Campaign postcard leaves endorsed candidates crying foul

CEDAR RAPIDS — How many candidates can complain when some unknown backer pays to mail a postcard to Linn County Democratic voters on the eve a primary election to tell them to vote for you?

Four of them.

For now, no one is claiming credit for the Democratic campaign postcard that went out to homes in Linn County late last week, upset four candidates in four different races and criticized Pat Murphy, one of five candidates vying for the Democratic spot on the November ballot in the 1st Congressional District.

The mailing is paid for by Voters for Better Government, an unknown entity that has not registered with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board.

As it takes a dig at Congressional candidate Murphy, a state representative in Dubuque, the postcard promotes the campaigns of four Democratic candidates in four different races.

None of the candidates or their campaigns on Friday said they knew anything about the postcard. All said they rejected its message.

The candidates being promoted on the postcard are Rep. Bruce Braley, Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, state Sen. Jack Hatch, Democratic candidate for governor, Andrea Jackson, Democratic candidate for Linn County supervisor in supervisor District 1, and state Rep. Anesa Kajtazovic of Waterloo, who is running in the Democratic primary against Murphy along with three other candidates.

One problem with the postcard is that it appears to lump Braley, Hatch and Jackson into the criticism of Murphy when Braley, Hatch and Jackson, no doubt, want the support of backers of Murphy just as they want support from the backers of any of the other four candidates — Swati Dandekar, Monica Vernon, Dave O'Brien and Kajtazovic — in the 1st Congressional District race.

The postcard criticism of Murphy would seem to benefit only Kajtazovic, who is running head to head against him in Tuesday's Democratic primary in the 1st Congressional District.

However, Majda Sarkic, with the Kajtazovic campaign, said the campaign had no connection to the mailing and didn't like it.

'The communication by this group does not represent our message, which focuses on Anesa's positive record of fighting for middle-class families,' Sarkic said. 'We do not find the mailer helpful to our cause.'

At the same time, the postcard could most hurt Jackson in her Linn supervisor race, where she is going up against three others — Ian Cullis, Jim Houser and Kim Taylor — in Tuesday's primary.

Hatch and Braley have no primary threat.

Jackson said she didn't want to be associated with the postcard that attacked Congressional candidate Murphy, and she said she phoned Murphy on Thursday evening to assure him personally that she had not part in it.

'I want people to know why I'm the best,' Jackson said.

Jeff Gertz, spokesman for the Braley campaign, did not approve the use of Braley's photograph and 'does not condone its message.'

'Unfortunately it was used anyway,' Gertz said.

Hatch spokesman John Hedgecoth called the mailer 'a mystery and a puzzle.'

'We don't condone being connected with these kind of attacks,' he said.

Aaron Bly, campaign manager for Murphy, said the Murphy campaign was too busy 'working and plugging away' to get out the vote that it didn't have time to worry about criticism on a campaign postcard.

The postcard asks voters to 'Vote for Representation that works for YOU!' underneath photos of Braley, Hatch, Jackson and Kajtazovic.

On the reverse side, it says, 'Pat Murphy? After 22 years in the Iowa House, why are our roads so bad?'

Murphy has been in office 25 years.

Megan Tooker, executive director of the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board, on Friday said no campaign had complained about the Voters for Better Government mailer. Her office had no record of the entity, she said.

She added that such entities involved in state and local races are required to file papers if they spend more than $750.

Joel Miller, Linn County Auditor and commissioner of elections, said his office's own postcard mailer to Linn County households cost about 34 cents each. He estimated that there about 54,000 registered Democrats in Linn County, though only a small percentage of those are likely voters in primaries.

He said last week's campaign mailer needed to meet Federal Election Commission guidelines as well as state guidelines because the mailer mixed state and local races with federal races.