Democrats optimistic at state party event

DES MOINES - Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said Saturday he believes voters will side with Democrats in the coming election when they realize their opponents aren't offering viable alternatives and, in some cases, are “complete wackos.”

“This is a party that doesn't know how to do anything, the Republicans, other than to destroy, other than to crash and burn,” said Rendell, who was in Iowa to deliver the keynote address at the Iowa Democratic Party's Jefferson-Jackson Day fundraising dinner – an event interrupted briefly as steam from a kitchen oven set off fire alarm sensors at Hy-Vee Hall. and forced 1,200 attendees to evacuate.

“By and large, when you look at what's going on on the other side, a lot of those guys are complete wackos,” he said. “They're talking about things that are absolutely bizarre and they should scare the living daylights out of people.”

Rendell, a former Philadelphia mayor who is serving his second term as the governor of Pennsylvania, said it's a natural tendency for voters to blame whomever is in charge when things are going bad.

However, he said he believes Democrats “are coming home” and voters are waking up to the realization that the root causes of the nation's economic woes predate the Obama administration. He said the GOP message is a return to “the Bush play book,” which got the country in its current situation.

“Why should we go back?” he asked. “We've got to get people to focus on the issues and say, sure, things are bad, but the main reason they are bad is about 200 or 300 greedy guys on Wall Street. It's not anything that happened in Des Moines ... or Washington.

“It's time to choose. Not just say, aw, things are going lousy. Choose, and if we choose, I believe we win,” Rendell said. “It's not a referendum on what President Obama has done or anyone else has done, it's a choice and they're starting to examine that choice and when they do they're starting to come to the conclusion that the Democrats offer the better alternative.

Jim Anderson, executive director of the Republican Party of Iowa, said “misery loves company” because Rendell's popularity in his home state mirrors Culver's slumping numbers.

“Two weeks before an election, with Chet Culver behind by double digits according to nonpartisan polling, Iowa Democrats bring in another failing governor who is supposed to energize their base,” Anderson said. “Choosing Gov. Rendell for their keynote speech is just further evidence of the Democrats' enthusiasm gap.”

Rendell said he senses momentum is starting to build for Democratic candidates, although he conceded the enthusiasm “is a little tepid for my tastes” compared to the fire in camps like the Tea Party. But he noted that “a tepid vote counts as much as a wildly enthusiastic vote” in next months' balloting.

“There's momentum and enthusiasm and there always was,” party chairwoman Sue Dvorsky told the assemblage.

Culver, who with Rendell toured a downtown Des Moines highway connector project funded by I-JOBS bonding money to highlight both governors' support for infrastructure improvements as a way to spur the economy, said he believes momentum is on his side in his race with former Gov. Terry Branstad. “It's really feeling good,” he said. “We're going to close this gap. I'm predicting right now that we're going to win this race.”

Culver vowed to keep the pressure on Branstad to explain how he plans to cut the state budget 15 percent over five years, saying his GOP opponent delivered a “muddled, indecipherable explanation” last week that showed the former governor is “confused, out of touch and unfamiliar with his own proposals.”

Rendell joked that “my guess is, knowing Chet and looking at him, that when he gets momentum, he's hard to bring down.”