Paying for Payne

I keep talking about the "old guard" of Iowa City in the context of the city election, but I haven't defined it yet. And now it defines itself with the campaign finance report (pdf) of Michelle Payne (R-Midamerican).

None of the scattered "progressives" and "public health" types that you see donating to Hayek and Dobyns are here. No, this is a nearly pure, old-school list of the traditional power structure in this town. Ambrisco. Lehman. Bywater. Pagliai. (Don't like their politics, love their pizza.) Dee (-feated) Vanderhoef. Streb. West. Ed Barker. Five different Balmers. The only name I see missing is Dickens.

So don't be fooled by the content-free campaign and the pink yard signs: a Payne vote is a Good Old Boy vote, and that crowd already has plenty of representation. The viable, electable alternative, just a handful of votes behind Payne in the primary, is Raj Patel.