Our Ruby-redness

It's almost futile to go to battle with the powers-that-be in this county because those powers are unmistakably conservative. When Gov. Kim Reynolds won the last gubernatorial race in 2018, she did so on the immense strength of what Iowa politicians call "the Ruby-red Fourth District," where Republicans outnumber Democrats the way hogs outnumber people in this corner of the state. Her margin of victory was just less than three percent; her margin of victory here in northwest Iowa was overwhelming, proving once again that if the region's mighty conservatives show up at the polls, the libs have to win big in other parts of the state to negate the tally here. 

Sioux County, Iowa, where I live is unhesitatingly the most most ruby-red of any of Iowa's 99, and therefore right there among the most politically conservative counties of the entire nation. Much has been made this time around of the two big races, both of which could go Democratic--Rob Sand for Gov, Josh Turek for the Senate, both good candidates. But if they lose, the loss will be attributable, in part, to a crimson voting block in Sioux County and the rest of Iowa's bright red northwestern corner.

My baptism into northwest Iowa politics began soon after I married into a northwest Iowa family, who reunion-ed at an Orange City park in 1972 just a few months after the wedding. Once the family divvied itself up by gender--the women around one picnic table, the men around another, the political talk started up. McGovern, of course, was from South Dakota--Mitchell, in fact, just down the road. 

But woe be unto those who would say he was "one of us." It didn't take long, as I remember, for the whole gang to get to slaying him right there in the park.

Let me just say that such talk no more unexpected than unfamiliar. My dad would have fit right in at the branding. The arguments were neither fresh nor silly. I was the family's newest member; we were still newlyweds. 

I spoke up--McGovern was anti-war, of course, and I got hammered, really hammered, despite the fact that I knew at least two of the gang shared my views of things--a medical doctor from Michigan and a high school guidance counselor from LA, both of whom wisely kept their mouths shut.

I was left bleeding profusely when the food was ready. I hoped I hadn't reflected poorly on my wife's marital choices and probably did. I asked the Michigan doctor why he hadn't come to my aid. 

The answer made all kinds of sense. "We knew better." The safe place in a political discussion is simply to keep your mouth shut. 

In early fall, I willfully attended the meeting of the Sioux County Republicans. Why? Because I assumed by DNA I was. 

I wasn't. I never went back.

That was more than a half-century ago, and it's been all uphill ever since.

I'm hoping the Dems will catch a break from the almost universal distaste for our famously bigoted President. I'm hoping the county's struggling minority will take a big bite out of the usual political tallies. I can't hope for a leftie win, but I can hope for a tally that doesn't offer the cushion we've given conservative candidates for as long as I've lived here. 

A decade ago, my wife joined the Dems and got an award--with her Sioux County Democrats--for going into battle with Goliath. They didn't win any races here, but they'd inflicted some blows on the ruby-red body politic. 

Won't be long and we'll know the score this time around.