This morning the Hubler campaign announced that Rob has made the Races to Watch list:
This places us in the Red to Blue program, which supports competitive Democratic challengers in Republican districts across the nation.
We are now on our way to becoming one of the handful of targeted races around the country that the DCCC will be making their top priority. Only campaigns that are generating excitement in their districts and running strong operations make the cut. Getting there will give us national attention that is needed to move us to victory.
Rob Hubler is a strong progressive who is running against one of the most extreme wingnuts in Congress, Steve King. Being added to the Red to Blue program will be a great boost for his campaign. But he needs to raise money by September 30 to make it onto the Red to Blue list.
Can he win? Will you help? Follow me.
The Fifth District is one of the red ones. They may be conservative, but they aren't stupid: Bush’s job rating is 73% negative, and 64% of Fifth District voters think the country is seriously off on the wrong track, while only 20% think it is heading in the right direction. The same 20% probably think the moon landing was a hoax. And like the rest of Iowa, it has been gaining Democratic registrations and losing GOP voters. Compared to 2004, there are 5157 more "active" Dems, and 9614 fewer "active" Repubs.
The Des Moines Register:
The dramatic resurgence of registered Democrats in Iowa means the Midwestern battleground that Republican George W. Bush carried by a whisker four years ago may be far less competitive in November, national experts in voter registration say.
None of the states viewed early this year as competitive in the presidential campaign has swung more decisively than Iowa since Bush's re-election, based on a comparison of voter registration statistics.
The Democratic surge is good news for Obama, and it also means that Tom Harkin will glide to victory against his pathetic and under-funded opponent, whoever he is. New Congressmen Braley and Loebsack are not breaking a sweat, and neither is Blue Dog Leonard Boswell, who has had some tough races in the past. That leaves 3 GOP seats in Iowa: Chuck Grassley, who is not up this year, and Congressmen Tom Latham and Steve King, in the 4th and 5th districts respectively. AdmiralNaismith's excellent roundup has more.
Latham is running scared against Becky Greenwald, who made the DCCC Emerging Races list a few days ago. But Steve King seems to be barely running. He has no campaign organization, has made fewer than ten town hall appearances in August, (where he was haunted by an infestation of giant chickens for refusing to debate), and is relying on the same old tired wedge issues such as immigration and gay marriage to get the electorate worked up.
By contrast, Hubler has opened campaign offices across the district and has a good field campaign running. He has been campaigning for months, appearing at county fairs and chamber of commerce meetings in 32 counties.
Former Congressman and Iowa icon Berkley Bedell has signed on as campaign chair, and Harkin, Culver and Vilsack have all helped with fundraising. Joe Trippi is advising the campaign on media. And Russ Feingold's Progressive Patriots PAC is helping as well. The DCCC is late to the party, but at least they noticed that there is one.
The most encouraging thing I've seen so far is the poll from pollster Goodwin Simon Victoria Research, done August 14-17 with 400 likely voters. A three-term Congressman with a 36% approval rating versus 43% "fair to poor" is not in a good place for reelection. Given a generic ballot choice, 36% favor the Democrat and 38% the Republican, while the key subgroup of Independents favor the "Democrat" by a 35% to 29% margin.
The pollster says:
Rob Hubler is the right candidate at the right time. After hearing one positive statement about Hubler and nothing critical of King, voters are quickly able to reevaluate the congressional race, preferring Hubler over King by 47% to 30%. This again underscores how potentially fluid this electorate is. Hubler is a different type of nominee for this district, and his views match up more closely with voters then their current congressman’s.
Their conclusion is that the Fifth District has reached a tipping point, and is no longer a safe GOP seat.
Rob Hubler is a Better Democrat in the Darcy Burner formulation of "more and better Democrats." Rob supports ending the Iraq War, opposed the FISA bill, supports alternative energy, is a champion of veterans (he spent seven years on submarines himself), advocates giving all Americans access to the same health plan members of Congress have, and has made helping victims of domestic violence one of his priorities. He is a retired Presbyterian minister, has taught severely disabled children, and is no political neophyte, having worked for both Tom Harkin and Dick Clark. He's smart, unpretentious, warm, down-to-earth, and years of preaching have honed his speaking skills. In short, he's the real deal.
Steve King's embrace of George Bush and his failed policies says a lot about him, but not enough. He votes with his party except when they are too liberal for him.
Dumb as a box of rocks, and powered by his hatred of immigrants, gay folks, and Muslims he is a reliable vote for any wingnut initiative in Congress. Think Progress documents the atrocities here. It is hard to pick out the worst, but being one of the eleven who voted against Katrina aid would be in the running. Or advocating that immigrant widows of soldiers killed in Iraq be deported.
"A soldier, man or woman, could get drunk in Bangkok, wake up in the morning and be married, as will happen sometimes in places like Las Vegas or Bangkok, be killed the next day, and the spouse who was a product of the evening's celebration would have then a right to claim access to come to the United States on a green card," King said.
Even his conservative colleagues abandoned him on that one. And he is ineffective: of 44 bills he has sponsored, he has gotten one passed: recognizing Christmas as important to Christians. He is willing to turn any serious hearing into a circus, and stage cynical circuses at taxpayers' expense instead of serious hearings.
You can donate to the Steve King Retirement Fund and send Rob Hubler to Congress. If Rob makes some significant gains before the end of September, the DCCC will open their wallets in time for some effective media. This race is a two-fer. Defeating King isn't just taking away one more GOP congressional vote and electing a great progressive Democrat. King is running for Governor already, campaigning across the state. What Iowa does not need is this man making speeches about gay marriage, immigrants and abortion from the biggest podium in the state, and vetoing anything that doesn't align with his narrow and bigoted views. Every line of that poll below is something he actually said.
Rob Hubler is the real deal.
He can use your help.
In addition to contributing, you can help convince the DFA to get behind his campaign by going here.