Obama Picks Vilsack for New Ag Secretary

By Jane Fyksen Crops Editor
Sunday, December 28, 2008 8:50 PM CST

Tom Vilsack, President Elect Obama’s pick for U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, has reportedly been a long-shot candidate most of his political career. A former Iowa governor, he’s also long on experience in agriculture.

Orphaned at birth and placed in a Roman Catholic orphanage in Pittsburgh, Pa., he was adopted as an infant by Bud and Dolly Vilsack. He studied law in college, where he met his future wife, Christie. Vilsack and his wife moved to rural Iowa, where he joined his father-in-law in his law practice. His political career in this country’s largest corn-producing state, has included serving as the mayor of the small town of Mount Pleasant, state senator, and then governor in 1998.

During a brief run for the Democratic presidential nomination, Vilsack, 58, reportedly often talked about his adoptive mother's struggles with alcoholism and a longing for stability. He met Christie Bell at Hamilton College in New York. As noted, after earning a law degree, the young Vilsacks settled in Mount Pleasant, a town of 8,700 in far southeast Iowa, where Vilsack later coached Little League and where he was charmed by the small-town stability and sense of family. (When Iowa’s governor, he occasionally dressed in cartoon-character outfits to entertain kids during gatherings at the governor’s mansion.)

Small-town stability was badly eroded for Vilsack and the rest of Mount Pleasant, when, in 1987, a disgruntled citizen burst into a Mount Pleasant City Council meeting and shot and killed the mayor. Vilsack was appointed mayor of the largely Republican community, traumatized by the shooting.

In 1992, he won a close election to the Iowa state Senate, where he reportedly pushed legislation requiring companies getting state assistance to improve pay and benefits. When Republican Governor Terry Branstad decided to not to seek re-election after 16 years, Vilsack surprised many by winning a three-way Democratic primary. Even more surprising was his victory over a better-known Republican contender, former congressman Jim Ross Lightfoot.

During two terms as governor, Vilsack pushed for creation of a $500 million Grow Iowa Values Fund, aimed at spurring a slowing economy. Those economic problems forced him to push for deep budget cuts and eventually furlough 10 percent of the state's work force. He’s also been a strong proponent of ethanol. He’s endorsed the goal of producing 25 percent of this country’s energy supply from renewable sources by 2025.

First elected governor in 1998, Vilsack, balanced Iowa's budget and resisted raising taxes, but reportedly was willing to spend money on such priorities as education and health. He argued that alternative energy was key to bolstering rural areas that were struggling economically and seeing population erode.

Frank Lucas, lifelong farmer, Oklahoma U.S. Representative and the ranking Republican on the House Ag Committee, thinks Vilsack’s background as a leader in one of this country’s biggest farm states bodes well for his understanding of challenges facing producers. One of Vilsack’s first tasks will likely be trying to make good on Obama’s pledge to trim farm subsidies. Obama has called for lowering the cap on farm payments.

Vilsack has acknowledged the challenge of leading USDA in these rough economic times, noting, “It must be innovative and creative in all its work during a time of economic anxiety and limited resources.”

Iowa is home to the chairman of the Senate Ag Committee, Democratic Senator Tom Harkin, who’s hopeful Vilsack will shift money from subsidies for large corporate farms toward conservation. “He’s got the background, the intelligence, the political skills that will be necessary to really change agriculture and move it into the future,” says Harkin. Vilsack in the Obama Administration and Harkin in Congress will give Iowa and the Upper Midwest a commanding farm policy presence.

Monte Shaw, spokesman for the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, put it bluntly; “He knows which end of the cow to put the distiller's grain in. He'll get that on Day One and that's very good.''

Even before leaving office in 2007, Vilsack began flirting with the Democratic presidential nomination, hoping to get a boost from Iowa's leadoff precinct caucuses. He launched his campaign for the presidency in November 2006 in Mount Pleasant but had difficulty raising money and ended his bid in February 2007.

Only weeks after dropping out, he endorsed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign to be the Democratic presidential nominee; Barack Obama trounced Clinton in Iowa caucuses. After Clinton dropped from the race for President, Vilsack endorsed Obama.

Vilsack will be the fourth former opponent of Obama in the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination to join his incoming administration. Others include Vice-President-elect Joe Biden, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, tapped for secretary of state, and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, to head the Commerce Department.

Since his presidential bid, Vilsack has held several positions, including one at Iowa State University's Biosafety Institute, where he helped analyze the risks and benefits of genetically modified crops and livestock.

The Vilsacks have two adult sons.

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