Iowa is not about to go woke

If you think that pinko Rob Sand will make a hash of Iowa, rest easy buckaroo.

We’re tops in cancer and rooting around the bottom in economic performance. So things are not that great after 10 years of one-party government in Des Moines. Schools are sliding and the paint is peeling near the railroad tracks. What a pity.

The Republicans have had enough time to get it right, or at least make it better. Our water is getting worse and expensive. Hog dung wafts as you walk along the lakeshore. Our property taxes are rising. Try to find a nursing home bed for grandma.

It used to be better. Now the village can barely keep the bar open. Storm Lake’s streets are decrepit. People who can read the exit signs leave.

So Sand cannot make it worse as governor. It looks like he can win. He is selling earnest, and most of us yearn for that in the Age of Trump.

His opponent, Republican Zach Lahn, wants you to think Sand will tax you til you bleed.

Sand is running as a centrist who hates both parties. Let’s suppose that in the privacy of his own bedroom, if there is any, he dreams about a liberal playland where he can tax and spend like Trump does.

He still has House Speaker Pat Grassley, grandson of eternal Chuck E, to reckon with and an even more Republican Senate.

Temper your expectations. It will take years to unravel what Reynolds hath wrought: a ban on abortion, a flat income tax, stripping public employees of labor protections, abandonment of livestock regulation, private school vouchers, book bans and gay shaming.

Sand would like to start by undoing the privatization of Medicaid. The insurance companies who got the business won’t give it up without a fight.

Polling indicates voters will approve a constitutional amendment on the November ballot requiring a two-thirds vote of the legislature to increase corporate or personal income taxes. Socialists will be confounded. Either close more rural schools or raise the sales tax til they quit buying.

Sand proposes to legalize weed to help take a bite out of billion-dollar deficits. He says he can work with Republicans on this because they need the money. Speaker Grassley was not reared to think that way. He would rather starve the beast. To hell with the school orchestra.

The abortion ban will hold with a Supreme Court appointed by Reynolds. The best Sand will do on vouchers is to perform an audit to see how the money flows to West Des Moines and Clive. The legislature will not back off its ban on teaching “divisive concepts” in school. Gun rights are secured.

The governor does control the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. The past 40 years demonstrate that no governor is bigger than the Farm Bureau, the Agribusiness Association of Iowa and the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, not to mention the commodity groups. We didn’t get to be the most polluted state for nothing.

It is conceivable that Democrat Chris Jones — who thumbs his nose at the agri-industrial cartel — could be elected secretary of agriculture. The energy that Jones generates is helping Sand, because everyone says that they want clean water. Between them, they could make a difference for clean water and air but they are up against a mountain of corporate money defending the status quo. This is Iowa, not quite Nebraska but certainly not Minnesota. Here, clean lakes are a luxury and the morning breeze is colored with a whiff of sulfur.

Sand and Jones would make a difference. They would restore funding for water monitoring. They might get better oversight of confinement operations. They could make federal conservation payments more attractive. Rural communities would get a hearing, at least.

They claim Jones is anti-farmer. He worked for the soybean association. Nobody in Iowa is anti-farmer. It is against the state constitution.

Get real.

Sand would do the Republicans a favor by taking the edge off their worst excesses. Lahn seems to think Sand can raise your fuel prices. He cannot. That would take an act of the legislature, which will remain in Republican hands unless Harold Hughes climbs out of his grave. That could happen, you suppose, with Trump marching us toward Armageddon. Until then, don’t worry. It will take awhile to recover from the Reynolds Era that dragged us back 30 years.

Sand offers a check on right-wing extremism, a huge relief. He cannot unilaterally cut tuition at Iowa State or tell a Republican court how to rule. We have a lot of damage to fix. Jones already has won by elevating clean air and water to the top of our civic agenda. His quixotic campaign appeals to our conscience. Sand appeals to our common sense, which could be satisfaction enough.