A prominent Des Moines attorney has filed the paperwork this morning to formalize her bid for the Iowa Democratic Party’s 2010 U.S. Senate nomination and the chance to face-off against Republican Senator Chuck Grassley next November.
Roxanne Conlin is a successful trial lawyer and was the first woman to head the national association for trial lawyers. Her new campaign website declares that “taking on special interests has been the cause of my life.”
A two-minute video posted on Conlin’s website suggests that “career politicians in Washington” have lost their strength and independence, and their resolve. This is how she closes the video: “I’m Roxanne Conlin. Join me in taking on this fight because the special interests have had their turn. Now, it’s our turn.”
Conlin also relates a bit of her own biography: growing up in a “paycheck-to-paycheck” home; going to college when she was 16 and graduating from law school when she was 21. A passage from her campaign video touts her work as a prosecutor and then as an attorney representing farmers facing foreclosure.
“Taking on the special interests has been the cause of my life,” Conlin says in the video. “I’m running for U.S. senate to take this fight to Washington.”
Without mentioning Grassley by name, Conlin derides politicians who side with “big corporations” and who voted for the Wall Streeet bailout. Grassley voted for the bailout bill that passed congress in September of 2007.
Conlin will face two other Democrats — Bob Krause of Fairfield and Tom Fiegen of Clarence — in a party primary next June. Conlin was the Democratic Party’s nominee for governor in 1982, losing to Republican Terry Branstad 53 to 47 percent.