Iowa's "Bob Ray Republicans" Need To Teach the Next Generation of Republicans About Bob Ray To Save Their Party
His legacy of good government is also at risk with ideological take over of party
It’s hard to comprehend, but former Iowa Governor Robert D. Ray’s time leading the Iowa Republican Party and the state of Iowa as Governor ended forty years ago.
While there are plenty of Republicans - or in many cases, former Republicans - who still describe themselves as “Bob Ray Republicans” today, it is a fact about Ray that, as Secretary of War William Stanton famously said in 1865 upon the death of President Abraham Lincoln, “Now he belongs to the ages.”
The fact is, Robert D. Ray now belongs more to Iowa’s history than he does to the present, and especially to the Iowa Republican Party of today.
Which is a shame. His party could use his example to stop its continued slide into fanaticism, corruption and extremism.
If those Iowa Republicans who still think of themselves as “Bob Ray Republicans” hope to save their party from the grips of the extremists who now run it, they need to do something. After eight years of Donald Trump’s “leadership” - and its trickle down fascism which has reached Iowa, simply waiting for the Trump effect to wear off seems like a poor strategy.
My suggestion: begin reclaiming their party by raising the profile and the example of Governor Bob Ray while there are still people around who can talk about it who experienced it. Those conversations would provide a stark contrast with the current crew Republicans swinging the partisan wrecking ball in Iowa.
The forty years that stand between today and Bob Ray’s last day as Governor of Iowa means there are now two generations of younger Republicans who have no living memory of what it was like to have Bob Ray as Iowa’s Governor.
Their point of reference for Republican governors in the state are Terry Branstad and Kim Reynolds. How sad. The Branstad and Reynolds styles of Republican “leadership” has been to simply follow their party down the path of fanaticism and extremism.
Teaching and celebrating Bob Ray’s story and record of positive, bi-partisn leadership is a pretty good place to start in rebuilding a sane Republican Party in Iowa.
Otherwise, the Trump inspired extremism, fanaticism, book banning, corruption, bigotry, misogyny, and xenophobia that now grips the Republican party will continue to be the template for Republican leaders.
While Ray’s legacy in today’s Iowa ideological, extreme Republican Party is pretty much non-existent, he was as Republican as they came in his day. His credentials included serving as:
State Chairman of the Iowa Republican Party;
Republican Governor of Iowa for 14 years;
Chair of the. National Governors Association;
Chair of the Republican Governors Association
Chair of the Midwest. Governors Association.
If there is a theme in that resume, it is solid Republican credentials and bi-partisan respect from his fellow Governors.
Robert Ray also had the respect of - and was well liked by - Iowa Democrats, even as they tried to defeat him on the five Election Days when he was on the ballot. There was no bitter partisan snarling in his day. Plenty of disagreement, to be sure, but the two parties worked together and respected each other.
Extremism had no place to hang its hat in the Ray Administrations.
What Bob Ray stood for back then reads like a laundry list of most of what today’s Republicans are against:
Civil Rights;
Energy Conservation;
Refugee resettlement, assistance, and advocacy on their behalf, particularly or Southeast Asia’s Tai Dam refugees and the “boat people” from Vietnam.
Accessible, accountable government;
Today’s Republicans would dismiss that record as the record of a “RINO” (Republican in Name Only) or as “woke.”
BTW, being “woke” is actually a good thing, so of course, Republicans are against it.
In 1979, Ray’s leadership on refugee resettlement was recognized nationally when - during the Democratic Carter Administration - he was appointed. and served as a delegate to the United Nations Conference on Refugees in Geneva Switzerland.
Compare Ray’s record on refugees to the xenophobia, bigotry, and outright cruelty today’s Republican party espouses regularly toward refugees and practiced daily during the Trump Administration.
Something else largely forgotten today about Ray’s leadership:
Ray pushed for and signed the first law that protected the graves of Native Americans. That legislation became a model for federal legislation protecting Native American graves and the remains they contained on the federal level.
At the time, it was not uncommon for Native American remains, some only a few hundred years old, to be routinely removed - plowed up even - from burial grounds to make room for farming. Native American bones and complete skeletons were often exhibited in museums, including some in Iowa, like fossil Trilobites from the Cambrian era, hundreds of millions of years before the dinosaurs.
Ray insisted that the remains of Native American, no matter how old, be treated for what they were - the remains of human beings, people, and that theybe treated with dignity and respect.
A relatively small thing, perhaps, in the grand scheme of pressing issues today - but it speaks volumes about the clarity of his judgment and his character.
Ray issued Executive Orders establishing the Iowa Council for Children, the Task Force on Government Ethics and the Science Advisory Council.
We know what the relationship is between today’s Republican Party and science - they are pretty much against it.
Their concern for children ends the nanosecond a baby is born.
Championing ethics in government couldn’t be more out of step with the party of Trump who - lest we forget, was impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors TWICE, has been charged with 91 felony indictments in four separate criminal cases, and told more than 30,000 independently documented lies while president.
I have lost track of the number of lawsuits Iowa’s state government lost under Ray’s Republican successor, Governor Terry Branstad, for actions which were found to be corrupt violations of the law.
Another illustration of Ray’s commitment to ethics in government: I remember catching up with the Governor, as a cub reporter in Iowa in the early 1970s, during a visit he made to the Iowa State University campus just as word was breaking about Vice President Spiro Agnew’s corrupt acceptance of bribes over multiple years.
I asked Iowa’s Republican Governor for his reaction to this breaking news about the Republican Vice President.
Ray’s reaction was quick and to the point. “If it’s true, he needs to get scalded,” Ray said.
No whining about witch hunts, biased prosecutors, judges or grand juries, or the need to delay prosecution of the case ad infinitum.
“If it’s true, he needs to get scalded.”
I don’t mean to suggest that Robert D. Ray was a perfect governor or a perfect politician. He had his opponents and on some issues, he had plenty of opposition. But he was also a bridge builder, not a bomb thrower. He looked for ways to bring people together, not divide and drive them apart. H looked for ways to build Iowa, not tear it down.
The bottom line is - Bob Ray was both respected and respectful of others. He opposed government corruption, insisted on ethical behavior by those who worked for government, and led by example. He didn’t make a career of corruption or mindlessly support fellow party members who did.
He worked to build the state and help those who needed it. Even refugees fleeing for their lives from thousands of miles away.
It would be helpful for Republicans who want to reclaim their party to remind their fellow partisans of who they used to be in Iowa. They were certainly not the ideological extremists they are today.
So little of what Governor Ray stood for has “stuck” to the modern day Iowa Republican Party that if “Bob Ray Republicans” - those who personally remember what it was like to have an honest, non-ideological, non-extremist Republican Governor - want to save their party from what it is rapidly becoming they need to start speaking up and telling and celebrating the Bob Ray story.
Otherwise, his legacy of good government is going to fade away completely. His example will be lost in the rubble left behind by the fanatics and extremists from within his own political party who now run rampant in the state Bob Ray worked in a bi-partisan and positive way to build.
“Barry Piatt on Politics: Behind the Curtains” is a weekly political commentary, analysis, and opinion column, delivered by email to subscribers. It is also available on the Substack.com platform. It is part of The Iowa Writers Collaborative (IWC) which publishes the work of some of Iowa’s best writers and thinkers.
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I am so old that I remember Ray's campaign song being a big deal. My recollection was that he was in a plane crash and many thought that helped his campaign. Of course, that was an opinion from my Democratic family.
Iowa has produced many fine leaders - most of them were Democratic - yet, Ray still was one of the the good ones. He followed Harold Hughes who was a champion in my home. Who can forget Culver, Harkin, and Smith.
Iowa's current leaders are terrible. Reynolds is a MAGA pet and Grassley consorts with Russian Operatives. They are so bad that they make Joni Ernst seem almost decent.
Iowa is no longer the beacon of good government and decency I thought it was when I was growing up. This is not nostalgia. Today's Republican party will not even feed low-income kids with the Summer Food Program. They have become mean-spirited and petty like their orange god.
Most of the "Bob Ray Republicans" I know left the GOP years ago and now consider themselves independents or even moderate Democrats.
The GOP (especially in Iowa) is way past the point of no return from MAGA-land.