IOWA CAUCUSES

Bush finds receptive audiences on immigration, education in eastern Iowa

Jason Noble
jnoble2@dmreg.com
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush speaks to a crowd of about 500 at Molengracht Plaza in Pella on Wednesday.

PELLA, Ia. – Jeb Bush's early strategy for competing in the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses has focused largely on eastern Iowa, a nod to the subtle geographic differences in the state's GOP electorate and the challenges he faces with more conservative voters to the west.

In eight events since announcing his interest in running, Bush hasn't ventured west of the Des Moines metro area, leaving untouched Iowa's vast and ardently Republican northwest quadrant, where GOP candidates routinely win some counties with 80 percent or better of the vote.

Those eight visits include trips to the small town of Washington in the southeast and Pella in central Iowa on Wednesday, his first events in the state as a declared presidential candidate.

The former Florida governor's positions on immigration reform and education policy in particular represent liabilities with conservative Iowans who believe a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants is "amnesty" and Common Core education standards are a federal takeover of public education.

"That's not very fruitful country over there, in the hotbed of Steve King," Grinnell College political scientist Barbara Trish said Wednesday at the Bush event in Pella, referring to western Iowa and the stridently conservative congressman who represents the area.

David Kochel, a top adviser to Bush's national campaign whose consultancy is based in Des Moines, acknowledged the east-central focus so far, but promised a statewide effort in the months to come.

"Gov. Bush is going to campaign from river to river and town to town," Kochel said. "We'll take the message everywhere in Iowa: western Iowa, central Iowa, just keep watching. We'll be all over the place."

In his stops east of Interstate Highway 35 on Wednesday, Bush addressed both immigration and education directly — and found crowds receptive to his perspective.

"What I've learned in my political life and just being Jeb is that you can't bend with the wind," Bush told 100 attendees at a meet-and-greet in Washington. "I believe what I believe, and I believe in comprehensive immigration reform because I know that it will help us create high, sustained economic growth where more people succeed."

In Pella, he acknowledged his detractors even more directly: "This apparently is controversial, so here goes, I'll subject myself to probably a little bit of abuse, but I don't think 11 million people living in the shadows is appropriate in this great country."

That relatively moderate stance — favoring a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants and better immigration opportunities for the highly educated alongside border security and visa reform — was well received in both places, drawing some of the heaviest applause of his remarks and praise from attendees afterward.

"I like what he had to say about immigration," said Chuck Singleman, 65, a retired police officer from Wellman. "It's a problem that's got to be solved and it's not going to be solved by the brownshirts rounding up people in the middle of the night, you know? It's got to be addressed. It's got to be solved logically."

Washington retirees John and Mary Lynn Helscher shared that view, praising the logic but also the compassion they heard in Bush's immigration position.

"An open door for anybody that wants to come here is not logical," John Helscher said, "but shutting people out that really desperately want in is not logical either."

"And," Mary Lynn Helscher added, "it's not what America is about, the compassion that we have as a country."

Singleman and the Helschers said they were open to supporting Bush, but not yet committed — Singleman said he also likes Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, while the Helschers were waiting to hear from additional candidates.

"I would be very comfortable voting for him in the general election, but I don't know whether I'll vote for him in the primary yet because there's a lot of listening to be done," John Helscher said.

In Pella, where about 500 people turned out for Bush on a downtown plaza, he also sought to clarify and push back against criticism of his position on Common Core education standards.

"Let me make clear on the K-12 side what the federal government should be doing: very little or nothing," he said in response to a question. "The federal government should have no say in the creation of standards, content or curriculum, indirectly or directly, over and out."

Scott and Ellie Burns, a Pella couple who brought their 7-year-old daughter Sophia to see the candidate, said afterward they were satisfied by his answers on education and other issues, but were still vetting their options for whom to support on caucus night.

"It should be handled by the states," Ellie Burns said of education standards. "I don't think the federal government should be involved in that, so I appreciated his comments there."

But was he convincing on the point?

"As a convincing as a politician can be," she replied.