Former aide: Branstad has to take control of administration

DES MOINES - To win re-election, Gov. Terry Branstad will have to convince voters that he has control of his administration, his former chief of staff said Friday.

'I think he can improve his governance of the state and I think he needs to,” Des Moines attorney and Republican Party activist Doug Gross said.

Gross, state GOP Chairman Danny Carroll and Craig Robinson of TheIowaRepublican.com said the five-term governor has to change the conversation from questions Democrats are asking about secret settlements and mismanagement to why he deserves a sixth term.

Legislative Democrats have been hammering the governor on a daily basis with floor speeches and Government Oversight Committee hearings into allegation that 25 confidential settlements - 10 with lump-sum payments - had been signed with dismissed state workers since Branstad took office in 2011. In response to news reports about the settlements, Branstad issued an executive order to bar confidential employee settlements going forward.

'The question here,” Gross said during taping of Iowa Public Television's Iowa Press, 'is whether or not he in fact has appropriate control and management of the state government.”

Iowa Press can be seen at noon Sunday on IPTV, at 8:30 a.m. Saturday on IPTV World and is available at www.iptv.org this evening.

Gross allowed that the governance issue 'bleeds into impacting an election.”

The governor, he said is ultimately responsible for the actions of his administration.

'He is a great delegator, it's why he's a great person to work,” Gross said.

'He's not a micromanager,” interjected Carroll, a 12-year member of the Iowa House.

That management style works as long as the governor has people on his team who 'running the place consistent with your principles and your management style.”

'In some cases that hasn't happened so it has to improve,” Gross said.

The allegations are forcing Branstad to run a campaign unlike his previous campaigns, Robinson said, 'and this isn't going to be a cakewalk.”

In the past, Branstad has been able to effectively label his opponent - Junk Bond (Lowell) Junkins, 'Tax-Anne (Roxanne) Conlin, Robinson said.

'But now it has flipped and it's Terry Branstad who has to deal with these issues and being labeled rightly or wrongly,” Robinson said.

He and Carroll concurred with Gross that Branstad will be re-elected because Democratic challenger Sen. Jack hatch of Des Moines is 'far, far too liberal.”

'When you bring the mayor of San Francisco to Iowa to help with your fundraising, as I think he did two or three years ago, that's not Iowa, that is not who they're going to elect,” Carroll said. Mayor Gavin Newsom helped raise money for Hatch in 2005.

Democrats, Robinson speculated, are kicking themselves for not having 'a far better, more centrist” candidate than Hatch.

'Look, I think the governor is vulnerable, but maybe not so vulnerable when his opponent is going to be Jack Hatch,” Robinson said.