Republican Senator Charles Grassley is not happy with the subject matter of a new campaign ad from the Democratic candidate for governor.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chet Culver and his runningmate Patty Judge appear in a new television commercial. The two are wearing rain gear. You can hear the water drops hitting Judge’s rain hat and Culver’s baseball cap. “Jim Nussle thinks it’s raining money in Washington,” Culver begins. Judge continues: “Like wasting $50 million to build a rain forest in Iowa.”
The ad attacks Culver’s rival, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle, for voting “yes” on a bill that included the money for the rain forest. But Republican Senator Charles Grassley is the one who fought to put that $50 million federal grant in the bill in the first place.
Someone emailed Grassley the ad and he watched it on Wednesday. “It gets back to a real key thing that my mother always reminded me. She always referred to some people who didn’t know enough to come in our of the rain,” Grassley said during an interview Thursday, dragging out his pronunciation of the word rain. Grassley then took a dig at Culver and Judge’s appearance in the ad: “They were standing in the rain, weren’t they?”
Grassley said plenty of Democrats, including Governor Tom Vilsack and Mike Blouin — the director of the Iowa Department of Economic Development, have lauded the EarthPark project which is now to be built near Pella. “It happens that I’ve had communication with Vilsack. I’ve had communication with Blouin (and) I believe other Democratic leaders who have felt very strongly that the rain forest was going to add to the educational stature of Iowa, to the environmental stature of Iowa and most importantly, to job creation through tourism,” Grassley said. “Is Culver for economic development or isn’t he?”
Former Iowa Governor Robert Ray, a Republican, chairs the board that’s been touting the rain forest project. David Oman, Ray’s former chief of staff, is the EarthPark board’s executive director.
Click on the link below to hear Grassley’s reaction.