When incumbent candidates have a strong successful record, they run on their accomplishments. When candidates must run on a failed record, lack any positive visions and refuse to discuss their positions, they turn to negative ads. With a failed record of achievements, Governor Reynolds has chosen the latter by going negative in a desperate attack on her opponent Fred Hubbell. You only need to walk by the Republicans’ State Fair booth to see that.
Reynolds is running misleading ads, if not downright lies, about Hubbell’s record as head of Younkers more than 20 years ago. In the time period 1986-1989 when Reynolds and the GOP claim Hubbell was firing workers, Younkers actually hired over 1,000 new employees. The raise that Hubbell received wasn’t a raise, but rather a promotion to the parent company, Equitable of Iowa. It’s obvious Reynolds and the Republican Party plan a campaign fueled by fake news. As Bleeding Heartland reported in a recent post, it’s Reynolds who has said “you’re fired” most frequently to her employees.
“Since the start of the Branstad/Reynolds administration, more than 2,100 state jobs have been eliminated as mental health institutes, the Iowa Juvenile Home, and dozens of workforce development centers were shuttered,” Bleeding Heartland wrote.
The Republican Party of Iowa has fully joined as an accomplice to these ugly personal assaults on Hubbell’s character and accomplishments. A nasty and mocking caricature of Fred Hubbell is the central backdrop for the Iowa Republican’s Iowa State Fair booth. The Republican Party Chair, Jeff Kaufman, has become the official attack dog. He began to refer to Fred Hubbell as “Sir Frederick” long before Hubbell even won the Democratic primary.
The Iowa GOP have erected billboards with the same theme as well. These all-out negative personal assaults on Hubbell by Reynolds and the Republican Party of Iowa confirms their lack of a positive record to run on.
Even Senator Grassley sees through Reynolds’ smokescreen of negative advertising. When asked about Reynolds going negative on Hubbell, Grassley warned.
“I always stick to policy when I’m campaigning, and I would advise other people to stick to policy,” Grassley said Wednesday when asked about the state party referring to Hubbell as “Sir Frederick.”
Add the recent Reynolds’ announcement to end regular weekly media press conferences, and you see a campaign under siege. Reynolds is running full speed away from her own record and shutting out the media who might ask her difficult and tough policy questions about her failures. It appears Reynolds is retreating to a Trump like anti-media position. When she was recently asked if she agreed with Trump’s accusations that the media was an “enemy of the people“, she refused to answer.
“I am not going to weigh in on what the president is saying,” said Reynolds.
It appears Iowa now has a governor too fearful of Trump to stand up for one of the nation’s fundamental Constitutional rights, “freedom of the press.”
At a recent Reynolds’ event with 25 local famers in Southeast Iowa, the media was suddenly kicked out. The discussion had been promoted as a public event and welcomed the media, but after arriving reporters were booted and told they weren’t welcome. It’s likely Reynolds feared the media would report farmers voicing their concerns about the Trump tariffs devastating effects on agriculture.
Democrats’ message to Reynolds: You must take responsibility for your failed policies that have resulted in lost jobs, stagnant wages, a Medicaid nightmare and filthy water.
Governor Reynolds, you can run but you can’t hide!
by Rick Smith
Posted 8/17/18
4 Comments on "Kim Reynolds Has Nothing But Attacks To Hide Her Record Of Failure"
Gov. Reynolds and the Iowa GOP think they own Iowa. They are more interested in making money for themselves and their rich friends than in caring for the hard-working, average citizens of Iowa.
With their personal attacks on Fred Hubbell so early in the campaign, it shows that the GOP is desperate to find any positive accomplishments over the past few years. They are hoping that issues will not be important in the Nov.
election and the voters will choose based on emotional factors.
I would bet that Iowans are smart enough to see thru these political tactics
and vote for candidates who are able to
restore honor and pride back to our state.
The Republican tactic at the Iowa State Fair of attacking Fred Hubbell for being rich and supposedly callously firing Yonkers employees is mind-boggling.
Not ten feet away from the depiction of Mr. Hubbell with a Monopoly board mustache and monocle is a stand-up cardboard cut-out of Donald Trump, supposedly for taking selfies.
Donald Trump, who just got done firing the same person for the fourth time after hiring her four times.
Donald Trump, who has presided over the largest turnover (read, firing) of White House staff in modern times.
One other noteworthy item at the Fair was the observation that Gov. Reynolds and her running mate have their huge photos on a booth where other state office-holders observed the law in their booths and did not have photo displays. One staffer at the Democratic Party booth not far from Reynolds was rightfully livid about the whole thing.
Time to return fire twice as hard. I’m sick and tired of the Dem candidates taking a passive stance when someone lies about them. Maybe the state party or someone else needs to hit back at Lying Kimmie.
I moved to Iowa from a more urban area several decades ago. Out-of-state friends and family used to occasionally ask me what it was like to live in a state where the politics were relatively clean and civil. I don’t get asked about that anymore.