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.
The Republicans like photo ID to vote requirements. In 2006 this was the main Iowa Legislature holdup to paper trails on touch-screen voting machines. And in the run-up to Ames, the Republican Party of Iowa took shots at the Democrats on ID and election-day voter registration in their media kit:
The Republican Party believes all official elections in Iowa should require every voter to show a photo I.D. to vote. Requiring a photo I.D. is a fundamental election reform opposed only by liberals.
Now somebody somewhere is trying to spin the low straw poll turnout by blaming… the ID requirement! And MSNBC’s First Read bites:
“[D]on’t get carried away on turnout — the Iowa GOP did a much better job of checking for Iowa IDs than in years past.”
Undoubtedly, the GOP will continue to deny that ID-to-vote effectively functions as vote suppression.
In other Ames followup, Todd Beeton at MyDD has a votes-per-visit counter that shows Ron Paul as the big winner. And Kos says the big winners are… the Senate Democrats?
A crappier (Huckabee) showing could’ve meant an early withdrawal and a shift over to a challenge of Mark Pryor’s Democratic-held Senate seat. And while Pryor would’ve likely won, it would’ve meant real money spent in defense of a race we otherwise have sewn up.
Now, with this showing, not only is Huckabee motivated to stay in the race, but he also looks very attractive as a potential vice presidential candidate once he inevitably comes up short in the race.
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