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Politcal payback for Branstad in being named Grand Marshall of Band Fest?

Submitted by a NorthIowaToday.com reader:

The Chamber of Commerce and the North IA Band Festival are, as registered non-profits, effectively financed by those of us who actually PAY taxes. As such, these tacitly publicly-subsidized entities should NOT be playing favorites, and – for all practical purposes – be promoting the election campaign of ANY candidate for public office.

Worse yet, this honor smacks of a political “payback” of the lowest order, insofar as Eric Bookmeyer just having been appt’d by Governor Terry Branstad to the Vision Iowa Board.  In the Governor’s world, one hand washes the other, even if it’s not his own.  That much has been made clear in recent days and weeks.

However, my problem isn’t with Governor Branstad; it’s the cynical manner in which he’s being used as a political pawn – along with the NIFB Board – by Mayor Bookmeyer, Robin Anderson, and the MC Chamber of Commerce.

Now, I would take this same position if a Democrat was Governor, running this year for re-election, and had had this honor bestowed on him, or her. Citizens of North Iowa should be outraged at this egregiously cynical, opportunistic misuse of our band festival.  It has been close to 50 years since a governor seeking re-election was made Grand Marshall.

Last Fall, Mason Cityans saw how the Globe-Gazette, in an unprecedented move, abruptly suspended, and then cancelled outright, the “public forums” that the newspaper has traditionally sponsored during the final 60-day run-up to Election Day. Interestingly, this action was taken just after the Bookmeyer campaign Committee had purchased ad space in both the print and online editions of that newspaper.

NO Mayoral OR City Council candidate had/has EVER spent so much money on ads in the Globe-Gazette for a single campaign, and the situation with the incumbent Governor, running for re-election this Fall, having this honor bestowed by the ‘Powers that Be’ is in the same, stinky vein.

We have enough corruption in this state, and evidently it is now here in River City with all this low-handed  trickery.

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