!”

And then the man (or troll doll) himself dropped in on Larry’s show.

Jimmy Kimmel checked out what it be would be like if Donald Trump really was Batman.

Seth Meyers: “Donald Trump isn’t running as an everyman — he’s running as what every man wants to be.”

Conan O’Brien: “Donald Trump showed up in a helicopter. Of course, no one could hear the helicopter — over Donald Trump.”

DNC Chair: Joni Ernst ‘An Onion Of Crazy’

DNC Chair: Joni Ernst ‘An Onion Of Crazy’

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) appears to be shifting tactics in Iowa, by painting Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst as an unstable extremist.

DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz set the tone at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday, calling Ernst “an onion of crazy.”

“I know that this state is known for its wind energy, for corn, for soybeans, but that woman is an onion of crazy,” she said. “I mean, there is no other way for me to describe it, you just can’t make it up. Every time you peel back a layer, you find something more disturbing about her views.”

As evidence, Wasserman Schultz pointed to Ernst’s past comments that President Obama is a “dictator” who should be impeached or removed from office, and that she still believes “there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

Ernst has tried to walk back both statements, but they are just two on a long list of “crazy” remarks.

She’s also come out against the United Nations’ Agenda 21, which is a voluntarily implemented plan that seeks to promote sustainable development. Ernst erroneously sees it as an evil, foreign force that will abolish all property rights.

And she infamously threatened to “castrate” members of Congress who don’t reduce spending, and released a campaign ad featuring her shooting a handgun at Obamacare.

“When you have a candidate for the United States Senate who was endorsed by Sarah Palin, that should say it all right there,” Wasserman Schultz said. “Do we need a United States senator who’s just going to be a carbon copy of Sarah Palin? I don’t think so.”

The DSCC followed her lead, releasing a video on Monday comparing Ernst to Palin.

“Joni Ernst would be another Tea Party vote in the Senate,” says the ad’s narrator. “Palin. Ernst. Too extreme for Iowa.”

The new rhetoric represents an escalation by Democrats, who previously focused more on her political positions. Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA), who is running against Ernst in the general election and whom Wasserman Schultz called “a voice of reason and moderation and leadership,” is running ads emphasizing that Ernst is too “extreme” for Iowa and that her “Tea Party ideas are out of step with Iowa families.” These ideas include getting rid of the federal minimum wage and wanting to privatize Social Security.

Ernst is more than holding her own in this race, however. She, along with her Republican supporters, have tried to paint Braley as “out of touch” for expressing concern that Republican Chuck Grassley could become the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee even though “he was a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school.”

The Real Clear Politicspoll average has Ernst ahead by 0.8 points.

Photo: Monica de Argentina via Flickr

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Republican Frontrunner Mitt Romney: “Corporations Are People”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, clinging to a small lead over his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, addressed a fiery crowd at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines today, and showed his true-blue (red?) conservative colors:

“We have to make sure that the promises we make in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are promises we can keep, and there are various ways of doing that,” Mr. Romney said. “One is we can raise taxes on people.”

“Corporations!” the protesters shouted, suggesting that Mr. Romney, as president, should raise taxes on large businesses. “Corporations!”

“Corporations are people, my friend,” Mr. Romney responded, as the hecklers shouted back, “No they’re not!”

“Of course they are,” Mr. Romney said, chuckling slightly. “Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people. Where do you think it goes?”

This Citizens United line of thinking — where the Supreme Court held that speech by corporations is just as sacred and worthy of protection as that by individuals — permeates the Republican Party and the conservative movement generally right now.

Butter Cow Lady Dies, Robbing Obama of Key Iowa Surrogate

Norma “Duffy” Lyon, whose cow sculptures made of butter were for decades a big draw at the Iowa State Fair, died of a stroke on Sunday at 81.

Even outside the state, Lyon’s work was the stuff of folklore.

But while she normally steered clear of politics, Lyon was inspired by Barack Obama’s insurgent presidential candidacy in 2007.

“Barack Obama’s got a real plan for rural America. And it’s gutsy, because it looks out for us, not lobbyists,” Lyon intoned on a radio ad released by the Obama campaign in October of that year, just when he was beginning to pick up steam ahead of his stunner caucus victory in January that propelled him, eventually, to the Democratic nomination.

Click here to download the radio spot

“But the best part is he listened, and knows our kids need opportunity here in Iowa so they don’t have to leave home to follow their dreams — even that if that dream is 500 pounds of butter, shaped like a cow,” she goes on.

Duffy was a key cultural validator for the exotic-sounding Obama right when he needed voters in the state to become more comfortable with him.

Obama carried Iowa by nearly ten points in the 2008 general election.