The Des Moines Register's argument against Boswell is different from the case I have been making. For many progressives, including myself, Boswell's numerous votes with Republicans on vital issues are the deal-breaker in this primary. This great website produced by Progressive Kick provides the gory details about Boswell's bad voting record, but Matt Stoller sums it up succinctly:

If you can name it, Boswell's bad on it.  Free trade, net neutrality, torture in the Military Commissions Act, subsidies for oil and gas companies, CAFE standards, the estate tax, increasing the use of coal, immigration, the Bankruptcy Bill, factory hog confinements, etc.

Boswell's campaign has tried to keep the focus away from his stands on those issues. Instead, they have emphasized his long record of service to constituents, as well as his alleged clout.

Which would be great if he had a list of important legislation he had co-sponsored, or at least a mastery of policy details. But he showed up unprepared for his interview with the Des Moines Register's editorial board, and they were not impressed:

Boswell's own record of accomplishment in a dozen years in Congress is relatively light, and, in a recent meeting with the editorial board, he seemed out of touch about some serious issues facing the country.

One example: Boswell expressed skepticism about the financial problems facing Medicare, asking what economists the Register had consulted to conclude the health-care program was in fiscal trouble. It's hardly an issue for debate. The Medicare Board of Trustees has issued numerous reports outlining the trust fund's looming deficits. David Walker, former comptroller general, has expressed concerns about projected Medicare spending. Yet Boswell talked about further studying the issue rather than proposing how to address it.

Click the link to read other examples of Boswell's unrealistic or uninformed answers to questions asked by the Register's editorial board.

The Register said Fallon "stands out" for being "frequently on the right side of issues":

He supports a taxpayer-financed health-insurance system that would cover everyone, and he wants to reform the wasteful prescription-drug program.

A longtime peace activist, he has steadfastly opposed the war in Iraq.

During his meeting with the editorial board, Fallon said climate change is the single biggest issue the country faces. [...]

Fallon said Washington needs more people to "think independently and critically." That's the best argument for selecting him as the 3rd District Democratic nominee.

I don't intend to exaggerate the importance of any newspaper endorsement, but the Register's editorial is valuable for Fallon. It underscores that he is a credible candidate.

The first hurdle for any longshot candidate, especially a challenger to a well-entrenched incumbent, is to get the voters and the media to take the challenge seriously.

Boswell's campaign has tried to depict Fallon as a fringe candidate, but it's hard to sustain that position with the Des Moines Register, a pillar of the Iowa establishment, backing Fallon.

Key lines from the editorial support Fallon's claim to represent "New Energy for Iowa," the tag line on his yard signs and his campaign literature.

Fallon's biggest challenge will be to spread the word about this endorsement with only six days left in the campaign and much less cash on hand than Boswell has. The campaign immediately put the editorial up on the front page of the candidate's website, but it's not clear whether he has the funds to run television or radio advertisements this week. Fallon's campaign has apparently had three television ads produced, but I don't know if or when those will hit the airwaves.

Open Left launched a fundraiser for Fallon yesterday and created this page for it at Act Blue. Blue America has also added Fallon to its Act Blue page.

Every politically-active Iowan I talked to yesterday was surprised by the Des Moines Register's endorsement. In elections to school boards and city councils, the newspaper usually endorses incumbents rather than insurgent candidates. Some interpreted the editorial as a sign that the Register had been leaning toward Boswell until he blew the interview.

Iowa blogger John Deeth advanced the intriguing theory that this endorsement was the price Boswell paid for refusing to debate Fallon.

Speaking of which, Boswell has scheduled a bunch of events in the Des Moines area this week, including a radio appearance tonight at 6 pm. This date (May 28) was one of the options discussed for the Des Moines Register-sponsored debate, but Boswell was apparently too busy.

Fallon will appear tonight at an "empty chair" candidate forum in Des Moines hosted by several progressive groups.

Other recent developments in the campaign:

Boswell's office still has not responded to questions regarding his stand on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and specifically whether he supported Republican efforts earlier this month to add the Senate version of the FISA bill (which House Democrats oppose) to the 2009 intelligence appropriation. Matt Stoller included Fallon's open letter to Boswell on the FISA issue here.

You can watch the videos of Fallon and Boswell speaking with the Des Moines Register's editorial board on this page of the newspaper's website. Stoller included the Boswell video in his post at Open Left as well.

Last week Fallon called for a moratorium on confined-animal feeding operations (CAFOs), amid growing evidence that they impose huge hidden costs on society while state governments lack the political will to regulate them.

Last Thursday Boswell's campaign released partial results from an internal poll showing the incumbent with 65 percent support among likely voters. The campaign has not responded to my request for more information about this poll (such as when it was in the field, the number of respondents, what criteria were used to code a respondent as a likely voter, and so on). The only public poll of the race, taken more than a month ago, showed Boswell up 52-28.

A sign of the incumbent's confidence is that he finally promised to support the winner of the June 3 primary, according to the weekly Cityview.

Amusingly, the same article quoted Boswell as saying,

"If you look at the issues, there's just not a lot of difference between us," Boswell said. "He's taking things out of context and trying to conjure up differences that don't exist."

On Monday Fallon unveiled the endorsements of several members of the Democratic Party's central committee in Jasper County, which is the second-largest county in the district. He hasn't had much support from members of the Democratic Party establishment.

Yesterday a direct-mail piece produced by an anti-Fallon 527 group hit Democrats' mailboxes in the district. It highlights the fact that Fallon was the only member of the Iowa House to vote against a 2002 law banning sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or day-care center. The full text of that misleading hit piece is here. It's worth noting that both the Iowa County Attorneys Association and national advocates for exploited children have spoken out against such residency restrictions as useless.

The irony is that the Des Moines Register's editorial endorsing Fallon mentioned that very vote as an example of Fallon being right on the issues, since the law has not been shown to provide any protection for children, and only makes it harder for law enforcement officials to track sex offenders.

To sum up, only a fool would pretend that Fallon does not have a big hill to climb in this race. Boswell started out with big advantages in name recognition, money, and establishment support. The available polling shows the incumbent way ahead. Fallon has expressed optimism based on his campaign's voter contacts, but the payroll expenses associated with his large field staff have left him without much cash to advertise during the final weeks.

The big question mark is whose supporters will be more motivated to show up for a low-turnout primary. Your guess is as good as mine.

I leave you with a funny You Tube video from the Fallon campaign. Watch voters struggle to tell the difference between two Boswell direct-mail pieces on health care. One of them was financed by taxpayers in an abuse of Boswell's franking privilege a few months ago. The other was produced and mailed using Boswell's campaign funds (a detailed description of that piece is here). Here is the video: