The Iowa Democratic State Convention: Fred Hubbell & Rita Hart

Caption: A sign I photographed at a Johnson County Labor Day Picnic, which was attended by Democratic elected officials, including sole Democratic Congressman Dave Loebsack, union members and their families, and other Democrats. Unions are a powerful tool for raising wages and getting benefits for workers. That's why the majority Republican legislature said they were going to "tweak" collective bargaining rights for public employees and ended up gutting them, except for some law enforcement officers and all firefighters once Republicans were in the majority of the Iowa legislature and Gov. Kim Reynolds, former Gov. Terry Branstad's clone and successor, continued Branstad's war on public employees, unions, and collective bargaining rights.

Democrats really want to win elections this year, but I'm not sure they've picked the right strategy. Have they set themselves apart enough from Republicans to win? As a Cathy Glasson delegate to the Iowa Democratic State Convention in Des Moines, I noticed a majority commitment to not "committing political malpractice," as one male delegate firmly stated, especially when the Second Amendment came up. A progressive movement to update/alter the Second Amendment was soundly defeated. I think the majority should have committed to outlawing assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, but again, Iowa is a backward state and the March for Our Lives young people were evidently not on the minds of the majority of Democratic delegates although one person stood up and mentioned them as a key potential voting bloc. I agree.

Some environmentalists wanted to support the relicensing and construction of nuclear power plants as a carbon-free way to reduce global warming, but that amendment was also soundly defeated. A delegate said that if the nuclear power plant in Palo, Iowa were to malfunction, Iowa would be like Fukushima, which is still producing massive amounts of uncontrolled radioactivity. I voted against nuclear power. A tornado or an earthquake could create disastrous conditions for a nuclear power plant. Yes, we live near the New Madrid fault line, which is located near the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. From December 16, 1811 through March of 1812 over 2,000 earthquakes struck the central Midwest. The Mississippi River ran backwards, James and Dolly Madison felt the earthquakes in the White House, and church bells rang in Boston.

Regrettably, a progressive amendment from Cathy Glasson progressives to replace "'living wage" with "raising minimum wage to $15 per hour regularly indexed to cost of living allowances" was defeated. "Living wage" won. The sad part of "living wage" is that it is completely subjective. What a small business owner or a corporation thinks is a "living wage" is usually not a living wage.

I left the convention "early" at about 9:30 or 10:00 p.m. after the Democratic delegates overwhelmingly voted for pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli language in a platform plank that could have been written by the virulently anti-Semitic, pro-Palestinian United Nations. I was disgusted. Boldness on that front doesn't help low-wage workers in Iowa. Iowa Democrats find their "victims" in curious places. Professional victims who teach their children that their only value is as martyrs in constant jihad are not constructive builders of a viable society.

Palestinians who will not accept Israel's sine qua non [without which nothing], Israel's right to exist, and continually threaten to annihilate Israel by whatever means necessary have coopted their chances for a two-state solution and peace for the past 70 years. I'd be a little cynical about the Palestinians' desire for peace too if I were Israelis, not that all Israelis are sympathetic or should be to their corrupt leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, who unnecessarily makes mischief with the Palestinians and whose political and legal future is justifiably in peril. His wife, son, and friends have been implicated in his corruption and arrogance.

Be that as it may, listening to two Jewish women say that they lost ancestors on both sides of their family to Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust but side with the Palestinians against Israel, which declared its independence three years after the Holocaust, was depressing to say the least. (They spoke at the Second District District Convention in Fairfield.)

By the time I got home to Iowa City at almost midnight, I was very hungry. On the road I kept fantasizing about a fish sandwich and a chocolate frostie at Wendy's, which I visit maybe once every two years. I try to boycott fast-food restaurants because I know they don't pay their workers a living wage. However, Saturday night late so many places were closed, and I didn't want to stop at a bar. I was so tired and hungry I was beginning to hallucinate during the last 25 miles toward home. One little string cheese at the convention cost $1.50 and I didn't want to miss anything, especially a vote. I did have a bowl of soup for lunch with friends.

So I stopped and ordered a fish sandwich and two chocolate frosties in case Jim got up when I got home.

"No fish sandwiches, only during Lent," the cashier told me.

So I asked for a chicken wrap.

"We're out of wraps right now. Sorry, ma'am."

So I ordered a berry chicken salad. They had that, and it was good once I got home and ate it. As I pulled around to the pick-up window, a beautiful, tall black young woman rang up my order and a handsome, tall black young man got my frosties. I told them I just came from the Democratic state convention and we tried to get $15 an hour with cost-of-living raises into the platform, but the majority of delegates wouldn't go for it. We got "a living wage" instead.

The young man said with quiet fervor, "I need that money," meaning the $15 an hour.

"We tried," I said. Then he said, "Bless your heart, ma'am."

We need to woo and register voters with more than good intentions. Concrete numbers like $15 talk louder than a "living wage."

It may indeed be political malpractice to talk about altering the Second Amendment, although as one delegate pointed out, we could bring along the MSD High School, Parkland, Florida survivors and their followers (count me as one) along with us if we could instead support outlawing assault weapons and high capacity magazine clips. Some progressive ideas like that might just set us apart in a way that makes us a more attractive and noticeable way than the Second Amendment as is and "a living wage."

We need every vote we can get in the Iowa governor's race which the Cook Report just labeled a "toss-up" election. That means Fred Hubbell can't afford to alienate too many progressives, like the 37,000 who voted for Cathy Glasson, who came in second in the gubernatorial race with almost 21% of the vote, and not being as bland as milk toast. We need to bring new voters to the Democratic Party with broad, billboard-high signs that Iowa Democrats are about making the lives of the least paid among us better.

"$15 an hour minimum wage with COLA increases" may not be to the liking of corporations and small business owners, but it certainly would set Democrats apart from Republicans, who rolled back the minimum wage in the four counties that had just raised it from $7.25 an hour to higher back to $7.25 an hour. In Johnson County, it's figuratively but not legally $10.27 an hour. Johnson County's raise of the minimum wage is honorable but not enforceable, thanks to state Republican elected officials.

I'm sure the staff at Wendy's could care less about the Palestinians and Israelis. Democrats need to be bold and progressive about things that matter to working people.