Terry Branstad

I grew up in Terry Branstad's Iowa.  It was not a good place.  The economy was stagnate.  Governor Branstad was dead set on destroying anything in the public sector.  That doesn't mean things like HHS and job service, but also teachers and even workers at a completely self-sufficient institution for the mentally and physically handicapped.   By self-sufficient I mean that the state of Iowa and Federal Government contribute nothing to the operation of the facility.  But that wasn't good enough for him.  He began a series of lay offs that decimated my humble little town.  My mother, a teacher, was hit.  My father spent some time worried that it would hit him too, but fortunately he was pretty high up on the seniority list and he managed to escape the wrath of the be-mustached fiend sitting in Des Moines.  Here is what she did in between the time she was laid off, in my elementary years, and the time she began working for the local school district, the job which she retired form 2 years ago:

-Drove an hour each way to a Job Service of Iowa job
-Transfered to a closer town so only a half hour each way to the same job
-Middle school aged special education teacher in another town
-Daycare provider
-High School Aged special education teacher, the job she retired from

Throughout this entire time my mom still spent time with her former students at the job she was laid off from.  She wasn't paid for it, she took time out of her life to spend it with the deaf and blind girls she had worked with for so long.  She even became guardian to two.  Now tell me, is that someone whos job deserves to be cut?

Eventually Tom Vilsack came along and unseated Terry Braindead.  Then Iowa thrived.  The agricultural sector expanded like crazy with the innovation of ethanol fuel.  Vilsack knew his way around Iowa, and by the time he willingly left office he was loved by the entire state. Terry Branstad had been governor for 4 terms before losing.  Vilsack limited himself to two terms. So what happens when Vilsack, the slayer of mustaches, leaves the local stage?  Terry Branstad shows up again.  The man has made a career on the backs of Iowans.  He's been elected again.  He's tearing apart Iowa again.  He appointed a democrat to a board knowing that the democrats district was likely to produce a republican which would give the republicans the majority in both houses and the governorship.  Fortunately he was thwarted and a democrat was elected.  Yesterday, during the republican debate, I heard him yell out that Iowa is the healthiest state in the nation.  As much as I'd like to think it to be true, it isn't, Vermont has had that distinction for the last 5 years.  Now it is true that Iowa has always been up there, none of it has to do with Branstad and ALL of it has to do with Vilsack and a slight bit to his rather mediocre successor Chet Culver.

I still can't believe that man was elected governor again. But, you know, its okay, because in my head, and in the head of the little munchkin I was when he laid off my mom.  He will still look like Saddam Hussein to me and frankly, they have about the same moral compass.

Can you tell the difference?