Thanks Laura, as always. While your stories are Iowa-centric, they provide a good outline of the kinds of political tactics and strategies that are used everywhere. The depth, detail, and sourcing of your reporting are always appreciated!
I continued to be amazed at how much you are able to do every week.
Thanks also for the reminder of your time doing reporting on Russia/Putin. We are certainly seeing more similarities to Putin-esque censorship than differences these days.
Thank you, Laura for these great tips regarding a strangely familiar albeit peculiar “push poll” by the usual GOP political action committee suspects in spreading misinformation, and negative comments about Feenstra’s expected contender.
Let’s pour ‘Sand’ in the gears of this faux polling and Feenstra’s flimsy record as an effective politician for his constituents. Report the questions asked, screen shots etc. if you are arbitrarily polled.
When 3M goes low, Rob Sand goes high. I just hope that Iowa voters finally get a bellyful of Republican vitriol (not Casey's pizza), they return to commonsense.
Anybody who is paying any attention at all to Iowa politics can see Sand is a more sensible candidate than Feenstra. The problem is all the voters whose mantra is "I've always voted Republican", as if that's a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card. Yeah, we all need to be woke, in more than one sense of the word.
Laura, thank you for this excellent article. Not knowing much about Feenstra, I now have an understanding of how he operates and who he is. I was present at a large Sand rally in Davenport last week, and he spoke clearly and revealingly about who he is, what he has done, and what he plans to do. This particular question from an audience member - On your website you don’t have much to say about policy - Rob answered meaningfully that he won’t post anything cookie cutter. He plans to carefully investigate issues and will post researched policy. He is not the usual candidate.
I've been to several of Sand's town halls over the years. He fields questions well. Feenstra has basically never done anything like that and I don't think he would handle himself well with a live audience asking unscripted questions.
I took the survey and it was laughable. At the end there was one question like Why do you believe Feenstra is the best candidate…after I was very clear he was the worst.
Seems the republicans are using much of the same old, same old when it comes to running against Democrats. I think Feenstra’s vote for the Big Beautiful Bill is going to come back to bite him. If that happens none of this is going to matter.
I was contacted by Dynata earlier this week and it was a lengthy "poll". It did include demographic data questions. I don't think the Feenstra campaign would be happy with my responses. I had to apologize to the young woman pollster about my language.
Jim's view: Just an old country boy, Iowan by birth - Missouri raised (just across the line), listening to an ASS bay can make me homesick; however, hearing a whole herd is anything but nostalgic! NO THANK YOU, RANDY
I go not live in the 4th Congressional District so am unable to comment on Randy Feenstra's job performance from a constituent perspective. I can only hope that the opportunity in front of Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Rob Sand, can take advantage of the contrast, while being straight forward with voters.
Maybe Feenstra can get through a whole campaign without any public appearances. But politicians certainly get better at this kind of thing with practice. Sand has a pretty good shtick at his town halls, and Feenstra would probably struggle to handle a live audience.
Actually, when it comes to the farmer, you've got Grassley, Ernst and Feenstra asleep at the switch. The current farm bill is near 800 days past due! Once again, thanks to tRump, China has not bought one bushel of soybeans from this year's crop. This is just like July 2018 when the trade war started--tRump is ruining American agriculture. Currently, no meetings are scheduled. Meanwhile, Grassley, Feenstra and the gang sit on their hands...and do nothing! Farmers, even though they wildly support tRump, are getting hit once again, suffering serious financial loses.
Thanks Laura, as always. While your stories are Iowa-centric, they provide a good outline of the kinds of political tactics and strategies that are used everywhere. The depth, detail, and sourcing of your reporting are always appreciated!
I continued to be amazed at how much you are able to do every week.
Thanks also for the reminder of your time doing reporting on Russia/Putin. We are certainly seeing more similarities to Putin-esque censorship than differences these days.
Thank you, Laura for these great tips regarding a strangely familiar albeit peculiar “push poll” by the usual GOP political action committee suspects in spreading misinformation, and negative comments about Feenstra’s expected contender.
Let’s pour ‘Sand’ in the gears of this faux polling and Feenstra’s flimsy record as an effective politician for his constituents. Report the questions asked, screen shots etc. if you are arbitrarily polled.
When 3M goes low, Rob Sand goes high. I just hope that Iowa voters finally get a bellyful of Republican vitriol (not Casey's pizza), they return to commonsense.
Anybody who is paying any attention at all to Iowa politics can see Sand is a more sensible candidate than Feenstra. The problem is all the voters whose mantra is "I've always voted Republican", as if that's a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card. Yeah, we all need to be woke, in more than one sense of the word.
Excellent article! Very thorough analysis. Hard to find this kind of info anyplace else.
That’s my goal every day: bringing readers news or perspectives they won’t find anywhere else.
Thanks, Laura. This helps me so much to have talking points about Ron Sand and Feenstra too. So helpful!
Laura, thank you for this excellent article. Not knowing much about Feenstra, I now have an understanding of how he operates and who he is. I was present at a large Sand rally in Davenport last week, and he spoke clearly and revealingly about who he is, what he has done, and what he plans to do. This particular question from an audience member - On your website you don’t have much to say about policy - Rob answered meaningfully that he won’t post anything cookie cutter. He plans to carefully investigate issues and will post researched policy. He is not the usual candidate.
I've been to several of Sand's town halls over the years. He fields questions well. Feenstra has basically never done anything like that and I don't think he would handle himself well with a live audience asking unscripted questions.
I took the survey and it was laughable. At the end there was one question like Why do you believe Feenstra is the best candidate…after I was very clear he was the worst.
Thanks, Laura. Well done.
Seems the republicans are using much of the same old, same old when it comes to running against Democrats. I think Feenstra’s vote for the Big Beautiful Bill is going to come back to bite him. If that happens none of this is going to matter.
I was contacted by Dynata earlier this week and it was a lengthy "poll". It did include demographic data questions. I don't think the Feenstra campaign would be happy with my responses. I had to apologize to the young woman pollster about my language.
Jim's view: Just an old country boy, Iowan by birth - Missouri raised (just across the line), listening to an ASS bay can make me homesick; however, hearing a whole herd is anything but nostalgic! NO THANK YOU, RANDY
I go not live in the 4th Congressional District so am unable to comment on Randy Feenstra's job performance from a constituent perspective. I can only hope that the opportunity in front of Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Rob Sand, can take advantage of the contrast, while being straight forward with voters.
Maybe Feenstra can get through a whole campaign without any public appearances. But politicians certainly get better at this kind of thing with practice. Sand has a pretty good shtick at his town halls, and Feenstra would probably struggle to handle a live audience.
Actually, when it comes to the farmer, you've got Grassley, Ernst and Feenstra asleep at the switch. The current farm bill is near 800 days past due! Once again, thanks to tRump, China has not bought one bushel of soybeans from this year's crop. This is just like July 2018 when the trade war started--tRump is ruining American agriculture. Currently, no meetings are scheduled. Meanwhile, Grassley, Feenstra and the gang sit on their hands...and do nothing! Farmers, even though they wildly support tRump, are getting hit once again, suffering serious financial loses.
The Repubs? What a clown show!
Jay + Lynn nail it ;-) (space in URL deliberate): https://youtu. be/ahgjEjJkZks?si=_E0EdqXi0MFuADCv