Commentary
Iowa Republicans owe their Democrat colleagues a big thank you. The Democrats’ extreme positions have crippled their own party’s position in the state.
That’s the conclusion I reached after talking with more than 30 Republican leaders during a two-day visit to the Hawkeye State.
I have been going to Iowa for nearly 40 years (including campaigning for Jack Kemp’s presidential run in the 1980s and, of course, my own campaign in 2012). I have accumulated a lot of ties to the state.
My wife Callista went to Luther College in Decorah, and one of her closest friends is from Nevada, Iowa. Joe Gaylord—my political partner in developing the Contract with America with whom I just wrote “March to the Majority”—went to the University of Iowa and has been working in Iowa politics since the early 1970s. My friend, mentor, and supporter Linda Upmeyer was the first woman Speaker of the Iowa House and has a deep knowledge of the state at every level….