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.
[Commentary] Apparently anyone who can lose 110 pounds shouldn’t be taken lightly.
While Mitt Romney’s organizational juggernaut prevailed like the Soviets in hockey back in the day, the headline from the Iowa Straw Poll today is one from hope, both Arkansas (boyhood home of an obesity-beating governor) and message.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee proved clairvoyant with one of his own lines in Hilton Coliseum on Saturday.
“The soil is awfully fertile in the valley,” Huckabee said.
Coming from among the pack, Huckabee finished second in the straw poll with 2,587 votes of the 14,302 cast. Mitt Romney pulled in 4,516.
While the fire-breathing Coloradoan Tom Tancredo rhetorically punched up immigrants, and other candidates just failed to connect (scoreboard, baby), Romney and Huckabee both offered messages that were decidedly optimistic, and in Huckabee’s case, funny.
“A Republican in my state feels about as out of place as a Michael Vick at the Westminster Dog Show,” Huckabee said. If you don’t get that joke you’re not voting in any Republican primaries or caucuses anyway.
Huckabee urged Iowa Republicans to consider “buying the cereal, not just the box.”
In a party of very public Christians that in spite of itself edges ever so close to idolatry in its hero-worship of Ronald Reagan, Romney’s winning ways in Iowa can be traced to more than his wallet. His is a mixed message of economic opportunity with calls for a stronger military. Sound familiar? Reagan was an actor who learned to play president. You couldn’t find an actor who looks more presidential than Romney. Image does matter, folks, with apologies to the marketing team at Sprite.
Stylistically, both Romney and Huckabee are television-friendly, softer on the eyes and ears, than some of the screamers in the 2008 GOP field who would have been better off as men of another generation debating the Civil War on the House floor.
In the press rooms and outside of Hilton there was speculation about Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo doing well on the strength of his immigration plan. His applause meter appeared to be second. And U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas had the signs in front to make a case for the place spot in this Iowa political horserace.
But Huckabee? A few months ago, former Iowa GOP gubernatorial candidate David Oman e-mailed me and told me to watch Huckabee, that he had this straightforward, likeable way about him. Oman knows a thing or two about Republicans, having worked for both Gov. Terry Branstad and Gov. Robert Ray.
For my part, I saw the battle for second coming down to Brownback or Tancredo with the narrative being that abortion is still king with social-cons (Brownback in second) or that the immigration issue is pre-eminent (Tancredo).
There is another storyline that makes even more sense: Republicans know how to win presidential races.
A ticket with Romney at the top, his seemingly computer-generated presidential looks and what appears to be an honest projection of a better-than-1950s-TV family life, and Huckabee, a guy who can get off a humorous one-liner about dog-fighting and follow it up with religious imagery, is perhaps the one-two punch a dejected GOP needs for fall 2008.
Other strengths for a Romney-Huckabee ticket: Both are governors without the D.C. taint. They complement each other regionally. Huckabee’s evangelical credentials would help Mormon Romney with the base. Most of all, they are going to be hard to demonize, and that could prove strategically decisive if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee as U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley assured Iowa Independent and other media today that would be the case.
Maybe the Iowa Republican activists are on to something with this finish?
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