Tuesday Is Election Day-- Just A Small Number Of People Will Decide The Fate Of A Whole State... Iowa

You can't have missed the merciless attack on working families that has been underway in every single state where the Republican Party has managed to grab power. The gloves are off and the fangs of no-holds-barred fascism are out for real-- from Wisconsin, to Ohio, to Michigan, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Alabama... wherever a right-wing legislature and a right-wing governor can get away with whatever they want with no checks and no balance. Last month we took a look at what's behind the latest Republican powergrab in Iowa. Authors Mike Lux and Corey Robin set the stage what GOP reactionary politics and their historical imperative to attack the basis of emancipation for working people. Now we have to face the actual election... in three days.

There's a deranged Republican governor (and lieutenant governor) and a GOP majority in the lower House. A thin-- one vote-- majority in the state Senate has kept the Republicans in check. That 26-24 majority is on the line Tuesday because the Governor Branstad appointed a Democratic senator, Swati Dandekar, a very conservative, Blue Dog-type, to a statewide board, just so he could call a special election that could allow Republicans to take control of the Senate-- and thereby and the entire Iowa state government. If Republicans win, there’ll be a 25-25 tie which would be broken by the Republican Lieutenant Governor. There are 50,000 voters who can decide the fate of all Iowans-- and the GOP has a 140 person registration advantage. This is going to be tight. This week the NY Times covered it like some kind of a reality show-- more exciting than whether or not Nancy Grace will finally be kicked off Dancing With The Stars or whether or not the Kardashian "marriage" was ever consummated.

By any standard, the midterm election had been a landslide for Iowa Republicans. Last November, the party won back the governorship, gained a majority in the General Assembly and nearly took the Senate, leaving a perilous 26-to-24 edge there as the Democrats’ sole claim to power.

But, as frustrated Republicans would soon discover, that sliver of a majority was enough to halt much of their conservative legislation from ever being debated, let alone voted on, including bills on property taxes, business regulation, education, abortion and, most controversially, a ballot measure to reverse the state’s distinction as one of the few to permit same-sex marriage.

Now Republicans see a second chance to resuscitate their agenda. In a move his opponents call both shrewd and cynical, Terry E. Branstad, the Republican governor, pushed aside more than a dozen applicants for a high-paying post on a state board and instead recruited a moderate Democrat, Swati Dandekar, who happened to be a state senator from a Republican-leaning district.

...Michael E. Gronstal, who, as the Senate majority leader, decides what legislation comes up for debate, promoted obstruction as an accomplishment. He has warned that without the divided government, Republicans would overreach, and he specifically cited the situation in neighboring Wisconsin.

“We were able to stop them from passing a whole bunch of bad legislation,” Mr. Gronstal said.

Though both candidates have insisted that the race will be decided on local issues, the statewide implications have consistently risen to the fore-- staff members for both party leaders in the Senate have been out knocking on doors. Most discussed is the future of same-sex marriage in the state, an issue that has featured prominently in state elections since the unanimous 2009 ruling by the Iowa Supreme Court that overturned a state law limiting marriage to unions between a man and woman.

Groups opposed to same-sex marriage, including the National Organization for Marriage, are sending fliers for Ms. Golding, and supporters of same-sex marriage have been volunteering on behalf of Ms. Mathis.

“We see it as a great opportunity to break the handcuffs, to advance some pro-family issues, primarily the marriage vote,” said Bob Vander Plaats, president of the Family Leader, who led the successful effort last year to vote out three State Supreme Court justices because of the same-sex marriage ruling.

Troy Price, executive director of One Iowa, a gay rights organization, said that if Republicans took the seat, a statewide vote on banning recognition of same-sex marriage would become more likely, though Mr. Price noted that such a referendum could take place no sooner than 2014.

Our friends at Progressive Kick are handling an aggressive absentee ballot campaign for the Democrats and we've been helping them raise money for the kinds of boots on the ground efforts that can win this contest and hold back the right wing horde. BleedingHeartland.com is reporting promising trends in the early voting. "As of 2 November, the Democrats have exceeded their 2010 general election return total, while the Republican ballot requests (thus far) fall short of 2010 early voting, with a substantially larger lag in returns." That is exactly the work Progressive Kick has been doing with the generous contributions online. "Poor GOP performance," they report tentatively and hopefully, "coupled to elevated Dem and NP returns in the more youthful precincts that posted some of the more favorable results for 2010 judicial retention bodes well for Democrats retaining the senate majority."