Tag: kristen rheinherren

The Fall of the Kingmaker

Bob vander Plaats has been making bad endorsements for the past decade. The latest in this long line of losses was the endorsement for Adam Steen for Iowa Governor in this week’s primary election. And the first was picking Senator Cruz over the people’s choice of Donald Trump in 2016.

Donald Trump was a guest of The Family Leader a year or two before he decided to run for President. And Bob himself made a couple of trips out to NYC and Trump Tower. He spent time with the future President. But throw it all away.

He could have been a great voice for Christ and supported Trump’s bid for President in 2016. But he didn’t. The question has always been “why didn’t Bob vander Plaats do this?”

There have been several possibilities floating around for years. They had a falling out was one. The companionship formed with Steve Deace is thought to be another. And on the surface these are all valid reasons. But they too are just more symptoms of the Kingmaker’s fall.

No the real reason is due to the loss of the one person that kept Bob vander Plaats from being his own worst enemy. That one person, in Bob’s own words, “knew where they bodies were buried,” at The Family Leader.

The same person who was wrote the very letter that was given to then governor candidate for the 3rd time, Bob vander Plaats, on the night he lost that primary race. The letter that offered him the presidency and CEO position at the Iowa Family Policy Center that would later be renamed as The Family Leader.

That person was Kristen Rheinherren, nee Major. The Director of Development at the Iowa Family Policy Center. She is 100% responsible for text of that offer that Bob took. She wrote that recruitment letter.

And in June 2015, Kristen resigned from The Family Leader to pursue other opportunities. The date is strikingly haunting considering it’s when Bob started down that path of bad endorsements just after that departure.

Since 2015 Kristen hasn’t been around to give her voice to the staff meetings and private meetings with the leadership of The Family Leader. Kristen you see was a prayer warrior the likes of which are rarely seen. And without her, The Family Leader has suffered.

Bad choices in endorsing candidates and causes, one after the other. None of which Kristen would have supported and could have possibly talked Bob out of endorsing them publicly.

Kristen passed from this world and into Christ’s loving arms in 2020. So there is no way for her to ever return to The Family Leader to offer her thoughts and speaker her mind. And they will likely to continue to be more and more irrelevant in Iowa and national politics in the future.

December Grief

In Loving Memory of Susan and Kristen

Five years ago my life changed in a moment that I had never dreamed of happening. My beloved wife & muse of 10 years passed away suddenly leaving a grieving hole in me. I am no stranger to grief, we are well acquainted.

Prior to the loss of Kristen, I had already lost my mom, a girlfriend, a son, and my dad. The loss of my wife added to this grief and it was crippling. She was the 2nd significant other that I had lost to death. Forever taken out of this world and reduced to memories. And it had happened to me 2 times in a row.

I attended a GriefShare program at the church I was attending then. It was a helpful experience. It allowed me to work through my grief and come to the place of acceptance and able to live my life again.

The trouble with grief is that it never truly goes away. Here I am, five years after Kristen’s death. I am happily married again and enjoying life. Yet grief has raised its head at me this December. And the crushing weight of it has come back down again.

December is one of those months that have 2 dates that can impact my grief and emotions. December 3rd and December 31st. The 3rd is Susan’s birthday and the 31st is the day I lost Kristen.

As I went through GriefShare in 2021, there were some members that were repeating the ministry. They had gone through it several times. Back then, even though I was deeply burdened from the multiple losses, I didn’t understand why someone would go through GriefShare several times.

Now days I do understand and think it would be helpful to go through it again. Grief is an unpredictable thing. It is not a simple path with each step by step progress. It comes and goes in a variety of intensities and the “steps” can hit all at the same time.

Even years afterwards it can come up and hit hard again. So as December rolls on I’m sure I’m in for a wild ride of emotions as they swing one way or another on any given day.

More Convention of States Nonsense

On Tuesday, March 28th, there will be a Convention of States rally at the Iowa Capitol. I encourage everyone who is able to come out and oppose this dangerous and foolish nonsense.

I am saddened to hear that Bob Vander Plaats of The Family Leader will be speaking in favor of this foolishness. But it doesn’t surprise me really.

Bob Vander Plaats had a unique opportunity as a Believer to witness to Donald Trump who was a guest of The Family Leader before his 2016 Presidential bid and eventual nomination. But The Family Leader under Bob’s leadership tossed that opportunity aside and dived head first into to the Cruz campaign. Even being a co-chair of it and allowing the campaign to operate out of The Family Leader’s offices.

The dangers of having a Convention of States are well known. It is far too important to allow this wicked and foolish event to take place. Now those that support it will try to sale you on assurances that cannot be guaranteed. Namely that how there will be a stated agenda and rules that prevent any form of action contrary to what is being sold as a reason for holding the Convention of States.

Do NOT let this fool you. At any political meeting. There is always the opportunity to through out the rules at the very beginning or even suspend the rules during the course of the convention. I have been at conventions where this has happened. And I assure you it will happen at a Convention of States.

There are people who wish to destroy the United States of America. Who wish to end the Republic and create a socialist state. America wont fall because of an outside military force. But it will fall from within if the Constitution can be destroyed and replaced but something else.

Our Founding Fathers meet in convention with the agenda of amending the Articles of Confederation that governed the young American nation. But instead they changed those rules and agenda and tossed out the entire Articles and created the Constitution we currently possess.

There are other means to getting what the Convention of States movement claims they want to accomplish and those means should be used.

I do not trust any living person to make amendments to our Constitution. Let alone to write a new one. Not even myself.

And yet here is a Believer, who has been fooled into this trap set by those who will destroy everything the Constitution protects once the Convention of States is called.

Bob Vander Plaats would have never made these two big mistakes had he had wise council in them. Unfortunately the wisest of those, his former assistant in all but name, resigned from the organization 2 years prior to the Cruz debacle. She would have told Bob straight out, in no uncertain terms, not to support Cruz and toss Trump under the bus like he did.

She would have also been against this Convention of States foolishness and called out the wickedness of what it is as well.

I know this for 100% fact. This is not a speculation as Bob’s former assistant was my late wife Kristen.