... "During a campaign stop at the Mason City Library, Nussle, Republican candidate for governor, said, "We have a reputation of being a safe, clean, healthy place to raise kids."

Thank you, I knew I lived here for some reason. Gubernatorial campaigns always shape the language voters use to evaluate the campaigns, the candidates and our future; and Iowans being the enthusiastic church types easily convinced to care about a "reputation" makes the use of reputation a good choice to frame differences between Nussle and the eventual Democratic nominee.

Nussle will take every opportunity to tie that lodestone of our supposed Vilsack induced reputation slide to the Democrats. Why not? This TouchPlay mess has really focused, like a laser beam (not really I just wanted to say that) attention on Vilsack’s all consuming need for jacking the revenue to promote his nonstop need for government spending. TouchPlay was just a creative and innovative method for pulling down money from suckers to maximize the revenue the state spends.