Senator Ernst’s Humiliating Debate Gaffe Shows She’s Lost Touch With Rural Iowa During Her Six Years in Washington
In a brutal segment on Iowa Press, The Storm Lake Times Pulitzer Prize-winning editor Art Cullen and Carroll Times Herald co-owner Doug Burns excoriated Senator Joni Ernst for failing to know the price of soybeans in last weekend’s debate.
Calling Ernst’s humiliating debate gaffe a “death blow” and “nearly fatal” to her re-election campaign, Cullen and Burns noted the blunder was a tell-tale sign of rural disconnect that has previously led to the downfall of multiple former Iowa senators.
Watch the brutal segment for yourself:
The Storm Lake Times’ Art Cullen: “I think that the comment on not knowing the price of beans is nearly fatal … if you’re out of touch with the old hometown, you’re in deep trouble, and I think she’s in deep trouble.”
Carroll Times Heralds’ Doug Burns: “… in the last debate, not being able to come even close. I mean I wrote down the numbers on corn and beans off the top of my head and I don’t farm, and I was closer than the member of the Senate Agriculture Committee who presumably would every day be reading information from her staff in which the price of corn and beans would be laid out day after day after day after day. So for her to not get that is a death blow.”