Hatch Vernon
Jack Hatch’s performance in his final debate was much like his entire gubernatorial campaign: dreadful, disorganized and desperate. The liberal state senator from Des Moines was always going to be the underdog against five-term governor Terry Branstad. However, Hatch could have made the race competitive. Instead, he and his staff stumbled and bumbled from start to finish.
The jaunt made for a 18 month comedy of errors, beginning when Hatch announced his exploratory committee in May 2013. Hatch chose his real estate business headquarters in Des Moines for the event. Reporters in attendance snickered at the decor and privately derided the setting as very “non-gubernatorial”.
That location was far better than the site of Hatch’s official campaign launch four months later: A field riddled with overgrown weeds and countless piles of animal feces. This time the media openly mocked the Hatch campaign.
Hatch launched a statewide tour after that feces-laded event. Things got even worse. Constant verbal gaffes from the candidate made him look Joe Biden-esque. Some of the most choicest ones included:
–Not knowing the current minimum wage, despite championing an increase.
–”I got a degree to be a bureaucrat.”
–“Believe me. I’ve only had one or two original thoughts. All the ideas that I’ve come up with, really have come from other people.”
There was also the infamous abortion prayer that Hatch participated in at the State Capitol. For six minutes, Hatch bowed his head and closed his eyes will a liberal activist prayer for more abortion access. It revealed a horrendous sense of judgment for someone hoping to be the state’s top elected official.
The top Iowa Democrat officials, operatives and consultants never wanted Hatch as their nominee. Nor did the the Democrat Party’s sugar daddies, the unions. They put their hopes in House Rep. Tyler Olson. However, he dropped out of the race shortly after announcing his marriage was headed toward divorce. The gubernatorial race essentially ended there. The Dems were stuck with Jack Hatch.
As soon as everyone got a look at Hatch’s fundraising totals in 2013, they knew he was finished. Hatch himself said in May 2013 that he needed to raise $1 million by the end of the year to be competitive. 17 months later, he still has not hit that benchmark.
It got even worse. Hatch was exposed as a hypocrite over and over. He repeatedly attacked Governor Branstad for being a passenger in a speeding car, but then Hatch got ticketed for driving well over the speed limit in a construction zone.
Hatch criticized Branstad for using tax credits to create jobs in unemployment-heavy Lee County, but was exposed for using tax credits to make himself wealthy.
Hatch talked about transparency, but refused to release his own tax returns. He championed raising the minimum wage, but a bill to do that did not even pass the Democrat-led Iowa Senate, where Hatch was supposedly a leader.
Then there was the unveiling of Hatch’s running mate, Monica Vernon. The Branstad campaign upstaged Hatch by revealing the news and launching the website HatchVernon.com. The site, which the Hatch campaign should have bought the domain address for long ago, was made to look almost identical to the real Hatch campaign site, but it exposed his flawed, liberal record.
Then there were the polls. Hatch never got close to Branstad. An occasional outlier poll showed the race within the high single digits, but the true spread has remained in double digits throughout. The latest Iowa Poll shows Branstad beating Hatch 54-39. Other recent polls show Branstad’s lead at 22 and 23 points.
Whether it’s 15 points or in the 20s, it is an insurmountable lead with three weeks left before Election Day. Hatch will try to claim others, like Tom Vilsack, have come back from larger deficits in the past. However, that was in an open race. Terry Branstad is the long term incumbent. Iowans have known him for three decades. They aren’t going to suddenly change their opinion of the governor, barring a epic calamity.
So, there Jack Hatch stood Tuesday night on the debate stage in Sioux City. Desperate for anything to change the race, and despite attack after attack, Hatch could find nothing. His anger and frustration was obvious as Governor Branstad shrugged off the desperate criticisms and focused on his long and strong record of accomplishment. Hatch even misstated where he was.
Even the Des Moines Register, which has made many questionable decisions seemingly aimed at helping Hatch in this race, exposed him as a desperate, flailing candidate on the debate stage.
In three weeks, Jack Hatch’s political career will be over. Not long after that, he will fade into obscurity as just another hapless challenger who got steamrolled by Terry Branstad. He was just a mere speed bump on Branstad’s route to becoming the longest serving governor in United States history.
