Looking at a Griswell vs. Grassley Race
- Tuesday, August 25, 2009, 9:22
- Krusty Konservative
- 636 views
- 6 comments
I read somewhere on-line that Barry Griswell might be the Democrats’ dark horse candidate against Sen. Chuck Grassley. Griswell, the recently retired CEO of Des Moines-based Principal Financial Group, has also been involved in numerous community activities and causes in central Iowa.
Griswell has been involved as the President of the Greater Des Moines Community Foundation and served on the United Way of America board of trustees. Griswell recently helped write the book, The Adversity Paradox, An Unconventional Guide to Achieving Uncommon Business Success, which was published in April 2009 and debuted at No. 8 on the Wall Street Journal’s list of business bestsellers.
There is no doubt that Barry Griswell is an Iowa success story, but will his success in business make him a good political candidate? I’ll be the first to say, I don’t think Barry Griswell is the candidate that Iowa Democrats are looking for. It just seems like an odd fit.
First, there are his numerous contributions to Republican candidates and causes. In fact, Griswell was a big donor to Senator Grassley’s last campaign. He contributed $2000 in 2004. Griswell has also donated around $17,000 to the Republican Party of Iowa during the current decade. I doubt that will go over well with the liberal Democrat base, especially when you note that he hasn’t contributed a dime to IDP.
Griswell also donated significant amounts to Stan Thompson’s and Jeff Lamberti’s campaigns for congress. In addition to his large contribution to Lamberti in 2006, he also contributed $10,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee. Griswell has also contributed large amounts to Democrats like Tom Harkin, Leonard Boswell, Chet Culver, and Mike Gronstal, but it’s interesting that he has not contributed to the Democratic Party at any level.
So, what would Griswell’s basis for a campaign even be? He obviously didn’t have a problem with Senator Grassley in 2004, so what would cause him to run against him now? Griswell can’t really attack Grassley based on TARP since Principal applied for TARP funds, although ultimately turned them down.
I’m just failing to see why a Griswell candidacy would worry Grassley? I mean, if Iowa Democrats want to nominate a former CEO from a huge company who pulled in a $1 million-plus annual salary, I’m not going to stop them. I actually think such a move would give the Democrat base fits and provide Grassley with plenty of ammunition to campaign on. Think about it. Principal got into trouble because they were making bad mortgage loans. Do we really need another member of congress who was somewhat responsible for collapse of the real estate markets? Aren’t Barney Frank and Chris Dodd enough?
At the end of the day, people like Barry Griswell are concerned about their own legacy. Is he willing to put all that he has accomplished on the line to take on an icon like Grassley? Look, I can see him having these conversations while having lunch with his buddies with the Des Moines Partnership, but talking about it and pulling the trigger are two very different things.
While I think that Senator Grassley is susceptible to a primary challenge, I think he would be extremely difficult to beat in a general election campaign. To knock of Grassley, it’s going to take millions of dollars, and even then I don’t know if all the money in the world could knock Grassley off this year. It would take a special candidate, and like I said, I don’t think a rich white man who likes to donate to Republicans is a silver bullet for Democrats.
Additionally, if I’m Governor Culver, I don’t like this chatter. A significant challenge to Grassley would divert a bunch of campaign money away from his gubernatorial campaign, and by the looks of things, he’s going to need every dime he can get.
About the Author
Krusty Konservative has written 203 stories on this site.
Herschel Krustofski is the pseudonym for the anonymous author of Krusty Konservative, a blog which focuses on Iowa Politics. Created in February of 2006, Krusty Konservative is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the Iowa blogosphere. Since its conception, Krusty Konservative has never shied from tackling controversial issues, and providing insight to the inner workings of Republican politics in Iowa.
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What has he accomplished? He ruined PFG by taking them from a mutual company to a stock company. It was the wrong move as it turns out. This move was very beneficial to Barry personally and to his executive team. With the move, came an annual salary that was kinda reasonable when they were mutual to multi-millions and ton’s o stock options worht more millions. Meantime, the employees were told no raises, took paycuts and then they laid off hundreds. Wonder what his last pay package was as he left by the side door. He recently retired? Interesting coindence in timing, coindident with the timing of the destruction of a once proud firm.
He’s an example of what went wrong with BIG Corporations. He’s a poster child. The Boards of Directors abdicated fidicuary responsibility and PFG almost was bankrupted as a result of his lack of leadership – in my humble opinion.
He was a big player in the Project Destiny debaucle wherein PFG tried to bully their employees to vote for the 1 cent increase in the sales tax. Their middle class working folks employees would pay for the property tax that principal had been paying – it was worth millions to Principal for it to pass – millions that would be passed on to the backs of their own employees and all the rest of us too. Thank God that didn’t pass. What was his role in that?
In addition, I’m not so sure his stint at head of the partnership gains him many republican fans. Check out some of their legislative agenda. Not exactly conservative.
PFG has a health insurance division. Does he agree with Harkin on the Democrat proposal to have the government control health care? What would his support of Obamacare do to the already battered PFG? How many more jobs would PFG lose if Barry votes for Nationalized Fascist HealthCare?
Head of the United Way? The same United Way that nationally has persecuted the Boy Scouts and refuse them funding because they won’t allow gay guys who have no kids in the troop, to be overnight camping leaders? Even though the Boy Scouts won a Supreme Court battle, the United Way hassles the Boy Scouts. How does Barry feel about that?
If I were Barry, I’d already be worried about my legacy and think he hopes to improve his standing by this run.
The United Way has become just another wing of the democrat party and they have a leftist legislative agenda. It was when they went political that I quit donating money to them.
I think there is much for Griswell to defend and Grassly should have no problem defeating him.
Grassley has been doing great of late and showing much courage against the Obama thugs. He’s safe.
According to Forbes – Total Annual Comp – $9.19 million dollars. Five Year Comp – $37.77 million dollars. All this, while the company was burning down. How about the golf tournament? They spent 2 million dollars after getting TARP bailout funds to hold this most exclusive and elite of all events so they can hobnob with the cocktail party crowd and feel like a celebrity. However, this wasn’t ever in the best financial interest of the company or the stockholders they were charged with protecting. It is simply an example of egregious corporate vanity – (same thing with corporate naming rights of stadiums, not good for stockholders or the company. How many of them are bankrupt or took TARP?).
Yesterday in a forum, Congressman King praised Grassley for doing the work he’s doing on Obamacare. King said if it weren’t for Grassley, the Dims would already have a health care bill and we’d be stuck with it.
Grassley is doing a good job.
Grassley should be safe. He’s a good man. This is some interesting research. Why is this guy running as a democrat now?
An interesting turn of events with Grassley. It felt like he was going to sell us all out. We yelled, we yipped. He listened.
First, Palin boiled the entire argument down to two words that everyone just primaly gets, Kapow! Grassley comes out and states he gets why people are scared, Kaboom!
Nationalist Fascist Healthcare is knocked out and Grassley ended up being the guy that delivered the knock out punch. Who would of thunk it going in.
Grassley may end up being the guy that saved America. Saving Western Civilization could be the collateral benefit of his effectiveness at the end of the day. Not bad for a guy from Iowa.
Esther: You’re ruining Deace’s day.