Political Football

Last week I was surfing for some good state blogs and ran into this one that I thought had “gone dark”. I sent a post to ask the blogger if he would add the muscatinecountygop.org site to his blogroll and I see that he did. I need to reciprocate on the county site. Then today I ran into this article. -pf

Friday, May 23, 2008

Teahen in Krisis Management Mode

While the media seem to still focus on the Boswell/Fallon Democrat Primary in the 3rd CD, it’s the Republican Primary in Iowa’s 2nd District that is creating news in the weeks leading up to the primary.

If you talked to any Republican insider in January, February, March or April and asked them about the 2nd District Primary the general consensus was that Peter Teahen was going to walk away with the nomination. They would point to his resume, him being from Linn Kounty, and the fact that his family has run a funeral home in the area for decades.

In under a month the tables have turned, and there is doubt that Teahen will be able to hold on to his perceived front runner status. His problem? He’s getting out worked by a tiny optomoligist from Ottumwa. To put this in perspective, it would be like a well known Des Moines businessperson having problems getting their campaign off the ground because of an unknown candidate from Grinnell is out working them.

Now when I say that Mariannette Miller-Meeks is out working Teahen, it’s not just on the grassroots side, fundraising, or voter contact, its all three phases of the campaign. Again, people assumed that Teahen being from Cedar Rapids was going to be an advantage; it has not been thus far, just look at their fundraising numbers.

Miller-Meeks has raised $94,530 thus far for her kampaign.

Teahen has raised $49,096.00 but has a kampaign dept of $31,663.76.

Simply put Miller-Meeks seems to want it more, I’m told she’s knows the issues, and has the ability to raise the funds needed to mount a serious challenge against Loebsack this fall. It looks like if you want a kandidate to put this race in play, your best bet is Miller-Meeks.

It has also been a terrible week for the Teahen kampaign. First he sees that Miller-Meeks continues to raise more money than he can, her kampaign releases their poll which shows she has erased any Lead Teahen might have had, and if it couldn’t get any worse he gets a FEC komplaint filed against him for the TV ads his funeral home had been running.

Sound familiar? In the 1st District Primary last cycle the Kennedy kampaign filed a komplaint against Mike Whalen for this TV ads for the Machine Shed that featured Whalen. Now just 2 years later we have Teahen running an ad that features him self saying stuff like, “I’m Peter Teahen, and I’m proud to be an American.” From what I’ve read it sure sounds like a bio ad for a guy running for Congress.

So it’s probably just a koincidence right? No. There is a link between Teahen and Whalen, its Victory Enterprises. It seems this is how you win the tough ones… A friend sent me the picture above of former Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Steve Grubbs, it looks like he plays for both teams, which is probably helpful to Teahen since he has had difficulty sticking with a party throughout his life.

Miller-Meeks deserves a lot of credit for out hustling her opponents, Teahen has run a terrible campaign.

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