Art Cullen Exposes Randy Feenstra’s Struggles with the Grassroots Amid “Split and Foundering” State of IA GOP

DES MOINES – This morning, Storm Lake Times Pilot editor Art Cullen exposed “congressman of little note” Randy Feenstra for facing problems with his own party after he failed to get Donald Trump’s endorsement, was snubbed by Bob Vander Plaats, and came in a distant third in straw polls at the Iowa Caucuses — amid the “split and foundering” state of the Iowa Republican Party.

Feenstra has come under fire from his opponents and his party’s grassroots for bailing on events with the rest of the primary field, including last month’s Moms for Liberty debate, as a petition circulating among the grassroots begging Trump to endorse anyone but “absent congressman” Feenstra has garnered over 700 signatures. Feenstra being “unable to clear the primary field” has caused GOP activists to plan for the “very, very real possibility” of the “chaotic and competitive” primary going to a “contested” convention. 

Read more from the Storm Lake Times Pilot here, or key quotes below:

• Kim Reynolds has occupied the spot as the most unpopular governor in America nearly as long as Terry Branstad wore a mustache in Terrace Hill. She ran up a whale of a deficit and is skedaddling after a decade of mediocrity and decline for our state. Good riddance.

• Our economy is as poor as Mississippi, our cancer rate as deadly as Kentucky. Our test scores are falling as our property taxes are rising. Into this steaming hot cow pie steps Randy Feenstra of Hull, congressman of little note but a congressman nonetheless who fed off money from Smithfield as part of China Inc.

• Trump wouldn’t let him talk in Clive. Then came the caucuses last week, and Feenstra polled at third or fourth where straw polls were held. The hammer came down when fellow Dutchman and moral arbiter Bob Vander Plaats endorsed Adam Steen for governor.

• Feenstra has been avoiding Steen and the others. He blew off the Moms for Liberty forum where his opponents strutted their religious extremism. Feenstra was busy raising more than $4 million with the help of Matt Whitaker, who served for a cup of coffee as US attorney general in Trump’s first term.

• Even Northwest Iowa Republicans might not be so eager to turn out for a corporate ticket riding hog confinements and pipelines. Why vote for more hardship for Holstein as Ridge View sorts out its own political woes based on state neglect (if not hostility) to rural community survival? Just let it become part of OABCIG. Then it would be OABCIGSCGH. That is the Reynolds/Feenstra agenda. Who wants another helping of that? Higher taxes, fewer schools, darkened health clinics, air that can gag a buzzard and water not fit for a slug.

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