Here’s what conservatives can learn from election losses in 2023

Voters in the Cedar Rapids Community School District overwhelmingly rejected a $220 million bond issue in this past Tuesday’s election. At the same time, they overwhelmingly approved the re-election of all three incumbents who supported both the bond measure and the demolition of Harrison schools. Ironically, the only ousted incumbent was the one who opposed those measures — Dexter Merschbrock of District 4 was defeated by newcomer Kaitlin Byers.

In the Linn-Mar district, four candidates supported by district residents angry over the April 2022 passage of a since-effectively gutted transgender student policy fell short in favor of two incumbents and two others with whom the incumbents ran as a slate.

What can we learn from the re-election of these incumbents? Disappointment alone is not always enough to sway voters to make a change. The Cedar Rapids schools’ electorate may not have been thrilled with the board’s ask to borrow a pile of cash to be repaid by taxpayers over the coming decades. Linn-Mar’s transgender policy, which addressed the needs and comforts of very few at the expense of very many, remains a stain on the district. Yet voters in both districts, obviously not thrilled with their alternatives, chose to stick with what they have.

Some of the losing candidates had worked hard and deserved the positions they sought. Others gave voters ample reason to demur. Cedar Rapids at-large candidate Don Taylor barely uttered a whisper during his run. Most voters didn’t know he was on the ballot until the ballot was in their hands, usually by which time a voter’s choice is already made.

District 1 candidate Stacie Johnson had lots to say on her campaign’s Facebook page, but not many followers to read it. Her website was hard to find, and its “About me” section was so long and verbose, it made the ramblings of your friendly neighborhood opinion columnist look succinct by comparison.

Questionable mailer spreads misinformation

At-large candidates Barclay Woerner and Rick David were linked to a dubious piece of campaign literature. The mailer was sent to some residents in the district containing photos and QR codes for the websites and Facebook pages of both candidates under the words “PLEASE, VOTE TO KEEP OUR CHILDREN SAFE.” Between the pictures of David and Woerner was a poorly-spaced list of the two candidates’ qualifications and policy positions.

If the front of that mailer didn’t have the campaign organizer in me wondering who on earth crafted it, the back of it sure did. It contained pictures of the four incumbent candidates with an X through each picture under the words “DO NOT REELECT,” along with a list of reasons for voters to reject the incumbents.

That list contained several inaccuracies, the most egregious of them a claim that new CRCSD superintendent Tawana Grover was fired from her previous school district in Nebraska. To be fair, Grover’s departure had followed months of controversy culminating in a sea change on the local school board, something that should have probably raised the eyebrows of the Cedar Rapids board during the hiring process. But her resignation was 100% of her own volition.

You’d think someone would verify that before putting it on a campaign circular. Who was behind it? We would know if it contained the attribution statement required by Iowa Code 68A.405. Neither Woerner nor David responded to my inquiry about the literature two weeks ago.

What can conservatives learn from the worst campaign mailer I’ve ever seen? That can be summed up in three simple words: Don’t do that.

Endorsements turn toxic

Sinking David’s and Woerner’s candidacies even further was a pair of endorsements from Moms For Liberty, a conservative parents’ rights group founded in 2021 by two moms and former school board members in Florida. The group’s opposition to COVID policies like mask mandates and ideologically suggestive curriculum on topics such as race and gender, which they see as an intrusion on parents’ rights, has earned the group the label of “extremist.”

“Extremist” is bunk, as is M4L’s designation as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a once-respected civil rights law firm that decades ago abandoned its initial mission of assisting impoverished defendants with legal representation in favor of becoming a powerhouse of left-wing political advocacy.

That being said, Moms for Liberty does engage in activism like challenging books with inappropriate content found in school libraries. Having read excerpts of some of the books their members have challenged, I believe the group’s contention that they’re not after classics like “To Kill a Mockingbird.” They’re more concerned about books like one in which a man describes in detail his first sexual experience — with his cousin — made available in a school setting to kids as young as 14.

Of course, that’s going to earn the label of “book banning,” denounced on both sides of the aisle, and a reputation for controversy that extends to anyone endorsed by the group. This election showed it — all of the candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty failed.

Even those who rejected an endorsement were seen by voters as extremists if they didn’t explicitly denounce Moms for Liberty or their candidates. Those candidates were no more able to avoid being labeled as evil book-banners than Moms for Liberty itself has been able to avoid the extremist classification successfully bestowed by its adversaries.

What can conservatives learn from all this? That until Moms for Liberty figures out how to shed that extremist label, association with the organization could be toxic to a candidate. It doesn’t matter if that association is real. It only matters what voters perceive.

Perceptions blur reality

Take the Cedar Rapids bond vote, for example. It didn’t matter that the demolition of Harrison Elementary wasn’t part of the referendum. Harrison’s fate won’t change, even after voters gave the bond issue a good hard “hell, no.” Any voter who saw that as the way to save that rickety, beautiful old building was mistaken.

But accuracy and correctness don’t always apply when ballots are cast. Perception is reality. And thanks to horrendous timing and really bad communication from the board, voters arguably perceived $220 million worth of fancy upgrades to be directly tied to Harrison’s demise.

Abortion on the ballot foreshadows conservatives’ political future

Elsewhere in America, state Democrats had huge wins in Ohio, Virginia and Kentucky, undoubtedly delivered by pro-abortion voters in several different ways. In deep red Kentucky, where Republicans hold over 80% of seats in each legislative chamber, vocally pro-abortion Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear handily fended off Republican Daniel Cameron.

In Virginia’s first legislative elections since the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme court decision sent the abortion question back to the states, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin had been angling to flip the Democratic-controlled state Senate hoping that it would join the GOP-controlled state House and send a 15-week abortion limit to his desk. Instead, Democrats held control of their Senate and flipped the House back to blue.

And in Ohio, voters easily approved an amendment to the state constitution enshrining the right to an abortion. The new amendment supersedes any law, prohibiting abortion before the age of viability, including Ohio’s currently enjoined fetal heartbeat bill.

What can conservatives learn from the results in those states? That even in red states, pro-abortion voters have been galvanized by the Dobbs ruling. And they’re organizing with a force anti-abortion voters haven’t been able to fathom, let alone repel.

Republicans need to quickly learn that they can’t always use law to fix what culture has failed to cure. That only works if they stay in control. No matter how many victories conservatives have had in areas like preventing your kid’s school from hiding their gender transition from you, staunch anti-abortion voters and legislators need to realize — now — that their hill worth dying on could indeed be where their legislative majority dies if they ram through laws that culture will eventually reject.

Most Iowans agree that sex-protected spaces in schools and parental involvement in their kids’ choices is a no-brainer. But culture has convinced many — most, even — that abortion is solely a matter of women’s health, not at all the immoral destruction of life in the womb. They’ll keep believing that because the anti-abortion movement has failed to convince them otherwise. They don’t know how to win the argument, let alone change the culture. That means if Iowa Republicans lose legislative and even executive control in the coming years, only more unborn lives will be lost when Democrats take power and eliminate most or even all restrictions on abortion.

Do I seem a little nervous for my side of the aisle? Am I sounding the alarm for conservatives in a state where every leftist is currently wailing about the GOP’s iron grip on government? Yes.

Why? Because perception decides reality to too many people already. And if my side wants to hang onto its power, it better start letting reality decide its perspective.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com