Political Football

Our View – Miller-Meeks is the Republican most ready to claim Leach’s mantle

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hey! that’s my view too -pf

Back in 2006, then political science professor Dave Loebsack faced a seemingly impossible challenge in trying to unseat a 15-term incumbent. Neither national party invested much cash (or interest) in what the political punditry considered a safe seat for moderate Republican Jim Leach.

Democrats nationally and locally thought the best chance to unseat Leach actually came back in 2002, fresh after Congressional redistricting, when Leach faced a formidable challenger in Julie Ann Thomas, a respected physician from Cedar Rapids. Yet Loebsack surprised all but his core supporters when he challenged Leach on his strengths (a firm grasp of the nuances and intricacies of international comparative politics) and capitalized on a wave of anti-incumbent partisan fervor.

Second District Republicans now have two highly credible candidates for taking down Loebsack in the most vulnerable period in any representative’s career: The first re-election campaign. Cedar Rapids funeral home director Peter Teahen brings a wealth of non-profit and business experience dealing with governments in local, state, national and international spheres. And Ottumwa ophthalmologist Mariannette Miller-Meeks brings much authority from her personal story as well as credibility from her leadership in academic and medical circles.

In fact, the June 3 primary question boils down to whether Second District Republicans want to go with Teahen’s experience or with Miller-Meek’s intelligence and energy.

We think the Second District — and the legacy of Jim Leach — would be served best by Miller-Meeks.

Teahen’s experience

Teahen, because of his experience as a mental health professional and a spokesman for the Red Cross, always is ready with an anecdote to personalize many recent crises and catastrophes. Whether it’s his account of spending a few weeks at ground zero after 9/11, his account of being in Washington after anthrax was released or his breaking protocol to warn New Orleans days before Katrina that people would die if the city wasn’t evacuated, Teahen draws readily upon examples from his own career to explain the success and failures of how governments and non-governmental agencies respond.

We appreciate that perspective. And we also appreciate how, with a daughter in the diplomatic corps, he understands the need for diplomacy while recognizing that those diplomats need to be backed up with a strong military.

But as nice as it would be to back a Corridor businessman, we’re concerned about some of the reasons behind Teahen’s history of switching party affiliations. Teahen said he needed to register as a Democrat for about nine years in order to serve on the state’s governor-appointed Board of Mortuary Science. That bit of willingness to bend the rules to serve on a state board raises a red flag.

That’s also why we’re paying close attention to an ethics complaint recently filed against Teahen by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — claiming that television commercials for the funeral home owned by Teahen are disguised campaign spots paid for by corporate money. Teahen told the Associated Press that his staff believes they have complied with FEC regulations.

Any Republican seeking to extend the legacy of Jim Leach needs to be above reproach.

Miller-Meeks’ intelligence and insight

Miller-Meeks is in a much better position to claim Leach’s mantle. Her unique background as a soldier and a medical doctor places her in a good position to challenge Loebsack and to address issues of health care, national defense and economic development. Her time on faculty at the University of Iowa enhances her academic and medical credentials, and her decision to begin private practice in Ottumwa shows her commitment to the state and has given her first-hand experience of how the economy effects small business owners and her patients.

As a doctor, Miller-Meeks’ main issue is health care, and her key focus is on addressing how government programs that decrease payment to providers and hospitals ultimately ration care and limit innovation and technology. Although we balk at her use of loaded language like “Canadian-style socialized medicine,” her concerns are valid and her experience would be an essential part of any discussion of reforming the U.S. health care system.

Miller-Meeks also speaks passionately about alternative energy options and the “travesty” of the nation having had no coherent energy policy for more than three decades. Whether it’s describing the 54 miles a gallon her hybrid gets as she drives across the district or the solar panels that help power her family home, she showed the clearest understanding of the personal and national commitment necessary to addressing energy issues.

And, as her supporters like to point out, she has held one more elected office than Loebsack had when he first ran for office. Having been elected as the first female president of the Iowa Medical Society, she now is ready for the opportunity to run to become Iowa’s first female member of Congress.

Winning hearts and minds

The third candidate, Lee Harder of Hillsboro, seems to have focused his campaign on proving that neither Teahen nor Miller-Meeks is conservative enough. While the former state corrections department chaplain and Liberty University graduate has impeccable conservative credentials, we’re much less interested in any form of ideological purity than in ensuring that our representatives practically represent the needs of all their constituents. Harder’s dogmatism, in fact, matches that of the presidential administration that has helped to create a world in which the nation’s moral authority is falling as quickly as the U.S. dollar.

Teahen and Miller-Meeks both have shown a commitment to results and bi-partisan cooperation rather than to party loyalty. But Miller-Meeks has the intelligence and the integrity to continue the Leach legacy and, potentially, to win over the hearts and minds of a Congressional district in which registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 155,050 to 100,623.

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