Former Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-IA), Democrats’ current leading contender to take on Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) in the fall, is already fighting for her political life — and that’s just to get on the ballot.
Wait. There are 99 counties in Iowa and she needed 100 signatures in 19 of them, and couldn’t get there?
She doesn’t stand a chance if she couldn’t get enough signatures to surpass what would seem to be a pretty low bar. Maybe Dems are just that unpopular in Iowa. Or maybe her campaign staff dropped the ball…
OK, stupid question. What politician doesn’t know that you need to get a bunch of extra signatures in case a few get thrown out?
I certainly want ol’ Grassley to take a hike (suffer a defeat), but if Finkenauer and her staff/campaign cannot tend to the necessary details out of the gate, what does it say for her (their) long-term ability to propose legislation and govern effectively?
It’s going to be tough for any Democrat to win in the fall, but we still have a couple of good candidates in the primary.
Michael Franken looks like a well qualified candidate though I’m only going from what I read in the link.
I’d be astonished, but ecstatic, if any Democrat actually wins the race.
It’s nice to know a few Democratic campaigns mastered the basics of getting on the ballot. Hard to feel much sympathy for Finkenauer in this instance.
Getting the required signatures + a few more is not rocket surgery. If her team is this bad out of the gate, she’s no chance anyway.
Not stupid at all. Need 100…get 110.
More like 125. And not Mickey Mouse and Goofy
So, this comes down to “just three signatures with either the incorrect date or no date at all.”
If those three got tossed, Finkenauer would only have the necessary 100 signatures in 17 counties
— not the required 19 — disqualifying her from making the primary ballot.
So, it would seem that
Seriously? Is this a genuine representation of the actual facts?
Because if it is - it is highly infuriating - it is a real WTF! no margin for error - no attention to detail.
… IF this is the absolute truth … then get out NOW!
?
Question #2
if the Democratic Party makes the rules for participation and enforces the rules and adjudicates all judgment call matters regarding the rules … where is the opening for the two registered republicans to insert themselves into the judgment call portion of the process?
Like the article said, Finkhauser’s looking at a daunting task, but unless there’s something contrary, she did the work.
The original article stated that she only had one or two signatures to spare in one of the counties. If the rule is 100 signatures in each of 19 counties, you will need extras in every one of those counties. Submitting a list with 101 in a county is like drawing a target on your back. Maybe the article got it wrong, don’t know.
Her tweet says that she copped more than 5k.
I think it’s important to look at this knowing the signatures were made by the person signing and that those people were legally positioned to sign. There’s no question about that. What’s happening is a couple of GOP’ers are out to “cancel” this woman even though she has less than a snowballs chance in hell of winning.
It appears that the requirement is:
She may be 100% correct in stating:
"Our campaign submitted more than 5,000 signatures—1,500 more signatures than are required to qualify for the ballot. "
but if she failed on the … " including at least 100 signatures in 19 different counties."
… then no, she did not do the work to completion.
I would really like to see something that showed that she totally met the requirement.
However, it just makes me nuts if it is true that her campaign went with 101 & 102 in two counties when they needed 100 valid signature - irresponsible if true !
No. After other signatures were eliminated, they were down to barely 100. So lets you and others here stop projecting that her campaign sailed into this with bare minimum signature counts. What is happening is that a GoP challenge is attempting to change the interpretation of the rules on signature dates just for this candidacy, and a new GoP judge is going along with it. Past Iowa precedent says that when date is missing or incorrect but the signature appears amidst others on a page with correct coherent dates, it is assumed to be valid.
Adams County is the smallest county in Iowa. In 2020 there were 1,530 voters for Trump and 590 for Biden.
Collecting signatures is trickier than it looks.
More desperate Rethugliklan bullshit.
It kind of reminds me of the District Attorney who argued before a Supreme Court (I don’t remember which state) that a man should be executed because his attorneys didn’t discover the exculpatory evidence in time.
A justice asked him: “Are you arguing that an innocent man should be put to death because the evidence that proves his innocence beyond all doubt wasn’t presented before the expiration date of his right to file an appeal?”
“Yes, your honor,” he replied. You see, rules are rules.