Donald Trump is not a conservative, and he is a dealmaker. So it was totally unsurprising when he rallied behind the ethanol mandate, which drives up gasoline prices, grocery bills and land costs in order to subsidize a politically connected industry.
Now Iowa’s top ethanol lobbyist is going to become Trump’s state director, Tim Alberta reports at National Review.
Alberta provides interesting context:
Eric Branstad surprised Iowa GOP veterans by not just hounding Cruz, but promoting Trump. Any doubts about his allegiances were erased on caucus night, Republicans say, when Eric Branstad spoke on Trump’s behalf at Merrill Middle School in Des Moines.
If the younger Branstad’s support for Trump was surprising to peers, his father’s accommodation of the controversial candidate was perplexing. Gov. Branstad refused throughout the Iowa campaign to condemn or criticize Trump, even when he skipped the Des Moines debate three days prior to the caucuses.
Of course, Ted Cruz, the clearest enemy of the ethanol mandate, won the Iowa caucuses with the most votes ever, revealing the ethanol lobby to lack the clout many conservative politicians had believed it had.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
