Will Iowa Voters Care That Joni Ernst Snubbed The Des Moines Register Endorsement Interview?

The NRA spent $2,365,568 on behalf of Ernst and their NRA Institute for Legislative Action spent nearly $600,000 more. She's their kind of gal.

In 2012 the Des Moines Register endorsed Mitt Romney for president. Obama still took the state's 6 electoral votes 822,544 (52%) to 730,617 (46%). In fact, almost 6,000 more Iowans voted for Obama against Romney than voted for him against McCain. Maybe Romney would have only scored 40% without the Register endorsement, which claimed to be enthralled by his "fresh economic vision." The Register also endorsed Herbert Hoover, Alf Landon, Wendell Wilkie and Thomas Dewey when each of them ran against FDR-- and Nixon twice, including right after Watergate.

The Senate race in Iowa this year, for the seat liberal lion Tom Harkin is giving up, should have been wrapped up long ago. Joni Ernst is one of the worst-- if not the worst-- Republicans this cycle. She's a crackpot extremist and has had trouble coming off as anything other than a crackpot extremist. The problem is her Democratic opponent, Bruce Braley, has managed to step all over a fine record-- one that should be propelling him into the Senate-- with a bunch of foolish rookie mistakes that are making Iowans uncomfortable. The race is down to the wire with the polling average showing Ernst up by a couple of points. Yesterday he may have had a little lucky though. Ernst ducked out of her editorial board endorsement interview with The Register.

She's still whining because a Register columnist, Rekha Basu, has refused to print Ernst press releases and instead does her own independent analysis of Ernst's extremist agenda, like in this column a few days ago.

As a state senator last year, Joni Ernst voted against expanding Medicaid eligibility to include a family of four with an income below $32,000 a year. She lost. That same session, the Red Oak Republican now seeking election to the U.S. Senate, voted not to raise the state's earned income tax credit for the working poor. That would apply to an unmarried person without children making below $14,600 a year.

To complete the trifecta, she rejects increasing the state's $7.25-an-hour minimum wage. But Ernst, a supporter of low taxes, went farther. She voted against giving tax credits to farmers who donate to food banks for the hungry.

Ernst went ape-shit when the column came out and yesterday she said she wouldn't meet with the paper's editorial board because of it, although she didn't deny that there was anything false or misleading in it. Basu had a good laugh on her Facebook page: "Is Ernst that sensitive to the kinds of criticisms that invariably will come in such a high profile U.S. Senate race? Is she afraid of the scrutiny? Sure, it's stressful, but all the other candidates for Congress are doing it to get their messages out, including Steven King, the target of frequent editorial criticism. Would Ernst similarly thumb her nose at the press while serving in the Senate?"

The publisher of The Register kicked her ass as well:

We were disappointed by the Ernst camp’s decision to not spend an hour with the editorial board and share her vision for our state and the rest of the country. This has been an incredibly nasty, competitive race where both sides have spent millions and aired tens of thousands of TV spots. Undecided voters I talk to want Sen. Ernst to break through the rhetoric and cacophony of campaign ads about hogs, Obamacare and balanced budgets. It’s a time for sharing specifics. It’s a chance to have a serious conversation about vision, priorities, the economy, national security, foreign relations and Social Security. I’m not angry she snubbed the Des Moines Register editorial board, which is in final deliberations about our Senate endorsement. It truly isn’t about us. We wanted to discuss the future of the state and allow Joni Ernst to share insights and specific responses to the concerns and questions of Iowans and voters. It’s unfortunate that cannot happen.

The race in Iowa is pivotal for control of the Senate. According to Harry Enten at the FiveThirtyEight blog, "If Republicans win it, then they can afford to lose Georgia and Kansas and win the majority without pulling off an unexpected victory in New Hampshire or North Carolina." And they find Ernst, who admits her support for the highly unpopular Personhood Amendment was not a mistake and, that given the chance, she would ban all abortions and block access to birth control, has a better than even chance-- 66% in fact-- to win a week from Tuesday.