The Losers Keep Chiming In

The Losers Keep Chiming In

The generally accepted, or at least polite, move after losing a primary election is to swallow hard and endorse the winner. But in Iowa's top ticket races, so far Democratic Senate candidate Bob Krause is the only one to do the right thing.

Tom Fiegen fired up the Twitter account after a dormant week only to tar winner Roxanne Conlin with the same brush as Republican Chuck Grassley: "Both major party candidates are clueless about economic recovery except proposing more tax credits for their friends, family & contributors." Even Fiegen's supporters, few that they were, have given up on him.

The Fiegen outbursts are neither surprising or significant. The Republican losers, however, are important, or at least their supporters are. Yesterday I noted that Vander Plaats sent off a mass email without using the magic e word. Now today, two more messages from "Iowa Republicans for BVP" (the address includes craigrobinsen, which if you look close is not Craig RobinsOn of TheIowaRepublican) urge Terry Branstad to name Rep. Kent "Chuck Grassley is too liberal" Sorensen as running mate, and a veiled threat to get the state party convention to force the issue.

Sorensen is presently occupied with a run against Senator Staci Appel. But the wisdom of the pushiness, and of that WTF effort to knock Patty Judge off the ticket at last weekend's Democratic convention, is lost on me. Losers don't get to make demands. Is it sometimes smart for the winner to extend a hand to a vanquished rival? Sure, that's how we got our Secretary of State. But losers don't get to make demands.

The people who are being smart is the supporters of Rod Roberts, who's definitely on the short list. Rod, too, sent out an email the other day without the e word, but the tome was much more conciliatory, and the supporters are trying to build a face of grassroots support, rather than making demands.

As for that announcement, Team Branstad says they'll announce via Twitter. Which Obama tried but failed; the Secret Service detail pulling up into the Biden driveway was a bit obvious. Lite Guv is lower profile, so they may pull it off.