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The "Gaffe" That Isn't

Submitted by Eric Woolson on Sat, 01/17/2004 - 01:00.

The Dean campaign is driving a story today about a supposed gaffe by Sen. John Kerry eight years ago. The terrible, awful, horrible, vicious, cruel, mean thing that Kerry said was that we ought to eliminate the U.S. Department of Agriculture or at least reduce it to three-fourths of its size.

Dean's people and members of the media who don't understand Iowa, including at least one local reporter imported for elsewhere, believe this is a bombshell revelation. This startling new information means Kerry hates farmers and is insensitive to Midwesterners in general and Iowans in particular and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Nonsense. There are more USDA employees than farmers in this country, so I'm told. And farmers, real farmers, Democrats and Republicans, have always believed there's something not quite right about that. Republicans oppose that ratio on the principle that government ought to be smaller. Democrats recognize that if the bureaucracy was smaller, more money might actually go to rural economic development.

So, Dean and the media can fan the flames and reporters can wring their hands about "the impact this incredible revelation will have on the caucuses Monday night," but it actually boosts Kerry among people who understand Iowa and understand agriculture.

As for the latest poll numbers: It's Dean, 24 percent; Sen. John Edwards, 22 percent; Kerry, 21 percent; and Rep. Dick Gephardt, 20 percent.

As for me, the weather's not too bad this morning so I'm going to get in the car, drive south to Wayne County and do a little work on my own farm property today.

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