Senator Joni Ernst may be a newcomer to Washington D.C., but she’s already making a big splash. She was just selected by the Republican Party to give its response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. That’s a pretty good thing for which to be chosen–the last few years the spot of responder has included Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Paul Ryan. Ryan, of course, ran for Vice President last year, and Rubio’s name keeps popping up on the list for possible 2016 contenders.
But what does this choice actually mean? When I said that Ernst is a newcomer, I really meant newcomer–before running for Iowa’s Senate seat, she was in the Iowa State Senate. So, she’ll only have been in Washington for about a month before speaking for the entire GOP in response to the President. She in some ways ran her campaign on the fact that she was a Beltway outsider–her most talked-about ad of the 2016 elections involved her discussing castrating pigs as a child.
Honestly, it’s probably that outsider status that inspired the GOP to pick her as the responder. President Barack Obama and, by extension, the Democrats have run the Executive Branch since 2008. The GOP is probably going to paint them as tired, crony-filled, and too nationally focused to look out for the average American. On the other hand, Ernst is pretty much the definition of a fresh face. She’s also a woman, which given the gender gap that has made or broke some recent national elections, probably appeals to the Republican Party. For those reasons, this is a pretty good strategic choice on the GOP’s part.
On the other hand, she’s also a risky choice. She’s untested on the national stage, and she’s said some weird things in the past. For example, she subscribes to the conspiracy theory that Agenda 21, a sustainable environmental plan created by the United Nations, is a secret drive to force Americans off their land. Last November, she stated:
All of us agreed that Agenda 21 is a horrible idea. One of those implications to Americans, again, going back to what did it does do to the individual family here in the state of Iowa, and what I’ve seen, the implications that it has here is moving people off of their agricultural land and consolidating them into city centers, and then telling them that you don’t have property rights anymore. These are all things that the UN is behind, and it’s bad for the United States and bad for families here in the state of Iowa.
It’s a relatively popular Tea Party idea–but coming out against the U.N. is…extreme, to say the least.
It’s definitely a good position to be in for your first few months in Washington, but whether or not Ernst will be able to rise to the occasion will have to be determined. No matter what, one thing is certain: it will be an interesting speech to watch.