Nasty Attacks and an “Absent” Randy Feenstra: The Latest from Iowa’s Clown Car GOP Primary

Nasty Attacks and an “Absent” Randy Feenstra: The Latest from Iowa’s Clown Car GOP Primary

The On Iowa Politics podcast recently highlighted how Iowa’s clown car GOP primary continues to get nastier with every passing day.

Reporters from across the state discussed how the messy primary has reached “an inflection point” as “absent Randy Feenstra” faces sharp criticism from his Republican rivals after failing to show up for Iowans and missing every GOP candidate forum for the governor’s race so far. They also noted how Adam Steen has repeatedly attacked Feenstra for bragging about his height while being short on substance for what policies he would propose to “take Iowa to new heights.”

No-show Feenstra even earned a “thumbs down” and “jeers” from his hometown paper’s editorial board after he skipped a candidate forum in his own congressional district.

At the same event, Republicans went on the attack and “took turns knocking” Feenstra:

• Adam Steen tore into Feenstra in his opening remarks, saying “it’s good to see all five gubernatorial candidates here. Just kidding. Where’s Randy Feenstra? He talks about how tall he is and nobody cares.”

• Brad Sherman mocked Feenstra’s long string of absences, saying “that’s sort of becoming a pattern, you know.”

• Zach Lahn and Eddie Andrews piled on, with Lahn saying the “one person who isn’t here” is “disqualified.”

It’s not just his fellow candidates — as the Sioux City Journal’s Jared McNett pointed out, Iowans “are not happy about it,” saying that “it’s just person after person saying they don’t understand why you would run for governor and then not be present or transparent.”

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