Rumors are now circulating hot and heavy here in the Capitol City that Des Moines businessman and former VanderPlaats campaign manager Troy Cook is contemplating a run for the U.S Senate seat now held by Bahama Tommy Harkin.
Troy certainly showed his ability to maximize the benefit of minimal resources in the 2002 gubernatorial primary. Troy would be a very articulate and aggressive young candidate if he were to run.
As the incoming President of the Iowa Association of Health Underwriters Troy’s background in healthcare financing would give him a unique understanding of the better solutions for America’s health care financing problems.
Troy’s an old football coach and I know he’d be a bulldog.
Stay tuned ……………..
Troy certainly showed his ability to maximize the benefit of minimal resources in the 2002 gubernatorial primary. Troy would be a very articulate and aggressive young candidate if he were to run.
As the incoming President of the Iowa Association of Health Underwriters Troy’s background in healthcare financing would give him a unique understanding of the better solutions for America’s health care financing problems.
Troy’s an old football coach and I know he’d be a bulldog.
Stay tuned ……………..
17 comments:
Wow, that's surely throw a curve ball into the race.
Who is the guy from Cedar Rapids that is running for Senate?
Rachey?
So this is the best we can do? WTF. Another lost opportunity. Why not someone with proper creditals? King? Nussle? Popma?
Rathje is from the Cedar Rapids area.
Look people.. when we've gone with the "known" candidate..the "establishment" candidate before..we've been beaten. The track record for the Iowa GOP is pretty clear on that one. Need we be reminded again?
Need people be reminded that Ganske came from freakin outta nowhere to beat Neal Smith in 94. Smith, I would argue at the time was equally as entrenched as Harkin is now.
No pundit back in 94 gave Ganske a shot in hell of winning..oops.
Smith's consolation prize for losing was getting a wildlife preserve named after him.
The anon talks about credentials..Here's a damn good credential that the GOP should put up against Harkin..Whomever our candidate is will actually LIVE here. Our candidate will actually be someone who's made a living in IOWA.
Our candidate if elected, won't consider reading off cue cards in front of a TV camera in the Senate cloakroom as his "interaction" with real Iowans.
Whomever our candidate is against Harkin..be it Mr. Rathje..or if Mr. Cook decides to run..it will be a far better choice for Iowans than another 6 years of Grand Moff Harkin.
Let's get our act together here..we've got a ton of work to do and very little time to do it in.
We saw what happened when our people stay home.. We lost the Governor's race..the House/Senate..and now are paying the price for it.
Its time to get energized people...we can't afford to lose this one...
I met Mr. Cook at a campaign stop at a Brownback event in Urbandale in March.
He and I sat next to each other at the table and had a nice conversation. He's an impressive guy.
He gave me his card and was interested in coming up to Iowa State to speak to the College Republicans there if we ever needed someone to speak.
I hope he considers it further.
Don,
Cyclone Conservatives
This has nothing to do with your post, but you just commented on my blog. I think you used to work with the speech and debate team I was on at Ottumwa High school in the eighties. Small world.
I'm waiting for a legitimate conservative to step in and run against Charles the Senile.
Troy Cook is a great guy and has lots of political experience, including lobbying in Washington on Health Care Financing reform. He's at least as good a candidate as anyone else could be.
Way to step up Troy, and be a contributing citizen and thank God you are not a career politician.
All of the corruption on both sides of the aisle seems to stem from politicans who make their decisions entirely because they are more concerned about retaining power for power's sake rather than doing what's right because it's the right thing to do. They campaign to avoid loss rather than to lead.
Their decision making is affected and gee, look what's happened in Polk County due to too many democrats being in office tooooooooo long. I'm looking for the citizen politician rather than the career politician.
I don't care about the politician's next promotional step in his career ladder. I want them to represent ME in Washington, not represent themselves.
Troy, bully for you and I'm thrilled if this is true.
Troy Cook, si!
Troy Cook, si!
Troy Cook would be great. One thing's for sure, everything else we've tried hasn't worked so how about this guy.
I knew Troy during the VanderPlaats days. He did do a great job with Bob.
The Democrats have just handed us a great big campaign issue, if we're smart enough to use it correctly--that's immigration. The people are up in arms over this one. If Troy is serious, perhaps he needs to be getting out his message about the current situation regarding immigration.
There's also no bigger issue than national security. We're in this war with Islamofascists for the long run. Losing is not an option unless we want to allow the radical Muslims run this country like they say they intend to.
Yeah, this is something that we could pound Harkin with.
I think it’s safe to say that regardless of who the nominee is, he’ll be able to raise money after the primary. Troy’s about as good a candidate today as Bob VP was back in 2002, plus he knows how to run an effective campaign on a shoestring. Perhaps Cedar is right, maybe its time to go with a non-establishment candidate for once … One things for sure, we can’t possibly do any worse than we’ve done so far ….
I think we all learned how well lobbyists are received as candidates in Iowa. No matter how much campaign know-how they posess. Oh and nothing remotely successful ever came of a Vander Platts campaign as far as I can recall.
He isn't a profesional lobbyist. He's a citizen who works in the private sector. He was a volunteer citizen lobbyist with the professional association to which he belongs and is now about to be their President. He knows Health care financing and was not paid by anyone to do it. He's an issues guy that would have paid his own way to get there to do it.
Troy managed BVP's first campaign where everyone thought that BVP had no chance against the pros - Doug Gross and state senator Sukup in a three way primary race.
I recall BVP coming in 3rd, but it was something like 33.4 vs 33.3 vs 33.2 or some other ridiculously slose numbers that almost resulted in a convention to choose the nominee.
Had a convention happened, Doug Gross would NOT have been the nominee. It would likely have been BVP. It pays to be nice to your central committees.
I find that to be pretty impressive for a candidate that had "no shot in hell" according to the unknown professionals that went on to lose the race to Vilsack.
As a democrat I would be happy if you put up someone conected to the health insurance industry. Forgive me if I'm wrong but being Health Underwriter means determining wheter someone is healthy enough to be given insurance. Being president of such an industry group doesn't sound like a political plus.
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