Only now, after 50 years in Washington, Chuck Grassley is touring Iowa to learn about issues that voters are facing…

Wow this is crazy to me. This guy has NO IDEA what issues his constituents have been facing for decades.

How out of touch can you be with your own state?

For the last week, every time he learns about an issue he acts like it’s such big news. How didn’t he know this already?

Doesn’t he live in Iowa?

Why is he so surprised by these issues?

Does he ever go to Iowa? All I have ever heard from him is social issues like supporting the repeal of women's rights.

How does he know nothing of Iowans. This is incredible.

He's doing nothing. Driving around and having fucking lunch is not an introspective study of the people. Playacting politics. Nice fucking flower pic, asshole.

What has he been doing since he was elected. Does anybody know?

Lol why does he have to ask people what the state’s issues are?

Does anybody else find this fascinating for someone to be so removed from their own state that they have no idea what the citizens are facing?

Smh.

What a homo posting a pic of flowers. Fag.

Is this common for republican senators and reps? Are they all this clueless about local issues.

A question is regarding the voters, don’t they wonder why he is just now asking? 2 months before an election?

He’s had so much time to address these issues, and even prevent them from happening but he didn’t even know about them?

Anybody here live in Iowa?

Isn’t this a bit late in the game to be just now asking these these questions of his voters?

Why didn’t he help them sooner. He is a senator for crying out loud.

This so crazy. What has he been doing all this time?

In fairness to Senator Grassley, he doesn’t know he represents Iowa.

He doesn’t even know he’s in the Senate. Dude is senile.

Really, two months before an election you go around and ask what the issues are of a state you already represent?

Shouldn’t he have done this sooner?

What about the last 50 years? He hasn’t known the issues for this long, what’s the point now? At the end of his career?

Does he suddenly have a formidable challenger? This so just bizarre.

It’s not like he’s a new candidate getting to know the issues. What in the hell is this?

Crazy.

Can he name a city in Iowa?

What a joke.

I think he might lose. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.

Anybody in Iowa know if this so true?

[quote] How does someone who’s been a Senator for so long have no idea what the issues in his own state are?

A most pertinent question. You have put your finger on the nature of politics, elections and their funders OP.

Adjacent to this, if you are in the flyover zone or hinterlands you also know that all the industry and businesses there are owned by people on the two coasts. Most of these owners have no idea what they even own.

It’s pretty much impossible to see a doctor outside of Des Moines.

All the clinics were bought up and shut down thanks to republicans in Iowa.

Um, issues change all the time. Even when they don't, reps in Congress need updates. Is there some evidence this guy has never been in touch with his state?

I actually remember when he was first elected. I was appalled and had supported the Democrat, Senator John Culver.

But the reality is that Culver, Grassley's predecessor as Senator, was less a part of Iowa than Grassley was and is. Culver was so removed from Iowa yet we, including me, cheered him on because he was a Democrat. After Harvard undergad and law, he pretty much was a creature not "of Iowa". He worked for his classmate Sen. Kennedy to return to Iowa and for ONE year practiced law before he ran and won a congressional seat in the Johnson landslide of 1964. So back to Washington - essentially for the rest of his life. Even after he was defeated by Grassley in 1980 after serving one term as senator he began work with a DC law firm and stayed until he died decades later.

So all this just to say that this seems unfair to Grassley no matter how I have disagreed with him over the years. If you think he doesn't know Iowa, then you're just falling for campaign propaganda. Disagree with his positions and publicize that but don't lie about the guy - it's dishonest and simply disinformation.

He should these issues by heart if he is a representative of the state. Not weeks before an election.

It shows that he is out of touch and has no idea what’s going on with his own people. It’s desperate and messy.

Why now? Why all of the sudden?

why are most of these posts from the same person, the OP?

Issues change and all reps in Congress need to update their knowledge of the needs of their constituents. Election years just make it seem more imperative.

I remember we used to rag on Jack Kemp (Congressman from upstate NY) who bragged he never wanted to go overseas and only wanted to know about his constituents back home despite serving on a Foreign Affairs subcommittee. We just could not get him to go on any junkets to visit and learn firsthand about other countries' programs. He didn't stop his aides from traveling with us but he felt he could learn from them what he needed to know.

Not commenting on whether Kemp or Grassley are correct in their approaches to learning about issues, but I think we pick and choose criticisms based on who we support and not what these headlines say.

Feel free to chime in.

These are not open forums. These are not town halls.

They are campaign stops.

Does he ask women their views on abortion? I don’t think so.

[quote] why are most of these posts from the same person, the OP?

Thanks for letting people know. The comments have been agreeing with OP’s clickbait thread title and they haven’t been pointing out that the title doesn’t match what Grassley posted, so that explains it.

Jesus, he's being in congress as long as I've being alive. Term limits now!

I always thought the best functional term limiting would be to deny government pensions and benefits to elected officials. They can fund their own pensions and rely on social security and Medicare to add to it. Why do taxpayers need to fund their retirement?

That alone will do away with some people staying forever. I know some people will say that it will leave it to the rich but those who are truly dedicated to public service will be fine with the salary and a private retirement fund.

[quote] Jesus, he's being in congress as long as I've being alive. Term limits now!

Agree. Senator Leahy has been there even longer, since 1975. He should have been bounced a long time ago.

[quote]Can he name a city in Iowa?

Trick question, R17. There are none.

I beg your pardon

"how stupid are the people of Iowa"? stated by the former president IN IOWA! Stupid enough to vote for him twice! So nothing outrageous for those voting for Grassley, who should have been put out to pasture 20 years ago!....

Is he still under investigation by the way for money funny business?

We have 947 cities.

Senator Grassley is only one hundred years of age but nevertheless intended to certify the 2020 election results if VPOTUS Pence " could not make it".

Dot. Dot.Dot.

And yet the voters of Iowa keep voting for him.

Democracy is a challenging value for the white wingers. Voter suppression is their jam.

He'll still win because they are fucking morons.

This doddering old fool is 178 years old, and will still be re-elected, no matter what he says or does.

Who is his challenger. Never seen Grassley work so hard at pretending to care about local issues.

[quote]He doesn’t even know he’s in the Senate. Dude is senile.

He does know he's in the Senate. Unfortunately he sometimes thinks he represents Idaho.

Not to defend Chuck Grassley, and I fervently hope he loses in November, but he visits all 99 counties in Iowa every single year, and has done so the entire time he's been in office. It's, like, his thing. (Though there's nothing particularly original about the idea, and I'm sure he's far from the first statewide politician nationwide to do something like this.)

As has been pointed out, the OP of this thread is largely keeping it alive with subsequent post. Not sure what the game is here.

Let him do the fucking lunch tour. Let the people of Iowa see, up close, just what a fucking moron he is and how OLD he is now.

Since he clearly hasn't been there in years, let them get a good look and listen to him babble.

[quote]Why is he just now, after decades as a representative of Iowa, learning the state’s issues.

To be fair, who in their right mind would want to tour Iowa.

R47, good point - and, if forced to tour Iowa who in their right mind would want to see Chuck Grassley?

Hillary moved to NYC to run successfully as its senator.

Creepy old fuck.

He's hitting the road on his wheelchair.

Chuckie is Iowa's reanimated scarecrow. He visits his DONORS in all 99 counties in Iowa.

He will be eternally disappointed that Pence did not allow him to become His Grace, Charles, The Duke of Iowa.

Why doesn’t he let the people ask him questions in a town hall

Why did he claim that Mike Pence would not be available to oversee the vote officiating and why don’t the press keep asking him?

Did they give up?

He does not do this every year that is not true.

See link. Easily confirmed on Google.

He does the tour every year but not the “this so the first time I’ve heard of these issues. Let me get right on that” routine.

He does his usual campaign Ans donor stops but I’ve never seen the uninterested listing of the issues before. Like it’s the first time he’s heard it.

[quote] As has been pointed out, the OP of this thread is largely keeping it alive with subsequent post. Not sure what the game is here.

DL is a sewer of disinformation, like this thread. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people here who love to consume that raw sewage as long as it agrees with their views.

r54, because if Trump had been named King, Charles Grassley would have been, His Grace, The First Duke of Iowa.

Does he always do this two months before an election?

The appropriate time to gather issues and comments is right after an election and then the beginning of of a term of the assembly or congress.

You don’t pull this crap just before and election and expect it to ring anything other than hollow.

Grassley's main issues:

1) Wheel of Fortune should not be on at 7:30. It's too damn late!

and

2) The orderlies switched from chocolate to tapioca pudding in the rec room.

Does anybody think it’s weird that the media doesn’t ask him about the Jan 5th comments anymore?

They are so add.

He needs to retire and he can go take Dianne Feinstein with him.

Maybe he's still traumatized by the classroom reaction when included in an innocent round of The Name Game.

Iowa to Grassley:

[quote]why are most of these posts from the same person, the OP?

Yep, 30 posts from the OP, most repeating the same thing, and when that stopped a second person showed up to do the same thing.

Why don’t we see this kind of diligence on right wing liar posts?

[quote]The appropriate time to gather issues and comments is right after an election and then the beginning of of a term of the assembly or congress.

Did you also have a problem with Hillary’s infamous listening tours, when she was first running for Senate and again when she was running for president, or does your principle come and go depending on the situation?

He’s taking a page out of the Susan Collins playbook. “He’s concerned”. Grassley should’ve perished in a burning Iowan corn field decades ago.

Time for Iowa to get new blood. We don’t need anymore republicans trying to control women trying to change all these abortion laws.

Chuckie is so fucking old, he was a draft dodger for BOTH the Korean AND Vietnam wars.

R71, you forgot the Great War.

The difference between factual and hyperbole. ^^^

Fuck Assley is a typical do-nothing ReThug.

[quote]Can he name a city in Iowa?

Dubuque, Des Moines, Davenport, Marshalltown, Mason City, Keokuk, Ames, Clear Lake!

He's not the problem. The idiots who think him simply being white, male and conservative means he relates to them and that's enough reason for these old dumbasses on SS and/or medicare to vote for him, are the problem. He has no fucking idea what it is to be them. The irony is that many of the people they would never vote for due to race or religion or gender or sexuality, are more likely to look out for them than this ancient fool who lives among the elites.

What are the odds he loses? Aren’t women sick of being treated like property by republicans?