Trailing in the race for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, Secretary of State Paul Pate has decided to “wage a grass-roots campaign on the courthouse lawn.”

Pate announced recently that he has assembled an advisory committee to give municipal and county leaders more involvement in state government action.

Opposing Pate in the GOP fray, which will culminate in the June 2 primary, are former U.S. Rep. Jim Ross Lightfoot and Des Moines businessman David Oman.

In a statement to reporters, Pate said the committee is a statewide organization of 156 GOP county supervisors, auditors, treasurers, attorneys, recorders and sheriffs.

“What we are asking them to do is make Paul aware of any issue of concern to their particular counties,” said Jason Gross, Pate ’98 campaign manager.

One member of the committee has already provided some valuable feedback, Gross said. Jim DeTaeye, the Marshall County attorney, has advised Pate on two issues — the increasing problem of methamphetamine labs and the struggles county attorneys face in trying to hire and keep quality lawyers.

At a recent meeting in Union County, Gross said, only a handful of people out of the 100 member crowd said they had heard of the newly formed committee. But after Gross explained the plan, he said the response was favorable.

“Afterwards, one of them said to me, ‘Too many of our state officials, all they do is listen to the special-interest lobbyists,'” he said.

Gross described Pate as a candidate who can make a large committee work efficiently.

“He is a good listener, and he pays attention to what’s happening out there,” Gross said.

Representatives from 75 Iowa counties are serving on the council, but Story County is not one of them. Gross said the only two Republicans among the county’s elected officials are both choosing to stay undecided, and thus have declined to be members of the committee.

And in nearby Boone County, Gross said, there are no Republicans in county-level government.

In Marshall County, however, DeTaeye leads a slate of four Republicans helping Pate. The others are Tom Speas and Gordy Johnson of the Board of Supervisors and County Auditor Jeffrey Heil, Gross said.

“I am convinced that the answers to most of our problems can be found in local churches, schools and courthouses,” Pate said. “As governor, I will make sure every Republican county elected official has a seat at the table whenever we discuss an issue of major importance to taxpayers.”

Gross said the launch of the advisory committee is just one part of Pate’s campaign strategy for the last month of the race.

“In order for Paul to get his message out to enough people to win this primary, we can’t put all of our eggs in one basket,” he said. Gross said campaign personnel are discussing new television advertising, but nothing has been finalized yet.

The primary battle took an interesting turn on Friday, when all three GOP candidates met for the first formal debate of the campaign.

At one point in the debate, which was sponsored by the Iowa Newspaper Association, Lightfoot pulled a knife from the pocket of his suit and set it in front of Oman.

According to an article in the Ames Tribune, the gesture was a response to a “verbal jab” from Oman, but Gross said it was unprofessional on Lightfoot’s part.

“I think it just shows his true colors,” Gross said. “He cannot take criticism, and he just tries to continually change the debate away from the issues we really want to talk about.”

In the long run, Gross said, Friday’s performance could hurt Lightfoot, currently the leader according to most polls.