Miller-Meeks: Time for Iowa to move past Mississippi, elect a woman to Congress

IOWA CITY - Mariannette Miller-Meeks is hoping 2014 is a breakout year.

Iowa is one of only four states - Vermont, Delaware and Mississippi are the others - never to elect a woman to Congress and Miller-Meeks thinks it's time to change that.

'It's about time that we launch ahead of Mississippi and put a woman both in Congress and the Senate, and I think this year we're going to do that,” the 2nd District Republican candidate said Thursday.

Lending his support at an Iowa City GOP campaign office rally Thursday morning, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum predicted Miller-Meeks will be 'part of a Republican wave here in Iowa.”

Although Republicans account for little more than one in four registered votes in the sprawling 24-county southeast Iowa congressional district, the race doesn't seem a sure thing for four-term Democratic incumbent Rep. Dave Loebsack.

Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, has included the race on its list of 'sleeper” contests where it says new polling suggests these races - like many more competitive contests - are closing, creating eleventh-hour opportunities for the parties.

President Barack Obama carried the district by a double-digit margins in 2012. And yet, Roll Call called it a potential GOP pickup opportunity.

House Democrats, according to Roll Call, 'almost solely blame” Braley for dragging down the ticket.

Based on its sense that Loebsack and 1st District Democrat Pat Murphy are vulnerable, the National Republican Congressional Committee has poured $1.3 million into those races. That led the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to move $420,000 to new television ads in the Cedar Rapids market, which covers much of the 1st and 2nd districts.

'The partisan breakdown of these districts present a big challenge for Republicans,” Roll Call says. 'But that these seats are even in play suggests election night could be ugly for Iowa Democrats.”

Miller-Meeks believes her message is resonating with voters because it's relevant to voters who see a lack of leadership from Obama and Loebsack.

'They see Dave Loebsack voting in lockstep with his party rather than seek out the best ideas,” she said. 'Voters want us to focus on outcomes, solutions, not partisanship.”

Voters, Santorum added, see Obama and Loebsack pushing 'Washington values” and not acting like 'the people you grew up with next door.”

It's not only that Obama has proved incompetent, Santorum said, but he's keeps pushing his ideas without taking into account that they are not working.

'He doesn't have the best interest of America in mind,” said Santorum, who is considering a 2016 presidential bid.

That heightens the importance of Iowans electing Miller-Meeks and GOP Senate candidate Joni Ernst, people who will put The United States first and pull Obama to the political middle.