Typically, a challenger needs to run a somewhat negative campaign in order to convince voters to reject the incumbent. The incumbent usually tries to ignore the criticism and keep the focus on his or her record.

Earlier this year, the messages coming from the Boswell camp focused on his lengthy, honorable service while depicting Fallon as disloyal and too liberal to win the general election.

Seven weeks from the June 3 primary, we still have no public polling on this race. But it's telling that Boswell's campaign has not leaked the results from any internal poll all year. I'm guessing that the earlier messaging failed to push Boswell's numbers outside the danger zone, because in the past month, the criticism of Fallon has escalated.

In fact, in late March Boswell's campaign manager sent out a mass e-mail that was mostly about the challenger, culminating in the assertion, "Ed Fallon is no Democrat." (You can read the full text of that e-mail here.)

The barrage prompted Fallon to issue a statement calling on Boswell to "stop the negative attacks" and talk about the issues on which they disagree.

Boswell, his staffers and his supporters have lately sought to depict Fallon as unethical, citing four alleged problems:

1. his work and fundraising for the Independence Movement for Iowa (I'M for Iowa)

2. the salary he drew from unspent campaign funds following the 2006 gubernatorial primary

3. claims that Fallon pondered running for governor as an independent after losing that primary

4. Fallon's stand against taking contributions from political action committees (PACs) while allowing PACs to encourage their individual members to donate to his campaign.

I'm covering this race in more detail at Bleeding Heartland. If you want the "long version" of my take on these four controversies:

This post and this follow-up piece go over the I'M for Iowa allegations.

This post deals with the controversy over Fallon's salary from his gubernatorial campaign.

This post looks at the evidence on whether Fallon considered running for governor as an independent.

I discussed Fallon's stand on accepting help from PACs in this post.

Today's diary just hits the highlights.

Is the I'M for Iowa movement a problem for Fallon?

After his unsuccessful run for governor in 2006, Fallon established a political advocacy business called the Independence Movement for Iowa. I'M for Iowa has weighed in on a broad range of issues: for tighter regulation of confined-animal feeding operations (CAFOs), sentencing reform, more balanced transportation policy, and voluntary public financing; against building new coal-fired power plans and abuse of eminent domain. Chase Martyn published a piece at Iowa Independent last month that raised questions about I'M for Iowa's ability to collect unlimited donations without disclosing the sources:

Although I'M For Iowa participates in political advocacy and relies on contributions to stay afloat, its financial status does not fit the typical mold for this type of organization. Rather than registering it as a nonprofit organization with the Internal Revenue Service under sections 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4) or 527, Fallon runs the organization as a for-profit general partnership, making its tax status no different from most home businesses. He and his current campaign manager, Lynn Heuss, co-own the business.

But there is a difference between I'M For Iowa and most typical businesses: Rather than sell products and services to customers, it accepts donations for its political advocacy work. While the donations are not tax-deductible, the business can accept unlimited amounts of money. And because of its tax status, it is not required to disclose information about its sources of funding.

Martyn also noted that two e-mails sent to I'M for Iowa's distribution list appeared to have promoted Fallon's Congressional campaign. Martyn suggested that even if no laws were broken, the questions could hurt Fallon's image, since he has been a strong advocate of campaign finance reform.

The Boswell campaign mentioned "ethical questions" related to I'M for Iowa in a mass e-mail, citing the Iowa Independent story. That prompted the Des Moines Register to examine various questions related to I'M for Iowa. Among other things, that article noted that

Campaign finance law bars corporate contributions from federal races. However, the law specifies corporations and limited liability companies, which Fallon's group is not.

Martyn wrote in Iowa Independent:

A representative of the Federal Elections Commission would not comment on any matters that regulators may have to rule on, but FEC regulations do not seem to explicitly prohibit coordination between a campaign and an unincorporated business entity owned by a candidate.

Fallon first tried to dismiss this controversy as politics as usual:

"The political establishment attacks a candidate on his strength," Fallon said. "My strength is my commitment to issues. They are looking for ways to discredit me."

His campaign then put out a press release citing portions of the FEC Candidate Guide, which allow in-kind contributions from a partnership. Unfortunately, that press release left the impression that the FEC had issued an opinion supporting Fallon's use of I'M for Iowa, when in fact FEC staff merely confirmed the content of the rules with a Fallon staffer and did not make "any determination relative to the specific circumstances of any campaign".

Finally, Fallon tried to put this matter to rest with a You Tube video:

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In the video, Fallon notes that a small business owner who is running for office is allowed to put up a campaign sign outside the business, put brochures by the cash register, and talk to customers about why he is running.

I should note that the Boswell campaign stopped short of accusing Fallon of breaking the law with respect to I'M for Iowa. Nevertheless, Boswell spokesman Mark Daley has suggested there is something illegitimate about the business:

"If he's going to run on clean elections, then he should come clean about what he's doing," Boswell campaign spokesman Mark Daley said.
[...]

The ethics questions are the latest jab by Boswell ahead of the June 3 primary.

"On the surface, this looks like a fund to give him a job," Daley said.

If Fallon decided to pursue political advocacy work full-time after the 2006 gubernatorial campaign, and people were willing to contribute money to I'M for Iowa, why is that less legitimate than getting people to invest in a different kind of business?

Non-profit organizations are unable or unwilling to take a position on some kinds of political disputes, so there is a niche for a business like I'M for Iowa.

I agree with Chase Martyn that soliciting donations for political advocacy services would be inappropriate if Fallon were elected to Congress. In that event, it would be best to shut down I'M for Iowa or transfer it to new ownership outside Fallon's household, so as not to create any opportunities for (or even the appearance of) corruption.

But I'm not going to get bent out of shape by a couple of e-mails to the I'M for Iowa list when Boswell has used his franking privilege to send out glossy direct-mail pieces that had the look and feel of campaign literature. Those were very different from the typical constituent letter you get from Boswell's office on regular paper in a regular envelope.

The Des Moines Register has rapped Boswell for billing taxpayers for material that "crashes across" the line between "legitimate constituent communication and overt political campaigning." Not surprisingly, Boswell's office has not disclosed how much those mailings cost.

Was it wrong for Fallon to draw a salary from unspent campaign funds?

Campaigns routinely pay staffers for weeks or months after the race is over. Two weeks ago I spoke to someone who is still working at John Edwards' headquarters in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, more than two months after Edwards suspended his presidential campaign.

It is more unusual for the candidate to be paid for doing campaign work after the election. No one disputes that Fallon received $13,750 from his gubernatorial campaign between June and November of 2006. The payments are allowed under Iowa law "as long as the candidate is doing work related to the campaign."

Fallon checked with Charlie Smithson, executive director of the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board, who "assured me that I, along with other staff, could be paid to work on campaign related tasks." What were those tasks?

Though the campaign was over, there was still plenty of work to do with data entry, file drawers, computer files, and office equipment.  I also wanted to make sure the key issues in my campaign continued to receive attention through the general election.  So, three staff and I stayed on part-time.

Once this became an issue in the IA-03 primary, Iowa House representative Rick Olson (a Des Moines Democrat who backs Boswell) launched a legislative effort to ban politicians from taking salaries from campaign funds.

The Iowa legislature has two "funnel" deadlines for bills, and both have passed this session. In theory, that means that bills which have not already been approved by a committee are dead until the 2009 legislative session.

However, the leadership in the Democratic-controlled Iowa House and Senate may try to get Olson's proposal through before the legislature adjourns on April 22:

A deadline has passed for most lawmakers to sponsor new legislation, but bills sponsored by legislative leaders can be introduced at any time and remain eligible for debate.

It is totally inappropriate to make the Iowa legislature an arm of Leonard Boswell's re-election campaign.

It is also absurd to treat the so-called "Fallon loophole" as a five-alarm fire when Iowa has no limits on the size of contributions candidates for the legislature or statewide office may accept. That's right, a wealthy person can write a check of any size to any state legislator's campaign.

Also, legislative leaders refuse to allow the Voter-Owned Iowa Clean Elections Act (which would create a voluntary public-financing system similar to those used in Maine and Arizona) to move forward.

Nor do I see any sign that House and Senate leaders are willing to address a significant voting-rights issue that has emerged in recent weeks.

Fallon responded to the flap over the "Fallon loophole" in his campaign blog on April 2. Among other things, he claims lawmakers are getting back at him because I'M for Iowa has been highly critical of the Democratic leadership in the legislature. He also notes that statehouse Democrats are content to ignore far more serious loopholes in our campaign finance rules:

The real loophole that needs closing is the one that allows legislative leaders to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from PACs and lobbyists, funnel it to special funds, and then ship it to targeted candidates.  Successful candidates are then reminded by leaders that they won because of the money funneled into their campaigns.

The Des Moines Register's editorial board on April 6 criticized the proposed legislation on different grounds:

A thistle to Democratic legislators who would bar candidates from drawing a salary from campaign donors. This bill (aimed at Ed Fallon, who is challenging Leonard Boswell) is an Incumbent Protection Act. Challengers who give up day jobs to run for office must fend for themselves or be independently wealthy. Meanwhile, the taxpayers support or subsidize incumbents. If contributors want to spend their own money for the care and feeding of a candidate, it is no business of the Iowa Legislature.

Incidentally, Fallon gave up two paying jobs in order to run for governor: his seat in the Iowa House (in a safe Democratic district), and his part-time position as executive director of the non-profit organization 1000 Friends of Iowa (a group I am involved with).

To my mind, the controversy over Fallon's salary in 2006 is just another facet of Boswell's effort to make this campaign about anything but how the incumbent has voted during his six terms in Congress.

Did Fallon consider running for governor as an independent?

This is a useful argument for Boswell, because it reinforces the narrative of Fallon as the disloyal Democrat. (As I've written here and here, Boswell has repeatedly referred to Fallon's support for Ralph Nader in 2000.) In so doing, Boswell directs attention away from votes in which he sided with the Republican majority rather than with most House Democrats.

Fallon vehemently denies this charge:

First, in 2006, I absolutely never, ever considered running for Governor as an independent.  In fact, I firmly pledged to support the winner of the Democratic primary. After losing that primary, I volunteered extensively with the Culver campaign.  You might recall that I even wrote a song asking my supporters not to write me in.

But don't just take his word for it. The Des Moines Register noted that Fallon endorsed Culver two days after the primary.

As it happens, I'm one of those people who has literally thousands of e-mails in my in-box, because I don't get around to deleting them before scores more arrive every day. I searched my e-mail archives and found a message from the Fallon for Governor campaign dated June 12, 2006, which makes clear that he is supporting Culver. I also found an e-mail sent on June 19, 2006, which contains the text of a speech Fallon delivered to the Democratic state convention two days earlier. Excerpt:

I want to thank Chet Culver, Mike Blouin and Sal Mohamed for running a spirited campaign, and I want to congratulate Chet for his victory on June 6th.  Chet and I have been meeting to discuss issues, and I can assure you that all of us, in fact most Iowans, have a lot more in common with Chet Culver than with Jim Nussle.  Jim Nussle must not become governor.  

Despite that evidence, Boswell says Fallon's denials are "disingenuous," adding that he finds it "a little hard to believe" that Fallon never pondered running for governor as a third-party candidate.

Boswell's campaign has noted that in 2006, Fallon campaign staffer Lynn Heuss wrote to the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board inquiring whether Fallon could draw a salary from his gubernatorial campaign. Her e-mail included this passage:

"After the primary campaign, Ed Fallon continued to work on campaign-related business," [...]
"Along with the administrative tasks, there was also the possibility that he would decide to run as a 3rd party candidate," an e-mail from Heuss to ethics board auditor Linda Andersen said. "And finally, he continued to push the issues that he worked on in his campaign."

Fallon has said Heuss was "a little bit careless" in her choice of words, and

Heuss has said she meant to say there was the chance Fallon would run for a different office in the future.

It's a bit rich for Boswell's campaign to level this charge based on one e-mail comment by a staffer while ignoring Fallon's public endorsement of Culver two days after the 2006 primary.

The ultimate irony is that since January of this year, Fallon has pledged to support the winner of the June 3 Congressional primary, a promise he repeated in a recent blog post.

For some time I have been trying to get a straight answer out of the Boswell campaign as to whether the incumbent will promise to support the winner of the primary. After getting no response from campaign manager Scott Ourth, I contacted press secretary Betsy Shelton. She e-mailed me last week with the "official response" from Ourth:

Congressman Boswell has always supported Democrats and always will support Democrats.

Um, okay. The thing is, Boswell's campaign sent out a mass e-mail declaring, "Ed Fallon is no Democrat."

So I wrote back to Shelton right away asking her to clarify whether Boswell would rule out running as an "alternative Democrat" in the general if Fallon wins the primary.

A week later, I haven't gotten any reply. I take that to mean that Boswell might pull a Joe Lieberman if he loses on June 3.

Is it hypocritical for Fallon to allow PACs to help him?

Since his first campaign for the Iowa legislature during the 1990s, Fallon has refused to accept contributions from lobbyists or PACs.

However, two PACs have endorsed Fallon so far in the Democratic primary to represent the third Congressional district: Democracy for America in February and the Stop the Arms Race PAC (STAR-PAC) in March.

Fallon has not discouraged those organizations from helping him raise money for his campaign. Democracy for America has e-mailed its large list of members on Fallon's behalf, which helped raised tens of thousands of dollars for Fallon's campaign through this page at ActBlue. STAR-PAC has also encouraged individual members to donate; it is not known how much those contributors have given to the campaign.

Boswell's campaign has demanded that Fallon return the donations PACs have helped generate:

"In light of your outspoken position on PACs, continuing to enlist their support in your efforts would be dishonest and hypocritical," said the letter, signed by Boswell spokeswoman JoDee Winterhof.
[...]

Fallon said he has no problem with non-corporate PACs such as Democracy for America, the Sierra Club and labor unions who encourage their members to become involved or donate to his campaign.

"I just don't take their money," he said.

Daniel Medress, a spokesman for Democracy for America, said that while the group has endorsed the former Iowa legislator, "We have not donated a penny to Ed Fallon."

"Ed Fallon wouldn't take our money, he doesn't take money from PACs," Medress said.

After Fallon accepted STAR-PAC's endorsement, Boswell's spokeswoman Winterhof

accused Fallon of wanting it both ways.

"Ed Fallon is telling voters PACs are bad, unless they are helping me," she said. "... This is not about the role of his supporters aiding his campaign, it's about Ed Fallon walking his talk."

Is this a legitimate complaint? Sending out an e-mail directing recipients to an ActBlue page is obviously assistance to Fallon's campaign. But the leadership of those PACs do not control how much the campaign receives, because individuals are free to act on or ignore any pro-Fallon messages coming from Democracy for America and STAR-PAC.

Fallon has responded to these complaints by changing the subject to Boswell's campaign financing. This page on the Fallon for Congress website shows how much Boswell has raised from individuals and how much he has raised from PACs in each of the last seven election cycles.

Every cycle, he has raised significantly more from PACs. In 2007, about 74 percent of the funds raised by Boswell for Congress came from PACs. Fallon frequently mentions that statistic in interviews and campaign appearances.

Boswell's campaign says labor PACs provide the "vast majority" of PAC money the incumbent receives. However, data from the Open Secrets website shows that in five of the last seven election cycles, Boswell has raised much more from business PACs than from labor PACs.

For me, a politician's voting record is far more important than the source of his or her fundraising. Take Congressman Dave Loebsack, who was elected in 2006 to Iowa's second Congressional district. The Open Secrets site shows that this election cycle about 63 percent of Loebsack's campaign financing has come from PAC donations, with only about 36 percent coming from individual donations. (About 43 percent of Loebsack's PAC money came from labor PACs, 31 percent from ideological or single-issue PACs, and 26 percent from business PACs.)

Based on his record so far, I would be very pleased to have someone like Loebsack representing my district, even if the proportion of campaign funding he accepts from PACs is comparable to Boswell's.

Ultimately, I don't think the question of PAC contributions is a strong selling point for either candidate in the third district primary.

If Boswell had a different voting record, I wouldn't care if he raised a lot of money from PACs. Fallon's challenge would be unnecessary. That's not to excuse Boswell staffers who erroneously claim that most of his PAC money comes from labor PACs--it's just to say that PAC money wouldn't rank among my top arguments for electing a new member of Congress.

Why has Boswell gone negative?

You really have to wonder why a six-term incumbent is running the kind of campaign Boswell is running.

He has the support of the other Iowa Democrats in Congress, including Senator Tom Harkin. A long list of labor unions, corporate trade associations, and other interest groups have endorsed him. He had a significant cash-on-hand advantage over Fallon even before Governor Culver headlined a big fundraiser for him earlier this month.

Why not just ignore the challenger in favor of positive messages like the mailer I got from Boswell's campaign last week?

With no public polling, it remains hard to handicap this race. Fallon has invested most of his campaign's resources in a team of field organizers who work the phones or knock on doors every day. He told me this week that he is optimistic based on their voter contacts.

If Boswell's campaign starts releasing the results of their internal polling in the near future, however, that would suggest their attacks on Fallon changed the dynamic of this primary battle.