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Iowa's race for governor, pummeled into submission. 1. Vander Walker Texas Ranger -- Chuck Norris is opening up a big can of  Texas fundraising tonight (Friday) on behalf of Republican candidate for governor Bob Vander Plaats. Covering Iowa Politics has blow-by-blow detail: More than three dozen Iowans are heading to Texas to rub elbows with action movie star Chuck Norris Friday evening They’ll also be contributing $5,000 per couple to Bob Vander Plaats’ campaign for the Republican nomination for governor. Norris, who has endorsed Vander Plaats, offered ...

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I read recently that Linn County Public Health is seeking some federal bucks to help save us from ourselves. The agency is seeking federal stimulus dollars to get new health initiatives running, in part, because so few of us are capable of running. The agency’s new director, Curtis Dickson, came all the way from North Carolina to convince us to swear off MoonPies and RC Cola before our health goes south. And if federal money comes, behavior modification could follow. There’s talk of ...

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I was deleting some stuff from my BlackBerry when I came across some curious, forgotten memopad files. Essentially, they're electronic sticky notes. Often, when I'm contemplating a column, and I'm standing somewhere waiting for coffee or a beer or bail, I'll tap a stream of brainstorming consciousness into my BlackBerry. I save it and look at it later when it's time to write. I've never gone back and read any of them until now. And their resemblance to some sort of bad, mangled poetry made ...

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The placards are back. Yes, that’s right, it’s time for more city open houses showcasing more options for rebuilding flooded city facilities. We need some more public input, starting at 4 p.m. today at the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel. And what high-quality “public input” it is. Take August’s open houses, where people submitted a whopping 150 comment cards, more than one-fifth filled out by city employees, as The Gazette’s Rick Smith reported over the weekend. And 56 of those cards indicated ...

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You say “backyard chicken” and I say “grab some barbecue sauce and a pint of potato salad.” But that’s not what Citizens for Legalization of Urban Chickens, or CLUC, is talking about. They’re Cedar Rapids residents who want the City Council to allow them to raise a few living, egg-laying chickens in their backyards. CLUC, in case you didn’t know, is only one small battalion in a national poultry putsch. People in cities all across the nation are asking for permission to ...

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Iowa's race for governor, cooked over a wood fire. 1. Joy of Arc-- Joy Corning committed robo-heresy. Terry Branstad hesitated to condemn it. And now Christian conservatives have ordered a stake with all the trimmings. Do you smell something burning? First, the heresy. Corning, who served as Branstad's lieutenant governor/running mate in 1990 and 1994, recorded a robo-call expressing her support for gay marriage. Sources say the issue is somewhat touchy. “Hi, this is former Lieutenant Governor Joy Corning,” the recording begins. “Iowa has ...

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For all the things that divide us these days, I know of one issue that unifies us. Bring it up in polite conversation, and people become emphatic and animated. Men and women, Rush-loving conservatives and Pelosi-hearting liberals, night owls and morning people, meat-eaters and vegans, cat people and dog lovers all agree something has to be done about it. Pronto. It’s texting while driving. Tweeting in traffic. Thoughtless thumbs have us linked arm-in-arm in outrage. It’s nothing to LOL about. All the ingredients are ...

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Cedar Rapids’ mayor-elect has made it clear that the idea of a commuter wheel tax is flat, a local payroll tax deserves a pink slip and the curtain will never go up on a city entertainment tax. Revenue diversification, in the eyes of Ron Corbett, doesn’t include new taxes. But it could include gambling. Corbett says if the Iowa Legislature moves to revive TouchPlay video lottery games next year, Iowa’s local governments should get a cut of the action. “If for some reason ...

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So, as Rick Smith reported Sunday, Cedar Rapids Mayor-elect Ron Corbett and City Manager Jim Prosser met at the Spring House Restaurant Saturday morning to get acquainted. Hunting for a column, I gave them each a call to get their impressions. Let’s get the important stuff out of the way first. Corbett ordered two eggs, over-easy, and hash browns, extra-crispy. Prosser stuck with iced tea. He had breakfast earlier in the day. And this was not necessarily the most important political event ...

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Monday thoughts on the weekend that was. BlackBerry Curve (August 2008 - November 2009) - My smart phone became a dead phone while I stood in Kinnick Stadium during the first half of Iowa’s crushing loss to Northwestern. So what, you say. But my phone’s abrupt transformation into a paperweight made it impossible for me to send an in-game text to my buddy in Chicago predicting the Hawkeye’s downfall. I sent such premature, pessimistic assessments for three straight weeks, only to be ...

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We get a lot of catalogs this time of year. Most of them are flimsy and filled with clothes or overpriced housewares. And, really, who needs catalogs when you can shop online with so little effort. Insolvency was never faster or easier. Still, I find myself missing the big ’ol Christmas catalog. I’m talking about those 5-pound, 4-inch-thick chunks of retail heaven that came in late summer from the likes of Montgomery Ward, Sears, etc. The ones with everything from awful, boring ski sweaters ...

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Iowa's campaign for governor, where rubbin's racin' 1. Meeting Yields Multiple Issues for Terry Tap Tap-- It's been eons since gubernatorial explorer Terry Branstad's closed-door sitdown late last month with Iowa's top social conservative activists. It was apparently a disaster, and we're still picking through the debris. How bad was it? Well, consider the various surviving narratives. Area Retiree Puzzled by Internets -- Branstad didn't seem to fully understand that nowadays, "private meeting" means an event that yields multiple blog postings with sharp commentary ...

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Why don’t we pay governors more like football coaches? Now, I’m not saying I think Gov. Culver should take home $3 million like a certain 9-0 coach around these parts. But I do think there’s one aspect of Kirk Ferentz’s sweet, sweet comp package that could be applied to guvs – bonuses tied to performance. Ferentz makes more loot if he wins the Big Ten, leads his Hawks to a BCS bowl, ends up the season ranked among the nation’s elite teams, ...

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So I was on WMT radio on election night with former Cedar Rapids Mayor Paul Pate. He mentioned some sage advice for candidates seeking office: It’s best to under-promise and over-perform. I thought about that as I was driving to Ron Corbett’s victory party. Meanwhile, the radio was telling me how national Republicans made gains in Tuesday’s off-year elections, dealing a blow to President Obama. Just a year ago, we watched history make people misty-eyed in Chicago’s Grant Park. They waited in ...

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Winners Business Leaders – Winning mayoral candidate Ron Corbett gave his opponents the business Tuesday with the help of strong backing from business leaders. Corbett tapped their anger over the pace of city hall decision making. Now Corbett has to deliver on his promises to end the “culture of delay.” Fast. Unions – Corbett celebrated his victory Tuesday night in a union hall and had plenty of labor backing. Some nice political bridge-building for the former Republican House speaker. But unions will now ...

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On this blessed day when bickering yields to voting, I offer praise to the office-seekers. By now, they could use it. No, I didn’t hit my head. I’m just putting cynicism on hold for 24 hours. It takes guts to put your good name on a black and white ballot, where it will be embraced or flatly rejected by your neighbors and members of your church and the people standing in line at the grocery store. It’s a very big risk too ...

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It’s moment-of-truth time in the race for mayor. Will Ron Corbett, a candidate for four seasons, lead the City of Five Seasons? Is Brian Fagan the comeback kid? Or can P.T. Larson win enough votes to keep the city shopping for a new mayor past Black Friday? Polling isn’t much help. A Gazette poll of 404 likely voters shows Corbett leading 42 percent to 34 percent, with a whopping 24 percent saying they don’t know or won’t answer. And the margin of ...

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A major step forward in Legislative ethics was taken Wednesday. And I'm ethically bound to admit that's not true. The House Ethics Committe  wants the Legislature to consider a measure creating an online list of Statehouse lobbyists who break ethics rules.  And it would be all public and stuff. Take that.  From The Des Moines Register: "This is kind of like the scarlet letter," said Chief Clerk of the House Mark Brandsgard. "We think, to a large extent, this will force compliance because no one ...

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Gov. Chet Culver stepped in it again this week. But this time, I felt his pain. On Saturday, Culver’s office sent out a news release praising Iowa for its football victory over Michigan State, which gave the Hawks an 8-0 record for the first time in school history. I was still hyperventilating after Marvin McNutt’s touchdown grab when my BlackBerry buzzed with the governor’s gushing. Trouble is, Culver failed to congratulate Iowa State on its surprising win over Nebraska earlier in the ...

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Cedar Rapids City Council and mayoral candidates have been using (and using and using) a wide array of insider terms, political lingo and catch-phrases as they seek to curry favor with you, the voter. With Tuesday’s vote fast approaching, I’ve compiled a helpful*glossary of some of the most frequently used campaign jargon. Definitions are based on what I’ve heard from the candidates. No, no. No need to thank me. (*Not really helfpful) Buy Local – 1. Reasonable effort to give local businesses a ...

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Traditionally, newspapers deliver a “get out and vote” message on Election Day. But I’m nagging you a week early. That way, you have ample time to plan. Make some space in your schedule a week from today to cast a ballot. And in the meantime, carve out some time to get informed. There’s no shortage of information in the paper, on TV, on the radio and online about the candidates. Heck, this is a local election, so call up candidates and bend their ...

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Once again Sunday, I sat in judgment over a broad field of competitors hungry for glory, and maybe some kibble. My fellow judges and I sized up the contenders carefully, but in the end, there could be only one champion. It's like the BCS, except it's for pets in costume. It is "Pet-O-Ween." The Cedar Valley Humane Society asked me to help judge Pet-O-Ween for the second year in a row. My kids love the event, so I gladly accepted. And having one contest under my belt, I was ...

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Hundreds of state employees are on the brink of having their jobs washed away in a wave of budget cuts. State troopers, prison guards, you name it. But there’s one group of state employees that has remained untouched. That group is the 150-seat Iowa Legislature. Even after taking a 10 percent funding cut, the Legislative branch budget is $31.9 million. That’s a lot of dough. A little nip here and tuck there and we could save millions. And what do you want, folks, ...

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Iowa's governor's race. You can't win if you're not all in. 1. Nussle was Right! --  Three years after Republican candidate for governor Jim Nussle accused rival Democrat Chet Culver of having a "secret plan" to revive TouchPlay video lottery games, the scheme has been ripped wide open. And Culver said Nussle was "crazy." Ha! The Des Moines Register reports that some "key" lawmakers say a TouchPlay rebirth may be on the 2010 agenda, now that the budget is busted: This time around, video gambling could be ...

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City council candidate Chuck Swore said he nearly had a “heart attack” when he heard a new public library might cost $45 million. That’s some pretty dramatic sticker shock. “We don’t need the same kind of library,” Swore said at a candidate forum. “The Gazette can tell you that. People don’t read the same way they used to read. They go online. You can go online and get about any book you want.” Swore’s right about the fading fortunes of newsprint. But ...

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