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.
While it may be difficult to imagine anyone confusing a small historic town of roughly 10,000 people in Wisconsin with the city of Cedar Rapids, metro population of at least 250,000, it appears Sarah Palin has made the leap.
In her book “Going Rogue,” the former Alaskan governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee describes an unforgetable idyllic setting of a “quaint town square” at a campaign stop just after the Republican National Convention — and then impossibly attributes the memory to Cedar Rapids, which was only three months removed from the worst flood it its history.
Sarah Palin's and John McCain's first stop following the Republican National Convention was in Cedarburg, Wisc. -- a place that Palin likely misrepresented in her book as being Cedar Rapids. (Photo courtesy of the News Graphic in Cedarburg)
An alert reader of The Iowa Independent’s report about the book error pointed out that the description Palin provides could be the McCain-Palin campaign stop in Cedarburg, Wisc. The note prompted us to dig a little deeper.
The stop in Cedarburg was the first made by the campaign following the 2008 Republican National Convention. Both McCain and Palin attended, and provided remarks from a town square that was indeed surrounded by mom-and-pop stores and the now infamous red, white and blue bunting Palin remembers in her book.
“Yes, that definitely sounds like Cedarburg,” said Lisa Curtis, a reporter for the local News Graphic, which is printing its own story about Palin’s mishap Thursday.
After Palin sets the scene in her book, she relates an account of meeting two teens with Down syndrome along the rope line following the event. Although The Iowa Independent attempted to track down the two teens — a girl named Sarah and an unnamed boy — to corroborate Palin’s account of the Cedar Rapids visit, none of the locals contacted remembered seeing the exchange and no local journalists or photojournalists seem to have documented it.
Curtis in Wisconsin is also checking into the report, but, at least so far, has not been able to locate the teens or anyone who witnessed the exchange. Without that additional piece of the puzzle, it is unlikely that the mystery will be completely solved.
Yet, in the greater scheme of things for Cedar Rapids, it really doesn’t much matter. It was only after locals pushed the campaign to tour a flood-damaged neighborhood that the McCain-Palin campaign made time during their visit to do so. Even after walking four blocks of northwest Cedar Rapids, seeing the flooded-out homes and piles of debris, then stopping in front of a devastated structure to speak with members of the press, Palin apparently found the destruction unmemorable.
For Palin, the visit appears to be just to another town in the Midwest called “Cedar-something-or-other.”
Follow Lynda Waddington on Twitter
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
Sign up for our email newsletter