Letter to the Editor:

The Boston Globe faults the Des Moines Register for not calling Mrs. Ernst a lunatic. That seems rather harsh.

She does flip-flop. For example, she called President Obama a dictator that should be impeached. Later she said that there were no grounds for impeachment and that he was “obviously” not a dictator.

She does try to backtrack. She said that war in Iraq was justified but backed off that position in May. She backtracked on her support for privatizing Social Security and her view that $15,000 was an adequate yearly income for Iowans. Unfortunately for her, there were both audio and video that recorded her support for both.

She had a campaign ad that claimed Representative Braley paid his women employees 42 cents per hour. However, it was so outrageously untrue that TV stations pulled it.

She rejects abortion as an option for women even in cases of rape and incest. However, she also rejects some common forms of birth control that would make abortions unnecessary in the first place.

She repeats false information. An example is that Representative Braley weakened Medicare by taking billions from it when, in reality, the money taken was not being used for senior health care anyway. She still runs the ad and makes the claim.

None of this makes her a lunatic. She only borders on lunacy when she claims that those enforcing federal laws within all states could be arrested as criminals. The question of federal law over state law was settled from 1861 to 1865 in something called the Civil War. It was decided that the federal government’s power trumps the states’ power and that we would be the UNITED States.

Mrs. Ernst is probably not a lunatic. She is, however, a Tea Party Republican. They are the folks of whom John McCain said that they “should realize that their opposition to bipartisan negotiations is not sustainable.” They are the folks of whom John Boehner said, “to hell with them.” They are obstructionists who paralyzed the federal government.

There must be moderate Republicans who would be candidates who want to govern rather than obstruct. Those are the folks that need to run for office and advance the cause of the Republican Party. Unfortunately, Mrs. Ernst will not help that cause.

Anne Michael

Tama