It's been a while since I posted a diary here about the Iowa governor's race.

Follow me after the jump for more than you probably wanted to know.

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I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Jacob saw his first real fireworks display and loved it at first. We were watching from the 12th floor of a building right on the waterfront, so it was spectacular. Unfortunately, he was coming down with a fever and by the end was pretty unhappy. He is fine again now.

This was a big week, both locally where my friend qualified for the ballot for NYC's Sept. 9th primary election, and nationally where Obama's surge continued even as the Democrats once again showed less spine than we would like them to. More below.

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It is difficult to feel good this 4th of July given the mess the Bush/McCain Republicans have led this nation into. This year alone 438,000 people who lost their jobs. We are well into the Bush's SECOND recession (first president ever to preside over two recessions) with almost no recovery between them. We are officially in a bear market. Food prices are rising worldwide. Oil is at record highs suggesting Americans will have a very, very tough winter. The deficit is WAY above where it has ever been before and no end in sight. And I am not even going into the inept, idiotic and completely useless Bush/McCain Iraq war.

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Strange week. Saw my first McCain ad this week...and it is clear he is running as a Democrat. Healthcare, alternative energy, environment...all Democratic talking points. We have gone from Democrats feeling like they have to run as Repub-Lite to Republicans trying to hide behind a Democratic facade. You even have a Republican running for Senate in Oregon trying to claim (falsely) that Obama supports him. This is desperation for the Republicans! It sounds like racist attacks have failed them, though I am sure they will try more as time goes on.

Meanwhile yet more polls show Obama ahead in Virginia and Missouri, tied in Florida, AHEAD IN INDIANA (wow!) and within 1-2 points of McCain in North Carolina, Alaska and Georgia. Each and every one of these states was solid Bush in 2004. Now they are either leaning Obama or effectively tied.

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Bleeding Heartland has been sparring with some Iowa Republican bloggers about the appropriate policy responses to the recent catastrophic flooding (see this post and this follow-up).

Here are some things I have learned.

Convening a special legislative session to address Iowa's flood relief, clean-up and reconstruction needs would be an example of Democrats "politicizing the floods." State officials should wait to see what the federal government does before taking those steps.

But this does not imply that Iowans should "sit on their heinies and wait for the feds to come in and fix everything." We are better than that:

Iowans can fix most things ourselves. It's just a matter of who is going to pay for it all after the fact. This isn't like New Orleans, where (I heard some relief worker on the radio the other day say that) out-of-state volunteers had to wake up residents at 10 a.m. so that the volunteers could get inside the houses where the residents then sat around and watched the volunteers work.

When the legislature does convene, it would be wrong for the state of Iowa to borrow money to invest in reconstruction.

Instead, we should cut fat out of the budget, such as excessive spending on education.

Also, we should cut corporate income taxes to discourage flood-damaged businesses from moving to new communities or out of state.

Any questions?

P.S.--The real lessons I learned were:

1. Conservatives love to trot out their fake fiscal responsibility. In this case, Iowa bloggers make a big deal out of needing to live within our means and not pass on debt to our children and grandchildren. But their response to the floods amounts to, "Let the (deeply-indebted, huge-deficit-running) federal government pay for as much as possible."

2. Republicans will offer corporate tax cuts as a solution to any problem.

3. When the going gets tough, count on right-wing talk radio to make people feel better by reinforcing their racist stereotypes.

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