Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson – whose Christian faith has been questioned by leading conservatives in recent weeks – has his work cut out for him when he visits Des Moines on Saturday.
But regardless of the reception he receives from members of the Iowa Christian Alliance, he might be saying a prayer of thanks that at least he’s not Rudy Giuliani.
Thompson, a former U.S. senator from Tennessee, is scheduled to spend 45 minutes Saturday with members of the Iowa Christian Alliance when the group holds its annual Friend of the Family Awards Dinner in Clive. Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, is the only major Republican candidate not invited to the event.
Steve Scheffler, president of the ICA, said the alliance spent months trying to give Giuliani a chance to court its membership, inviting him to answer questions about his positions on various issues and extending an invitation to participate in a presidential forum in Des Moines this spring. But he said the group was snubbed by Giuliani’s campaign.
“The Giuliani campaign had four months’ notice on our presidential forum and they didn’t give us any kind of response,” Scheffler said. “I’ve been around presidential campaigns in the past and I know they have a lot of things to tend to. But I think it’s very honest to say that he doesn’t want to have a dialogue with us.”
Scheffler also said that he believes a Giuliani ticket would be disastrous to the hopes that Republicans retain the White House and that thousands of conservative voters would stay home rather than vote for him.
“I think a lot of our base would rather wander in the wilderness for eight to 12 years than to vote for him,” Scheffler said. “A Clinton presidency wouldn’t be a good thing, but it would mobilize the Republican Party and would eventually lead to the election of a lot more Republicans.”Although the event is receiving little attention in the media so far, the dinner is shaping up as an important stepping stone for Republican candidates looking for a good showing in the Iowa Caucus in January.
That raises the stakes for Thompson, who hasn’t yet firmed up support from Christian conservatives, a base that many expected to support him. Last week, James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family and perhaps the most influential Christian conservative in America today, said in an e-mail that he had doubts about Thompson’s values and wouldn’t support his presidential bid.
More than 800 people are expected at the dinner, most of them red-meat Republican activists who will participate in the caucus and who can help mobilize others to attend. They will be courted by most of the Republican presidential campaigns surrogates during pre-dinner receptions before the start of the dinner.
“It’s not a stretch to say that 98 percent to 100 percent of the people who are coming to the dinner will participate in the caucuses,” said Scheffler.
“If Steve Scheffler isn’t one of your first three visits when you come to Iowa, you’re already beaten,” Chuck Laudner, a spokesman for the Iowa GOP, told Religion News Service in April.
The alliance is one of the most influential voting blocs in the state. The group distributed 350,000 voting guides to conservatives during the last election and expects to print even more this year, Scheffler said.
Campaigns were invited to help sponsor the event in exchange for the right to hold pre-dinner receptions for the attendees. Most of the top- and mid-tier campaigns will be represented, Scheffler said.
That includes the Ron Paul campaign, which was excluded from the presidential forum this spring, Scheffler said. Recent polls show Paul with support of about 3 percent of likely Republican voters in the state, but the Texas congressman legitimized his campaign some with a strong showing at the Iowa Straw Poll this summer.
Scheffler said the ICA received roughly 40,000 e-mails from Paul supporters in a 10-day period protesting the decision to exclude him from the forum. But he said at the time the decision was made, Paul was running a campaign without any sort of organization in place and it was necessary to keep the number of participants at a manageable level.
Scheffler feels an obligation to give ICA members a chance to hear from all legitimate candidates. “Regardless of what our feelings are about them being a pain in the hind end, we’ve got to make sure all the candidates have access to our base.”
The recent addition of Drew Ivers to the Paul campaign is also a plus, he said. Ivers is highly regarded in conservative circles and sits on the board of directors of Faith Bible College in Ankeny.
According to the Mitt Romney campaign, the former Massachusetts governor won’t be able to personally attend Saturday’s event, but is sending U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., to represent him at their pre-dinner function. Hoekstra is a vocal proponent of legislation outlawing gay marriage.
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