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GOP Gubernatorial Candidates Debate in Davenport
Mar 06, 2010
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats sharply criticized former Gov. Terry Branstad at the Scott County Republican convention Saturday, saying the state’s education bureaucracy has grown bloated ever since “we sold out education” to win the 1994 election.
All three of the Republicans running for governor were on hand for the county convention, which was attended by more than 150 people at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds in Davenport.
Vander Plaats, Branstad and state Rep. Rod Roberts, R-Carroll, all took their turns at addressing the delegates. Each criticized Gov. Chet Culver and called for greater fiscal restraint, job creation and holding the line on taxes.
But Vander Plaats, a Sioux City businessman, also took on Branstad, recalling the 1994 election.
“He didn’t really believe that he could win it by being a conservative, staying with parental control and, to me, went out and sought the union endorsement, bought into the union endorsement and to big government education,” Vander Plaats said in an interview after his remarks.
Mandates and the education bureaucracy have grown since then, he said.
Branstad later called the attack “a lie.” He said he won only one union endorsement, that of the Iowa State Education Association in 1990, not 1994. He added that during his tenure, he put more focus on improving the quality of the state’s education system. What grew, he said, were teacher salaries, which had lagged.
“He’s wrong,” Branstad said of his rival.
Polls have shown both Vander Plaats and Branstad ahead of Culver, but Branstad with a larger lead. He also has raised more money than Vander Plaats, who was the GOP’s candidate for lieutenant governor in 2006.
For his part, Branstad told delegates he wanted to lead the GOP back to power. But he said the party must unite to overcome the Democrats’ significant edge in voter registration in the state. “I will respect the primary process, and I will support the nominee of this party,” Branstad said.
Vander Plaats has not said yet he’ll do that. He said the party’s nominee must “authentically earn” the endorsement of his peers.
Roberts, meanwhile, told delegates he wants to eliminate the state’s corporate income tax. That, he said, would lead to job creation and opportunities to cut the state’s income tax rates.
Roberts said he would veto any spending bill that went over 99 percent of the state’s revenues, and he said he would not raise taxes to fix the state’s budget problems.
Roberts isn’t as well known as the other two GOP candidates for governor, but he said he has been able to draw independents and even Democrats in his district and that he has legislative experience that will be valuable.
Saturday’s county convention will be followed by a district convention May 1 in Dubuque, Iowa.
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