Culver's Condition

Gov. Chet Culver delivered his Condition of the State speech this morning.

You can watch it here, if you have roughly 45 minutes to kill.

So what's the condition of our state? "Resilient."

On the record, Culver said Iowans  have been resilient in recovering from disasters and weathering a horrible economy, thanks to "good old fashioned hard work" etc.  Oh, and not surprisingly, Culver contends there was also a very large assist from his administration and hundreds of millions of dollars in I-JOBS infrastructure funding.

Also, "With God's help, all things are possible," Culver said, drawing one of the few moments of bipartisan applause. I wonder if that's because heaven also has a AAA bond rating.

Off the record, Culver climbed to the rostrum in the House chamber hoping very hard to convince us that his governorship is also resilient. Bond ratings good. Approval ratings not so much. And it things don't turn around between now and November, God help him.

That's why, in a speech where Culver said Iowans should look "forward not backward," he spent a lot of time defending last year's legislative centerpiece, the I-JOBS bonding/job creation program.

He had to do it, because I-JOBS has become a punching bag for his political opponents, who say it's a symbol of big, wasteful spending.

Not true, Culver argued.

He peppered his defense of the program with good examples of how I-JOBS is helping - flood recovery, the vets home etc. All fine projects.  But I think he fell short of connecting the dots between those scores of  projects across Iowa and actual, tangible economic improvement for the folks playing at home.

That's the toughest task Culver faces as he starts a post-speech "jobs tour," explaining in plain language and clear numbers how taking on a pile of debt is making Iowans' everyday conomic lives better. Good bond ratings and rosy magazine rankings and stories about buildings built are not enough.

Elsewhere, I was surprised that Culver's fellow Democrats didn't give him a bigger response when he talked about plowing $100 million in reserve funds back into sliced up education programs. That was billed as the "surprise" of the speech and legislative Democrats sort of acted like a kid at Christmas opening up a pair of socks. What else you got?

Come on, folks, this is the guy at the top of your ticket this fall. How about some feeling? I saw you cheer the Hawks and Cyclones. You can do it.

Within the 10-step agenda he pitched was a call for a "major reorganization of state government" that's evidently beyond the efficiencies his office outlined last month. But Culver didn't give any examples of what he means by "real reform for the 21st Century." I don't expect a speech such as this to be all wonky with detail, but one or two tidbits would have been nice.

I'm looking forward to seeing if he's serious about reform. Because if he's going to force school districts to dip deeper into reserves, he needs to provide some safeguards against the state's roller coaster/binge-purge budgeting over the past decade or so. Otherwise, districts will have less of a cushion the next time the state has to cut funding.

Also, we've gone from wanting become the "Energy Capital of the World" to the "Silicon Valley of the Midwest" to today's call for becoming the "Silicon Prairie." of the Midwest. My own microprocessor is suffering from bad metaphor overload.  

This is the beginning of Culver's 2010 re-election pitch. It had all the necessary ingredients, good imagery and the right tone, but the question is was it at all convincing? Will this agenda coax resilient Iowans to take a second look at his rocky tenure?

I'm skeptical, as usual, but it's way too soon to say. You can bet your bond rating we haven't heard him say "resilient" for the last time, however.