Grass roots, person-to-person campaign paying off: Conlin

CEDAR RAPIDS – A day-and-a-half before the June 8 primary election, Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Roxanne Conlin likes where she's at.

Conlin is encouraged not only in the three-way race for the Democratic nomination to face five-term Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley – she's well ahead of her rivals by most accounts, but where she is in closing the gap on his lead in the general election polls.

Although Grassley had a double-digit lead in polls conducted early in the primary race, Conlin has closed within 8 percentage points of the incumbent “with a pure grass roots, person-to-person effort,” she told a couple of dozen supporters at IBEW 405 in Cedar Rapids June 6.

Despite grim predictions for majority Democrats, Conlin said the 2010 campaign will be a “wonderful time for Democrats and people running against incumbents … because of the failure of government.”

Conlin, who faces former state legislators Tom Fiegen of Clarence and Bob Krause of Fairfield in the primary, said the federal government has failed on Wall Street, Toyota, the BP oil spill and Johnson & Johnson children's medical products that were found to contain metal shards.

“The cops were taken off the beat,” she said, laying the blame on the Bush administration.

“It's time for a change,” she said. “The special interests have had their turn. Now it's our turn.”

Her 50 years of political activism, her career as a federal prosecutor and trial attorney “standing up for ordinary people” and her high name recognition that helps her raise enough money to be competitive against the incumbent make her the best Democrat in the race, she said.

In response to a question about the cost of ethanol subsidies, Conlin disagreed with Fiegen on continuing support for ethanol. If the nation is to become energy independent, she said, “We must move toward every kind sustainability, including ethanol.”

However, that doesn't extend to nuclear power.

“I'm too queasy about it,” she said in reply to another question. “Boy, I'm not comfortable with it.”