Political Football

Well we got just a bit more than 24 hours notice that Rudy was going to be back in Iowa on Friday. For me personally, it was the most fun I’ve had at an event to date and I didn’t hear a word he said or even shake his hand! The story I’m most interested in telling is at the very bottom of this post because I spent the last 30 minutes there.

We were talking about taking time off work and driving there, but then got the call that we were needed and gladly accepted the mission.

The event was held at Ross’ Restaurant on the corner of State Street and 14th under the I-74 bridge over the Mississippi. The first people were three people waiting on a mission to see Rudy - pictured below with Ambassador Terpeluk (Luxembourg 2002-2005). He was traveling with Rudy on this 2 day 6 event swing through Idaho, Iowa, Illinois. Tracie, Rudy’s paid staffer for SE Iowa, picked them up at the airport at 3am on Friday Morning z z z z z z 

These three are regulars every Friday at Ross’ and they heard from the couple’s son (the two in the middle) that Rudy was going to be at Ross’ on Friday. Funny thing, their son is in Grenada! All three are leaning Rudy (they like Mitt too) and were very nice to talk to during the down time. The fellow on the right is a friend of theirs who got a scripted autograph in a copy of Rudy’s book “Leadership” during the event. The autographed book is for his wife’s 60’s birthday and Rudy wrote what he asked him to write and more.

I did talk to the Ambassador for a bit. Rudy’s campaign needs a higher internet presence - his website is fine but more needs to be done generally on searches, etc.  joinrudy2008 and a better use of humor, IMO. The Ambassador said the campaign has over 9,000 video clips on file - but that’s not what I really meant. Hmmm…

this is a good picture of the Mayor, and you can see Maggie Tinsman just out of range to the left side of the picture (Maggie is a state co-chair and is running the SE Iowa district volunteer effort for Rudy with Tracie)

I just couldn’t resist posting this picture. A young family had breakfast at Ross’ just to meet Rudy.

The lady in the forefront is the daughter of the owner of the Restaurant. I will try to ID the others later. ( and those below)

To me, this is the most interesting story. During these “meet and greets” Rudy will literally shake everyone’s hand (ok I missed because I was a moving target during the event) and create a photo op or sign an autograph. At some level this is a better event that the “town halls” because of the informality. Iowa is really lucky that we get to meet the next President of the USA at this level of informality.

This picture (below) was taken at the very end of the event. The gent shaking Rudy’s hand was with two older people who, until after Rudy left, I assumed were his parents. As it turns out he was just helping some older acquaintances with water damage and brought them to Ross’ for breakfast. They didn’t know Rudy was going to be here. “Do you think I would have dress like this?” he said. From our conversation he was clearly a Rudy fan. After sitting in the booth for a minute (I was handing out brochures, answering questions about Rudy’s candidacy) the husband and wife with him were unclear on the value of Rudy’s candidacy and (imagine this) we talked.
This is going to be hard; I promised Allan and Joyce (the older couple) a letter with more information since they don’t have internet access. I’m worse with snail mail than I am at returning phone calls.

I sat down and talked to Allan and Joyce for about 20 minutes toward the end of the event because they had some questions and wanted to tell me about the problems they had with Rudy generally. I promised them more information but will outline the conversation here. I never asked them if they were ( R ) or ( D ) it doesn’t much matter - we talked issues. Allan’s two big issues for President is 2nd amendment rights and a relationship to lack of union support that affected him personally in the 1980s during Ronald Reagan’s terms as President.

Rudy is going to have problems with gun advocates. Saying he supports 2nd amendment rights to keep and bare arms will not be good enough in the Midwest. I did think he answered the question as best he could in this video - click here to view it.

What Rudy did previously was based on governing the largest City in the world that was also at that time - the crime capital of the United States. He had to do something and he focused on reducing taxes and removing guns. He’s said in his 12 Commitments that what is right for NYC is not necessarily right for Montana. He believes states should make their own laws on gun control - but he has stated again and again that he supports 2nd amendment rights and would never be in favor of removing guns or the ability to carry licensed guns. I fear this will never be enough for some voters, but those who call Rudy a “gun grabber” are unfair.

However, Rudy frankly admits not everyone holds the same views that he does on every issue - but his “80% friend is not his 20% enemy”. What you won’t see is Rudy changing his mind about issues based on polling data. Voters need to balance how each candidate may govern based on what they say and prior experience.

The second issue Allan wanted to talk about was a bad feeling he had of memories of President Reagan firing the Traffic Controllers in the 1980s when they went on strike - and probably more importantly, losing a union job in the 80s that he associated with Reagan.

I’m not sure people understand or remember that it is illegal for government workers to strike and PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) did just that. If you take this link here, you can read a Q&A session including President Reagan’s opening remarks on the announcement. Basically, Reagan allowed the workers to return to work within 48 hours or face termination. Most lost their jobs, many returned - air travel continued.

You can read here what I think about unions. I’m not anti-union, I’m pro economic growth. You can also search on the Iowa Politics category to view other posts from me about the Fair Share bill unions are trying to cram down the Democrats and Republican throats in the state house this year.

It got so nasty one of the three democrats that did not fall into line with the unions, changed party affiliation after the session ended this spring.

From a purely business perspective, it’s horrible law. Few new businesses will re-locate in Iowa if this bill is made law, some have threatened to leave Iowa. Union leaders aren’t concerned about long term impact on workers families - look at the rust belt; jobs are gone. Unions were started for a good reason, and are responsible for some good things like the 40 hour work week and overtime. But I have a simple statement that you will read over and over in these posts - “you can’t be pro-worker and be anti-business”. Too many union leaders don’t balance the profitability of businesses when representing their unions in negotiations, and union leaders for government workers think there is an unlimited supply of money from your tax dollars.

Rudy understands there needs to be a balance. It’s interesting that the Union Leaders of the Fire Fighters don’t support Rudy, but a significant segment of the rank and file do support Rudy. It’s hard to be a union member and fight the tsunami of the labor organization against republican principles.

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