Dickinson to speak to the Clinton County Chamber of Commerce

September 27th noon

A Dickinson staffer stopped into our Central Committee meeting tonight. Have any of you DUers had a chance to meet with Bill yet?

I hate to sound too negative, but the Chamber of Commerce is not kind to Democrats. They are anti-union and anti-trial lawyer and donate almost entirely to conservative republicans. They are pro= cheap labor and for government welfare for corporate interests. I hope Mr. Dickinson is going there to tell them that their policies are hurting Americans and Iowans. Will Mr. Dickinson be adopting the Chamber initiatives or will he tell us how he differs from the Chamber?

I have tons of issues with them, and I agree with your points as well.

I was only letting everyone know that a candidate was coming to town.

I don't think you are all that negative, your generalizations about Chamber of Commerce types aren't all that far off for the most part.

However I think we need to keep in mind that the Chamber isn't the Republican party and there are members that do a great deal of work with progressives in their communities. The Cedar Rapids Chamber has worked on quite a bit lately that was in line with the ideals of organized labor and the Democratic Party (The Home Rule Vote, The Fifteen in 5 Project, etc.). The Chamber and the Hawkeye Labor Council (AFL-CIO) actually worked quite closely to get our form of government changed here.

I think to win and be an effective legislator you have to learn to build coalitions and work with those that may not be spot-on in agreeing with you every time.

If Mr. Dickinson were to go in, speak to them, and pander and pussyfoot around his ideals, then yeah, that would be wrong. If he can go in and demonstrate the fact that Democrats are committed to economic development and growth of locally-owned businesses and sway a couple of the attendees in voting/donating to his campaign, then way to go Dickinson.

My two cents.

He is a nice guy and I could live with him as my Rep, but Braley seems to have a little more fire and at this point at least get me a little more excited.