Reports are coming in (via @CFHeather) that a former Obama ’08 staffer – one Zach Edwards, formerly with the 2008 Obama campaign in Iowa and currently up until the arrest working for Link Strategies*, a company affiliated with Sen. Tom Harken (D, IA) – has been arrested for identity theft. The Iowa Department of Public Safety puts it fairly succinctly: “According to the Criminal Complaint, | Read More »
OK, with [96%] of the vote in we can maybe start to look at the results and get some meaningful data out of them. Apologies if any of this sounds loopy: the cold that took over the rest of my family last week finally hit me, so anything weird that I say is the medication. Also… you’ll note that I avoided being rude about the | Read More »
These are as generic as I can make them. Politicians lie. Let me repeat that. Politicians lie. Don’t be so upset about it: so do you. If the Iowa caucus was unimportant, people wouldn’t be obsessing over it. If the Iowa caucus was all-important, we’d have it in August and combine it with the nominating convention. When Candidate X’s supporter tells you that Candidate Y | Read More »
Details here and here: the short version is that the Senate back in June kicked off opposition to continued ethanol subsidies via a bipartisan amendment: it didn’t pass, but Congress has just let both the ethanol subsidy and a restrictive foreign tariff (on Brazilian sugar-cane ethanol) lapse. Given that the Iowa caucuses will be finished by the time Congress reconvenes – and given that the | Read More »
The Polling Company did a survey of Iowa Republican voters for Independent Women’s Voice* to determine what those voters are looking for. Click the link for the actual numbers (although I will note that possibly the most eyebrow-raising one is that “[n]o GOP hopeful has locked up more than 9% of Iowa caucus-goers”), but here’s the executive summary: At this point it’s impossible to predict | Read More »
[Update: I swear that I was going to leave this in diaries - but, given the agitation that it's sparked on my other site, I'm thinking that it really needs to be fronted after all. - ML] (HT: Hot Air Headlines) Herman Cain will not even come close to winning Iowa. This is the takeaway passage from the article that Team Cain needs to read | Read More »
Texas governor and Republican Presidential candidate Rick Perry participated in a Presidential manufacturing forum today in Pella, Iowa (hosted by the Vermeer Corporation): and it’s pretty interesting viewing. (The entire forum (and transcript) can be seen here.) Governor Perry answered questions from both the moderators and the audience: if I had to sum up fifteen minutes of informed, fairly specific commentary in one sentence it | Read More »
Hot Air and Ace of Spades HQ are both contemplating the issue of Herman Cain, whether he can win, and whether he is truly likely to win. Fortunately or unfortunately – depending on your point of view – I take a utilitarian point of view on the matter: what does the Herman Cain Iowa plan look like? Does it look like this? Campaign organizer: We’re | Read More »
In his official speech kicking off his campaign: I’m here today to tell Iowans the truth, too. America is facing a crushing debt crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen before. We need to cut spending, and we need to cut it…big time. The hard truth is that there are no longer any sacred programs. The truth about federal energy subsidies, including federal subsidies | Read More »
Very quick background: Ellen Lewin is a professor at the University of Iowa who saw fit to reply to an (approved) mass email from the Iowa College Republicans with a “F*ck you, Republicans” mass email reply – only it wasn’t approved, wasn’t bowdlerized, and used her work email (which is the real problem). Lewin, of course, is trying the standard ‘Sorry if you were offended’ | Read More »
This was probably the most informal one that I did, and (not unrelatedly) the most fun. I generally get along perfectly well with the politicians and legislators that I talk to, but usually the time constraints alone are significant. Your average Congressman or Senator is generally running around things like CPAC with a staff of at least two, both of which he or she legitimately | Read More »
…for those who need their memory jogged, Staff Sergeant Sal Giunta received the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions in Afghanistan; he’s the first living recipient of the MoH since the Vietnam War. And apropos of absolutely nothing, if I’m reading his biography right Sgt. Giunta is from Iowa’s Second Congressional district, which is Dave Loebsack’s. Loebsack is a three-termer who came pretty close | Read More »
We actually talked yesterday, but Ben’s campaign came out with an online ad that they want to showcase. I was happy to oblige; it’s a good ad (and can be seen after the fold). The interview itself is below: Ben’s site is here: he’s up against Bruce Braley, so every little bit helps.
I believe that the topical response to this would be “You’re doing it wrong.” Major Dem donors who wrote checks to the Democratic Governors Association funded a below-the-radar campaign that attacked Pres. Obama and other Dem all-stars, all in hopes of knocking off a strong GOP challenger. [snip] Iowans for Responsible Government is a 527 group founded by Rob Tully, the former state Dem Party | Read More »
According to RCP, we’ve got primaries in California, Iowa, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Virginia. The news has been dominated by California’s, Nevada’s, and of course South Carolina’s – but they’re all important, so if you’re a voter in that state, hie yourselves and any reliable Republican voters within reach to a polling station. You can let the | Read More »
Drawing on and expanding from Jim Geraghty’s summary: IA-03. D+1. Leonard Boswell is the incumbent (first elected 1997); Cook currently does not list the district as in play (Likely Democratic). Former wrestler Jim Gibbons (no campaign website yet) has just announced; he’ll be facing former National Guard chopper pilot Dave Funk in the primary. MN-01. R+1. Tim Walz is the incumbent (first elected in 2006); | Read More »
Tim Bishop (D, NY-01) is having something called a “health care reform rally” on Thursday, at (of all things) SEIU’s Hicksville NY offices (1199 Duffy Ave, starts at 1 PM). This is otherwise known as “over twenty miles outside the borders of NY-01.” Bishop is of course one of the first Democrats holding down a Red district (NY-01 is a R+0) to discover that his | Read More »
I was going to rip into Rep Steve King (R, IA-05) for tossing out a 9 minute YouTube of RFK Jrs’ testimony where he stated that hog farmers were a greater threat than Osama bin Laden. It’s great that Rep King has a channel, but 9 minutes? Then I watched it. My God. My God. If you ever thought that having this lunatic running the | Read More »
Guess that means that Iowa’s out of reach for us this cycle anyway. Iowans should not be pleased about this, by the way. There’s no neglect like the neglect of a Democratic Party that doesn’t need to particularly exert itself for your vote.
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