2nd District GOP primary race getting testy

UPDATED: The gloves are coming off in the June 8 Republican primary for the nomination in Iowa's 2

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District. 

Steve Rathje is running an ad on broadcast and cable TV telling Republican primary voters it's time to bench Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

Standing in front of football goalposts and gesturing with a football, Rathje says: 

“I coached football for several years and sometimes the returning quarterback didn't give us our best opportunity to win, so we were forced to make some changes. I believe the same is true in politics.” 

An announcer reminds voters that Miller-Meeks lost to Mount Vernon Democrat Rep. Dave Loebsack by 19 percentage points two years ago. 

Rathje's video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/SteveRathje#p/a/u/0/AOQHGDtCBIQ.

Miller-Meeks called the video “a deceitful, deceptive attack by someone going into a last minute panic” and threw the football analogies back at Rathje. 

“So we're supposed to pick someone who has been sitting on the bench and couldn't win his primary after running for two years rather than someone who has been playing the game?” she asked. 

 However, a spokesman for the Rathje campaign denied it was a "mean" ad.

“It's surprising that she called us pointing out that she lost to Dave Loebsack by 19 points deceitful,” said Todd Henderson. “Perhaps she needs to go back and take another look at the scoreboard because she did in fact lose by 19 points."

And Rathje lost a two-way primary in 2008 to Christopher Reed – who's also running for the 2

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District nomination this year -- in the race for the GOP nomination to take on Sen. Tom Harkin, Miller-Meeks noted. 

That year, she won a three-way primary to get the 2nd District GOP nomination. She's considered the front-runner in the four-way race for the nomination to challenge Loebsack this year. The suggestion that the “returning quarterback” doesn't give Republicans their best opportunity to win seems to enhance Miller-Meeks front-runner status in the 15-county congressional district that stretches from Linn County to the Missouri border and east to the Mississippi River. 

In addition to Reed, Rathje and Miller-Meeks, Rob Gettemy of Marion is seeking the nomination. 

The four are scheduled tom participate in a candidate forum at 7 p.m. May 26 at American Outfitters, six miles south of Mount Pleasant on Hwy. 218. 

Rathje was the first to run TV ads and Gettemy followed. Reed plans to air aids in June. Miller-Meeks doesn't plan to run TV ads, preferring to focus her advertising, primarily direct mail, on likely primary voters. 

 “I have the resources to do what we need,” she said. Referring to her professional training as an ophthalmologist, Miller-Meeks said she works with lasers and prefers a laser focus over a scattershot approach. 

“I look at the audience to determine the best method to reach the primary voters and to get them to the polls,” she said.