Governor Kim Reynolds.
Republican Governor Kim Reynolds today said a small number of Iowans have gone overboard and targeting her family with partisan sniping.
“I’m the governor of everybody, so I want to make that clear,” Reynolds said, “but I’m probably talking about a very small, minute population.”
Back on October 21, Reynolds told a crowd that she and her fellow Republicans needed to “double-down” because of what she’s seen as she travels the state.
“The liberals are unhinged and they are out for us,” Reynolds said at a fundraiser for her 2018 gubernatorial campaign.
During her weekly news conference today in Ames, Reynolds was asked what incidents may have occurred to lead her to reach that conclusion. Reynolds said there’s more than one, but cited as an example negative comments on social media about two of her grandsons after she posted a photo of the boys.
“I signed up for this. You can come at me all you want. I’m tough. I know what this job entails and I guess, in some sense, my family did, too, but not to that extent,” Reynolds said. “This is a six-year-old little boy and his brother, playing soccer on a football field and to me, that’s unhinged. That’s over-the-top and they don’t deserve it.”
Reynolds said “all of us” should take steps to improve the political climate.
“There is no civil discourse left and it is really sad,” Reynolds said. “We ought to be able to talk about ideas. We ought to be able to debate ideas because that’s how you get to consensus and that’s how we move this country forward and that’s how we move this state forward. And we do a better job of it in Iowa. We do, but it is just so vitriol and vicious right now. I hope we can get back to having a discussion.”
AUDIO of news conference
Tess Seger, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Democratic Party, said it’s “unfortunate” the governor chose to the word “unhinged” to describe a “wide swath of Iowans” 11 days ago, but Seger said Democrats “respect the office and strongly condemn any threatening comments directed at her family.”