GOP Debate

Finally got a chance last night to watch the last debate between Republican candidates for governor Terry Branstad, Rod Roberts and Bob Vander Plaats.

The forum, sponsored by the DM Register, has been hashed and rehashed already. Vander Plaats landed some punches while swinging at Branstad's long and sometimes inglorious record. Rod Roberts again tried to play the adult in the room, although at times he ended up playing the potted plant while TB and BVP mixed it up.

But I think Branstad won. And it was the "lightning round" at the end of the debate that put him over the top in my mind.

While Vander Plaats and Roberts were quick to say they'd only appoint anti-same-sex-marriage judges, bar gay couples from adopting or being foster parents and vote out any justices who signed off on marriage equity, Branstad refused to pander his way on those issues into fantasyland.

Branstad pointed out, rightly, that Iowa's no-drama judicial nomination system does not allow a governor to go fishing for ideologues they'd like to see in black robes. Nominees to the bench are selected by bipartisan nominating commissions who focus on qualifications. A governor has to pick from finalists selected by those commissions.

If Vander Plaats and Roberts want to impose a litmus test, they'd better scrape up the last dimes and nickels they have left in their campaign accounts and form a  presidential exploratory committee. This isn't D.C., where judicial appointments have devolved into ultimate fighting.

I suppose this isn't really surprising, considering that Vander Plaats continues to peddle his fairytale about super governors with judicial vetoes and supreme courts with no authority to determine whether statutes approved by the Legislature are constitutional. Send in the unicorns.

Voters should wonder what else he's willing to snow them on if he's willing to spin such a fabulous yarn about something so fundamental and obvious to anyone who's cracked a middle school government text.

Branstad said decisions on adoption and foster parenting should be made in the best interest of the child. Vander Plaats and Roberts,evidently, think it's the best interest of their campaigns that should matter most.

Their answers prove, yet again, that this is about more than voting and marriage. It's about a desire to reinstate state-sponsored discrimination against thousands of Iowans well beyond matrimony. That's going to be a tough sell to fair-minded Iowans.

Back in the day, folks used to complain mightily about Branstad being a weather vane politician who pandered too often. The fact that he wasn't willing to tell politically expedient fables about the judiciary etc.  tells you just how far his opponents are willing to go to win a few shiny culture war medals.