sun tans, golfing and drinking and not enough time hating.

Therefore, he has to go.

I refer to western Iowa as "Steve King country" and try to avoid it unless absolutely necessary.

pig waste too long. Ernst is also from around his area, so you should be able to get a hint that there are those who will vote for farmers who talk tough and cut pork.

Has Ernst spewed any gems, today? I figured she'd straighten out Congress on her first day. Both are an embarrassment to the citizens of Iowa.

..... whether all the racism and xenophobia has a strong resonance with a significant part of his district

Obama would run that little shit through before he figured out which end of the sword was the pointy side.

if you take the average IQ of IA-04 (Steve King) and add that to the average IQ of TX-01 (Louis Gohmert) the sum might reach a comfortable room temperature.

Them folks don't need any of that book lerning to figer out how to vote right.

n/t

Kelvin sounds really Europeany... kind of like appeasement and socialism.

You'd have to be a commie to think that Kelvin would fit in with IA-04 and TX-01. Are you a commie xocet?...Come to think of it that kind of reminds me of a Frenchie missile or something.

Now Fahrenheit, that's a nice tough sounding name, I think that fits better.

Or much else, for that matter - he's about as bright as Sarah Palin. BTW, the Burr-Hamilton duel wasn't fought over "honor"; it was over politics. Burr thought Hamilton had slandered him by calling him a dangerous man with respect to holding public office (the slander was hearsay). Burr killed Hamilton and was later indicted for murder; even in those days dueling was not favored as a way of settling disputes.

the quintessential demagogue. Demagogues rely on the gullibility and 'passion' (as opposed to 'intellect') of their followers.

were idiots for engaging in a duel. Hamilton in particular given his son had died a year before in a duel. Later events proved what a scoundrel Burr was, but I still think that Hamilton went into the duel with as much intention of engaging Burr as Burr had with him. All of those involved in sordid affair (Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Burr, and Hamilton) demonstrated that while they may have been great political thinkers with some good ideas for the time, they had feet of clay like most. I always feel uncomfortable with the level hero worship that surrounds the founding fathers. On the one hand calling for the Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness while nearly a million lived in chattel slavery, half of the remaining population did not have basic contract rights or the right to vote2, and another significant portion had rights curtailed by lack of property.

I used to live there, in Woodstock.

I like to give myself credit for Gore winning Iowa in 2000. Of course it was my LTTE in the Globe-Gazette and my making calls on election day that carried Cerro Gordo and Floyd counties for Gore providing 83% of his margin of victory for the whole state.

That's what I like to believe anyway.

I noticed though, at the same time that Gore won my congressional district about 60-40, that the incumbent Republican also won the district by about 60-40.

It's a different district now though, Mason City was not in the 4th at that time. The 4th leans Republican by 45.3 to 53.4 according to 2012 results. So a challenger is going slightly uphill. Incumbents are always tough to beat though. They have the name recognition across the district. They have piles of money in their war chests. They get to travel around the district and do mass mailings to the district at taxpayer expense.

Plus, let's face it, a guy like King has won a whole bunch of elections. Meaning he knows a little bit about campaigning. His opponent in 2014 seems to have been a 28 year old who has never been elected to anything. King beat Christie Vilsack in 2012, despite her name recognition and massive funding. Vilsack may have been hurt by being a carpetbagger. She had to move into the district.

...they are.

farmers and retired farmers in small communities. Iowa has a deep R history and little interest in social issues unless you are in a college town like Ames or Iowa City. Their schools used to be good but I don't know today. There are a lot of RW churches in this area and that may be part of the problem.

But even that does not explain the election of this vile hateful and stupid man. I guess it had to be bigotry and greed. There does not seem to be any other explanation. This is not the Iowa I grew up in.

probably thinks Steve King is too liberal. Not quite sure I understand it. One nice thing is that since he left the group the political discussions have gone to almost nothing (thank goodness). Still have several with Obama Derangement Syndrome (those whose portfolios have increased 50% under him).

My older daughter is at Iowa State. Since she is in engineering she really has not had any classes discussing politics. She is too busy just trying to survive. I do know that my daughters' who admitted a pretty typical suburban community school had friends who were pretty liberal when it game to LGBT rights. A little less so regarding reproductive rights. Little discussion about social equity questions, but willingness to accept anyone irrespective of background.

What I have to wonder is what these western communities are going to think when one of the chief goals of the right - the destruction of the post office - is successful. I lived in a small town on the Minnesota border in the middle of the state. The post office was an important part of the town.

Another consideration is if federal funding for the Rural Electrification Corporation and other programs targeting rural areas (see http://nationalaglawcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/assets/crs/RL31837.pdf).

Finally we get to farm subsidies.

of the help. When the things you mention plus social security start disappearing they are in for a big surprise. Iowa has its share of takers also. One of the things that happened where I lived in Iowa near the MN border was that we eventually moved to MN. I have lived here since 76. I moved for my disabled daughters sake.

The overwhelming majority of voters in either party don't take part in deciding who their party's House candidate is, so that's determined by the party honchos and a handful of activists. I'm sure you could find an exceptional amount of idiocy among those people, But the average Republican voter probably doesn't pay any attention to what Steve King says, and may not even recognize his name. When it's time to vote, he or she votes for the candidate with whose name has an R by it. If my congressperson was a Democrat who happened to be a complete isiot, I wouldn't even consider voting for the Republican, so it would be hypocritical for me to ridicule Republicans for voting their party. I can ridicule them for being Republicans, but not because their Republican happens to be Steve King.

miles beyond politics