September 28, 2002
MAN OVERBOARD:
Campaign manager resigns over tape (THOMAS BEAUMONT, 09/28/2002, Des Moines Register)Sen. Tom Harkin's campaign manager resigned abruptly Friday, becoming the second casualty in an unfolding controversy stemming from a tape-recorded meeting of Republican rival Greg Ganske and his financial supporters.The departure of Jeff Link from the Democratic senator's campaign came as Harkin acknowledged a junior research staffer asked a former Harkin congressional aide to record the Sept. 3 Ganske meeting at the Hotel Savery in Des Moines. The aide then passed the tape and a transcript to a newspaper reporter.
Typically, if your campaign is going to unleash an October Surprise you try to avoid having it be your own self-destruction. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 28, 2002 8:40 PM
I have not followed this contest and have
not lived in Iowa for 15 years. From what I
read so far, I expect this flap will have little
or no effect on the outcome. Unless, of
course, Harkin can be shown to have
participated in this.
Not likely. He isn't stupid.
Iowans are notoriously hard to predict. After
the 1970 redistricting, everyone was agreed
that the two eastern congressional districts
would be Republican, the two western ones
Democratic and the middle ones swingers.
So Iowans elected two Democrats in the east,
two Republicans in the west and kept Neal
Smith in office permanently.