So Much For Inevitibility

In the wake of the off year caucus it would not be unreasonable to assume that all of the Republican Party’s declared candidates would have garnered the required number of signatures. However, that does not seem to be the case. On two consecutive days this week I have received emails from two prominent campaigns asking for help in acquiring the signatures needed. This indicates to me that these campaigns have failed to garner the required signatures. Now I admit that they could simply be trying to gather more signatures than is needed, however I couldn’t see them going through the added expense of generating an email to do this.

The first candidate that I spoke of is 3^rd Congressional candidate Jim Gibbons. In the email that the Gibbons camp sent out it specifically mentions an increased number of caucus goers this year over previous off year caucuses. I find this comment especially interesting considering Gibbons appears to not have garnered enough signatures at the caucuses to get his name on the June primary ballot. In fact the headline of the email sent out is “Next Step: Get Jim on the Ballot.” This clearly points to a feeling among the party base that Gibbons is not their guy.

The second candidate that appears to have failed at getting nominating signatures has been promoted as the inevitable gubernatorial nominee. In an email sent out by the Branstad campaign they are soliciting their supporters to get out and promote him. However the tool that they are using to do this is the nominating paperwork. It would seem that Terry Branstad has failed to garner the required number of signatures at the various caucuses around the state. Another thing that I find interesting about the Branstad campaigns effort is that they felt the need to “bribe” people into getting the papers signed. This would indicate to me that not only is the prospect of another Branstad administration not appealing to the base of the party, but his supporters are not all that thrilled to go out to do the dirty work to get their guy nominated. It is clear that contrary to what Branstad’s supporters want you to believe, his ascension to Governor is anything but a foregone conclusion.

There is little doubt in my mind that both of these candidates will manage to acquire the required number of signatures to file with the Iowa Secretary of State. However what is in doubt is how they would fare against their competitors. Both of these gentlemen should have been able to gather their required signatures last Saturday, but they failed at that endeavor. So much for inevitability.