Kathie Obradovich

kobradov@dmreg.com

The four Democrats running for U.S. Senate one-upped each other Wednesday over a task that should provide good experience for working in Washington, D.C. — shoveling manure.

Bob Krause said during the Des Moines Register/KCCI-TV candidates’ debate that he ditched his dad’s corn-chopping job because his uncle paid a lot more for scooping manure. “I’ve scooped a lot of that in my life,” he said.

Patty Judge went one better. “I can remember scooping a lot of manure, too, but I don’t think I ever got paid for doing that. That was just sort of expected,” she said.

Tom Fiegen was also an unpaid pooper scooper. “My father is an ex-Marine M.P. Do you think he paid me? No. We scooped piles and piles of manure.”

Iowa Democrats square off in Senate debate one week before primary

The only candidate without barnyard creds was Rob Hogg, who said he took care of his grandparents’ yard and the one next door for less than the minimum wage.

Now, I wouldn’t put dung-shoveling at the top of the list of winning attributes for a U.S. Senate candidate. But then again, I wouldn’t have thought hog castration would help Sen. Joni Ernst make ‘em squeal in 2014.

I’m sure Judge, a former state senator, secretary of agriculture and lieutenant governor, is an expert with the business end of a shovel. But if winning debates is about being the most informed on issues and the best at conveying a clear message, Judge didn’t win Wednesday’s debate. She didn’t win last week’s debate on Iowa Public Television, either.

One of the reasons is Judge’s continued inability to lay to rest her role as lieutenant governor in Gov. Chet Culver’s veto of a 2008 expansion of collective bargaining. Last week, Judge accused Hogg, a state senator from Cedar Rapids, of being misinformed about labor leaders’ efforts to negotiate a compromise with Culver on the bill. “I don't believe that there was a lot of back and forth in negotiation on that particular piece of legislation,” she said on IPTV.

Iowa Federation of Labor President Ken Sagar disputed that account this week, saying he personally met with Judge and others to try to hammer out an agreement on the bill.

On Wednesday, Judge expressed regret for the situation, something I hadn’t heard from her before. “We regret, I regret very much the circumstances around that piece of legislation,” she said. “And I wish we could go back and negotiate a good piece of legislation together, but you know we can’t.”

It’s certainly true that there’s no going back in time, which is why Judge should have been ready to slam dunk the second part of the question about what she’ll do to help organized labor.

She said she would “stand up” for labor, but when asked what she specifically would do, she struggled to come up with the name of the National Labor Relations Board. As a first step, she said, she’d fill the vacancy on the board that she said Sen. Chuck Grassley has refused to do.

Judge has direct experience on a wide variety of issues but her delivery tends to be flat and halting. It’s hard to fathom why Judge hadn’t prepared a more robust and passionate answer to a foreseeable question about a continuing sore spot with a key Democratic constituency. It was lucky for her on Wednesday that the other candidates didn’t try to attack her on the issue.

In fact, all of the candidates apparently decided to tone down negative statements about each other. One exception was at the very beginning of the debate when Fiegen, a Clarence attorney, said Judge’s positions were so similar to Grassley’s, it’s a “coin toss” on issues like agriculture, taxation and the environment.

Hogg has been consistent in the debates at presenting his message to seem competent and capable, if not exactly inspiring or memorable. Wednesday night was no exception, although many voters won’t find anything funny about his joke that he would limit himself to 30 years in the Senate to match Grassley’s tenure. His campaign may well be the main beneficiary of Judge’s lackluster debate performances, although she still holds an advantage of being better known.

If the debates really make a difference to primary voters, however, Fiegen is the candidate to watch. He has been a standout in many of the forums I’ve seen. He has a colorful way of illustrating his stories with tales of Iowans he’s met and he’s not afraid to point out differences with his fellow Democrats.

On Wednesday, Judge was befuddled by a question about China gaining the advantage in renewable fuel industries. Fiegen explained why the U.S. is falling behind on production of solar panels.

Some of Fiegen’s ideas, especially about agriculture, aren’t necessarily in the mainstream. Like Krause, he’s raised almost no money for his campaign and gets rapped as a perennial candidate. But when it comes to debates, it’s easy to imagine Fiegen holding his own against Grassley.

The primary election is Tuesday, so we’ll soon know who wins the chance to shovel manure in Washington, D.C.