Hogg seeks to change the game

On the plus side, Rob Hogg won't shoot himself in the political foot standing next to a bar cart in Texas.

'I am accepting out-of-state money. I'm just not spending all of my time trying to raise out of state money. So I haven't been going to D.C., New York and Houston. Some prior candidate went to Houston and that didn't work out so well,” said Hogg, referring to the infamous video of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Braley begging for bucks in Texas while maligning some farmer named Grassley. It helped sink his 2014 campaign.

Hogg, a state senator from Cedar Rapids, is running for the 2016 Democratic U.S. Senate nomination and has been since last summer. He's been traveling the state, visiting 82 counties so far, with an emphasis on meeting Iowans instead of raising money. As for out-of-state trips, he admits slipping over the border to Moline and Sioux Falls.

His message to any Democrats who are concerned that big bucks are damaging our politics is pretty simple.

'We've got to change it,” Hogg told our editorial board. 'The way you change it is by supporting candidates who are committed to running a different kind of campaign.

'I am committed to making this an election about Iowans. I think Iowans will respond to that,” he said.

But can a U.S. Senate race really still be about Iowans? It's no sure thing after 2014, when campaigns and outside groups poured more than $40 million into the state, bucks that filled our TV screens with tens of thousands of attack ads. They defined the campaign, leaving Iowans as weary, disgusted spectators of a political traveling circus beyond our control.

Now that the battle over Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland has dented U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley's once invincible freight train to re-election, Iowa's Senate seat may be on the national map once again. Grassley, of course, has millions of dollars in his campaign account.

National Democratic leaders sensing an opening are not-so-quietly pushing former Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge to be the nominee taking on Grassley. Hogg has raised $178,000 in seven months. Judge joined the race in March and raised $215,000 in a single month.

From the outside, Judge, who also served as Iowa Secretary of Agriculture, looks like a better bet. That might bring resources from Democratic aligned groups to counter what's certain to be a large-scale outside effort to defend Grassley's seat. Hogg, for all of the Iowa endorsements he's collected, might not draw the same sort of help.

So do you change the game or play it to win? That's the dilemma for Iowa Democrats.

Hogg and Judge are leading a field that also includes former state lawmakers Tom Fiegen and Bob Krause.

Hogg has plenty of river and stream cred with grass roots Democrats who admire his record on water quality, climate change and other environmental issues. He contends that gives him an edge over Judge, an ally of large ag groups who is viewed more skeptically by progressives.

Hogg contends he can stoke more enthusiasm than Judge. But money still matters. Either way, besting that farmer is a long shot, with or without the bar cart.

l Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com