The Rob Sand road show

This “independent-minded” Democrat running for governor is doing a different kind of politics. It’s fun and I like it.

JEFFERSON, Iowa — If you’d have told me there’d be 90 people show up here at 7:45 p.m. on a Tuesday night to hear a Democratic candidate for governor, I’d have kissed — well, I’d have been surprised.

But here we all were, five evenings ago in a packed Pickaway Americana and Meeting House. That’s a collectors’ paradise in a big old former factory building, right next to the Union Pacific mainline and the Iowa Highway 4 viaduct over the railroad tracks, here in one of my hometowns.

The Greene County Democrats served free bowls of ice cream.

And here was Rob Sand, 43, perhaps an odd-sort-of-a-Democrat who gave us what you might call an “Americana Meeting House” style of campaign.

Rob Sand, speaking to a big crowd in Jefferson on Aug. 19.

I mean, he opened up by pointing out “we are in mixed company” and asked that Republicans, then independents, then Democrats, identify themselves by raising hands and then clapping for each other. And we did!

“All these (his campaign) events are oriented to bring us all together, being nice to each other,” Sand said. “We’re going to make our Thanksgiving dinners fun again!”

And then he led us all in singing the first verse of “America the Beautiful” — no kidding — and it was loud, clear and beautiful.

Biggest surprise of the night? Sitting in the front row of the crowd was Sean Sebourn 40, a solid conservative who until recently was chairperson of the Greene County Republican Party.

“Imagine seeing you here!” I said to him.

“I’m here because I got a text from Rob (Sand) today, asking me if I’d be here,” Sebourn said then. “Like I told Rob, he’s a friend and I’ll attend but it’s not an endorsement. We got to know each other because I was hired to be a ‘tracker’ in his campaigns, and we got along fine.”

That’s when Sand was running for state auditor, and being elected, in 2018 and 2022.

Such “trackers,” like Sebourn was, show up at the public meetings of candidates they oppose, listening and sometimes recording the candidates’ messages, in case anything could be used by the tracker’s preferred candidate.

“Actually, Rob and I eventually kind of became friends over time,” Sebourn said, “and we text back and forth sometimes.”

Democrat Rob Sand speaking, and Republican Sean Sebourn (at left in green short-sleeved shirt) listens.

Sand, who went right to Sebourn and shook his hand before he began speaking to the crowd, confirmed the texts, through his press secretary Maddie Moher.

“Yes, Rob did contact Sean to check if he was planning to attend the town hall,” she told me on Friday. “In general, yes — Rob and Sean have known each other through past campaign interactions. Over time, Sean has had the opportunity to hear Rob’s message firsthand, and his experience reflects exactly why Rob’s message resonates with voters across the state. Iowans are ready for someone who puts public service over politics.

“Rob appreciates that Sean has listened, engaged and formed his own opinion. His takeaway reinforces Rob’s message: Voters from all political backgrounds are ready for leadership that puts Iowa first.”

There’s more in this relationship across what some might think would be an unbridgeable political divide between Rob Sand and Sean Sebourn. Prepare for another surprise.

“I would endorse and put a sign for Rob in my yard if his opponent for governor is Rep. Randy Feenstra,” Sebourn told me on Saturday, mentioning the Republican U.S. Congressman from Iowa’s fourth district who has said he is now strongly considering running for governor. “I do not believe Randy is a true Conservative and my many interactions with Randy in the past are quite telling.

Sebourn continued: “While Randy was a representative for Greene County,” which moved from the fourth to the third district after the 2020 Census, “he never really ‘showed up’ for us. I don’t recall him investing time in Greene County unless it was a fundraiser. I believe Randy is a RINO (a ‘Republican In Name Only’) and I’m looking forward to Iowa’s fourth district electing a true Republican Conservative.

“Between the two, Sand vs. Feenstra, I know truly where Rob stands. It reminds me of the song lyrics from the musical ‘Hamilton’ (in the song) titled, ‘The Election of 1800,’ (which goes) ‘But when all is said and all is done/ Jefferson has beliefs; Burr has none.’ Sand is Jefferson; Feenstra is Burr.”

Rob Sand, “perhaps an odd-sort-of-a-Democrat,” but “a new generation taking over in this new era.”

Sand has beliefs, all right — religious, political, ethical, even recreational (skateboarder, bicyclist and hunter) and nutritional (he is widely-known for his social media posts about food, making clear his preference for the breakfast pizzas at Casey’s convenience stores).

“I get in trouble with some of my food posts,” he said in Jefferson. “People who are so serious about everything will say, ‘How can you even think about eating at a time like this?’ My answer is that as serious as things are, I haven’t yet run into anything that made me want to stop eating.”

Rob is a native of Decorah in northeast Iowa, the son of a doctor and a physical therapist. He graduated from Decorah High School in 2001, graduated in ’05 from Brown University with a major in political science, worked a semester in the office of U.S. Senator Tom Harkin in Washington, D.C., was an honors graduate in 2010 from the University of Iowa law school, and served until 2017 as an assistant attorney general and prosecutor for Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller. Sand successfully prosecuted several major fraud cases, including the Iowa film tax credits scandal and the Hot Lotto scandal, both of which broke about the time he was graduating from law school.

Sand is married to Christine Lauridsen Sand, also 43, whose family roots are in Dedham and Denison in western Iowa, where one of her grandfathers, an immigrant from Denmark, settled and opened a creamery. She graduated from a private high school in Indiana, Cornell University in New York and the Harvard University business school. She is now CEO of the family’s Ankeny-based but internationally-operating Lauridsen Group of companies, dealing in health and nutrition solutions for humans and animals. The Lauridsens, now including Sand, have been major philanthropists in the Des Moines area and beyond.

Rob and Christine have two sons, Tate, who is 11, and Axel, who turns 10 this week. When Rob told the crowd in Jefferson about the boys’ ages, he concluded: “No diapers, no teenagers — I highly recommend it.”

Rob, who grew up Lutheran, and his family now attend Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Des Moines, and they attend regularly. We RicheBurgers are there, too.

One of my favorite Sand church stories occurred five or so years ago, during a congregational coffee at Plymouth, after a service. Rob and Christine were seated at a table with other adults when suddenly, the young Sand boys came laughing, shouting and racing in one door of the big gathering room, weaving through the coffee tables, then out the far door and down a hallway. Rob stood up, walked quickly into the hallway and out-of-sight. Momentarily, Tate and Axel Sand came laughing, shouting and racing back down the hallway, with their dad in full, long strides running after them.

Another Sand sighting?

I was touched a couple Sundays ago when, when Rob was walking back to his pew after receiving communion. He stopped where former Iowa Lt. Gov. Sally Pederson, another Plymouth member, was seated in the front row, grasped both her hands and whispered a greeting to Sally and her husband Jim Autry.

The better I’ve come to know Rob Sand, the more I’ve admired his kind of “independent-minded” Democratic thinking, as he describes it.

So, a year ago, when his political director C.J. Petersen asked if I’d spend a few hours meandering around the 2024 Iowa State Fair with Sand, I said yes. Rob and I both chased Tate and Axel around the fairgrounds. (The “Giant Slide” and he “Snakes Alive” exhibit seemed to be their favorites.)

What became clear to me at the fair was that more people knew Rob Sand than knew me. Good sign.

The Sand boys at the 2024 Iowa State Fair.

When his current “Town Hall Tour” comes to your community, you’ll hear him say that the reason he ultimately became a Democrat is “because I think Jesus is for the little guy, you know? And I think the Democratic Party, at its best, is generally for the little guy.”

You will also probably hear him talk about Iowa’s big challenges today: A sagging economy, slumping personal income, soaring cancer rate, forced public support of unaccountable private education, public education that has become “mediocre,” a “Culture War” that is wearing us all out.

He says those problems make him think about “one story in the New Testament that has always stuck with me. It’s the one when Jesus goes into the Temple and flips over the tables of the money changers.

“I’m running for governor because there are a lot of tables in Des Moines that need to be flipped over,” Sand continues.

He’s going to do that, he says, while he restores Iowa “not redder or bluer, but better and truer.”

As I’ve thought more about the Rob Sand campaign to become “Governor For All,” I find myself wondering if this is an older kind of politics or a new kind of politics.

Whatever, I see in Sand and others a new generation taking over in this new era.

And I love that.

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You can comment on this column below or write the columnist directly by email at chuck@offenburger.com.

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