Josh Turek needs a coach

Retired Sen. Tom Harkin endorsed Josh Turek of Council Bluffs for the Democratic nomination for the US Senate seat that Harkin once held. As such, Turek could benefit from Harkin’s tutelage on how to campaign as the happy warrior who takes on the power structure. Turek will need it if he finds himself in a general election campaign against the formidable Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Marion.

First, Turek must get past Zach Wahls, a state senator from Coralville who out-performed Turek in an Iowa PBS televised debate. Some of their enmity for each other came out. Afterwards, Turek’s campaign called Wahls a millionaire and a hypocrite. As if Turek does not suck up to millionaires and billionaires in the Beltway. Millions of dollars in political action money flowed from DC to exceptionally good TV ads for Turek.

Turek did not object when surrogates and advocates went negative on Wahls, calling him a phony and plastic. They should not have gone there. Turek would have built a lead just on the strength of those tremendous TV ads of the candidate pumping his wheelchair up the hills of the Bluffs. Tell us about your determination to win a gold medal in Paralympics basketball for Team USA, and how it made your hearts well with patriotic pride for the American Way. Don’t talk trash on your Brother Wahls.

It must prove that he has what it takes to savage Ashley Hinson, because that is what her campaign will attempt to do to him. Hinson will claim that he is owned by Chuck Schumer and George Soros. She is submersed in the tank for Trump, who will spend any amount of money to get her elected. We need a Senate that can put a check on Trump, not another puppy like Sen. Joni Ernst.

Wahls makes a coherent argument about how corruption in Washington and economic decline in Iowa are connected. Wahls supports Medicare for All — does that sound like a water boy for corporate interests? He would move to strengthen the Packers and Stockyards Act if the Justice Department does not protect independent livestock production. Wahls would not vote to deputize local law enforcement to sweep up immigrants for ICE as Turek did. Turek and Wahls each are married to immigrants.

Turek claims to be a “prairie populist.” JD Scholten of Sioux City actually is one. He was our guy in the Senate primary but had to drop out because the big money was not with him. Scholten endorsed Turek.

With some training from Harkin on candor and cheer, and some education from Scholten on what ails Northwest Iowa, Turek could become a candidate who can beat a savvy Hinson, a former TV news anchor who completely understands how to manipulate a message inside-out. He is not that candidate yet, judging from the debate performance and the unworthiness of his campaign’s take on Wahls. If Turek wins the primary he will have work to do mending fences within the party, which is already at a structural disadvantage.

Turek also must craft a message of hope prevailing over greed and division, which he is uniquely qualified to deliver. That is the Tom Harkin technique. If he can make that pivot with a lead heading into the June primary, Turek will be positioned to run a competitive general election campaign.

Sen. Joni Ernst came to Storm Lake to give the Cobblestone Inn an award, and made herself available to the local and regional press afterwards for assorted questions. Our own reporter Tom Cullen asked Ernst about hard times in agriculture in the here and now, and she reverted to the talking point that it is Joe Biden’s fault. It’s like flipping on a switch with her. She is programmed. Our man pushed back, noting higher fertilizer and fuel prices, and Ernst called him a “liberal hack” in front of the TV cameras. He was just a reporter asking a question on behalf of farmers in the Corn Belt. That is what our politics has become. Shoot the messenger.

Fortunately, Ernst is not running for re-election. We would not call her a hack, but ProPublica reported last year that Ernst had affairs with two high-ranking military officials while on the Armed Services Committee. Her former husband alleged her extra-marital dalliance with a soldier in divorce proceedings. She denied it. We certainly would not call her a liberal. But while serving in the governing majority Ernst has voted to drive our federal deficit and debt to record levels with Trump as president. So we could not call her a conservative.

What we would call her is yesterday’s news. Her datebook likely will have openings.

Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this editorial appeared. His latest book, Dear Marty, We Crapped In Our Nest: Notes from the Edge of the World, is available from Ice Cube Press. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.

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