Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (File photo via Minnesota Governor's Office)

Before his trip to Iowa, Pawlenty had taken heat for endorsing the Conservative Party candidate over the Republican in Tuesday’s U.S. House district in New York. He then called moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine “more liberal than most Republicans would like.”

Pawlenty seemed to be addressing that controversy, saying debate over things like the party platform are good, but once that’s complete Republicans must unite to “start the American comeback.”

Pawlenty then struck a chord for party unity, saying that there should be vigorous primary campaigns, but then everyone should get back on the same team in order to elect Republicans.

“We’re going to have our debates about what the platform will look like,” he said. “We’re going to have our primaries and caucuses. We’re going to go through that process, and it should be hard fought. But when those decisions are made, as a team we have to come around and support each other.”

This marks the second major Republican Party of Iowa fundraiser where a potential 2012 presidential candidate has made it a point to discuss creating an inclusive party. In June, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told a crowd of GOP activists and elected officials that the only way back into the majority was to resist demands for ideological purity.

For most of his speech, Pawlenty struck a populist tone attacking federal bailouts for Wall Street companies and Detroit automakers. And on the night that U.S. House lawmakers approved health care reform legislation, Pawlenty repeatedly hit the Democratic reform efforts, saying they are proof that Democrats no longer care about working families.

“They have a party now, our competitors, that have embraced big government, big unions and big bailouts,” he said. “And they want to have the people believe that they work for the common person. The working person.”

During his successful presidential campaign, Barack Obama regularly asked if the crowd was “fired up and ready to go,” Pawlenty said

“Are you fired up and ready to fight back?” Pawlenty said. “Are you willing to be involved?”

He said Obama broke his campaign promise to seek bipartisan health care reform, instead deciding to push for a liberal bill, ignore Republican voices and continue the “dangerous leftward tilt” the president has pursued for the country.

“In his victory speech in Iowa after the caucuses, President Obama promised — he used the word promise — he was going to bring Republicans and Democrats together to pass needed health care reform,” Pawlenty said. “Now I ask you, are you sick and tired of Democrats trying to ram down this liberal monstrosity down our throat which is their health care reform plan?”

But the Republican Party can’t simply be critics, Pawlenty said. Republicans must also offer solutions, and he pointed to his record as governor of Minnesota as proof that GOP ideas work. Minnesota is a very liberal state, Pawlenty said, and he was still able to cut spending and taxes.

“If we can do it there, we can do it anywhere,” he said.

The federal government could learn from his experience in Minnesota. Instead of allowing the national deficit to continue to grow, government should begin to live within its means, Pawlenty said.

“The only thing growing faster than the national debt is [MSNBC host] Chris Matthews’ man-crush on Barack Obama,” he said.

This marks Pawlenty’s first trip to Iowa since he campaigned for Arizona Sen. John McCain last year, and many are speculating that the trip is another indication of his interest in seeking the GOP presidential nomination in 2012. He has already said he will not seek a third term as governor and last month he formed a political action committee called Freedom First, a typical first move for presidential aspirants.

Paul McKinley

Senate Majority Leader Paul McKinley, R-Chariton, followed through on his promise Friday and dropped out of the 2010 campaign for governor.

McKinley said last month that when former Gov. Terry Branstad made his candidacy official, he would withdraw. While Branstad has yet to formally enter the race, he’s hired staff and begun holding campaign events, making McKinley’s departure inevitable.

In a press statement, McKinley said he plans to devote attention to winning back a Republican majority in the Iowa Senate.

“The actions taken by the Culver administration and the Democrats in the Legislature during the last three years have made it abundantly clear that Iowa needs new leadership and a new direction,” McKinley said. “I am confident that next November, Iowans will elect a Republican governor and add many more Republicans to the Legislature. With Republicans leading the way in Iowa, our state will finally get serious about curbing our out-of-control spending and higher taxes brought forth by Governor Culver and legislative Democrats, we will finally get serious about making it easier to create good jobs and we will give our citizens a greater voice in their own government.”

McKinley’s departure leaves six men battling it out for the GOP nomination to take on Gov. Chet Culver — Branstad, state Sen. Jerry Behn, businessman Christian Fong, former state House Speaker Chris Rants, state Rep. Rod Roberts, and businessman Bob Vander Plaats.

The aide also confirms she will file paperwork with the Federal Election Commission next week.

Later in the day, that aide was outed by The Des Moines Register as Mark Daley, longtime Democratic strategist and a Conlin adviser. He also confirmed she is looking into possible staff and consultants.

Conlin said last month that she would likely join the field of Democrats vying to defeat Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. Bob Krause of Fairfield, Tom Fiegen of Clarence and Sal Mohamed of Sioux City have already declared their candidacies.

Conlin, a former president of the nation’s trial lawyers association who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1982 and has built a reputation as one of the country’s leading civil rights attorneys, promised to raise $10 million for the campaign without taking contributions from lobbyists or political action committees.

In that campaign, which Reed lost by more than 20 percentage points, the Marion Republican claimed that Harkin’s support for same-sex marriage also meant he supports marriage between “any 2, 3 or multiple people of any and all sexes. Heck, as far as he is concerned, you could marry your horse if it makes you happy.”

During a debate later in the campaign, Reed said Harkin had “an eight-year history of becoming the Tokyo Rose of Al-Qaeda and Middle East terrorism.”

In an interview Thursday with conservative blogger Craig Robinson, Reed said he learned a lot from his 2008 defeat and promises a campaign that focuses less on personal attacks and more on the issues.

“Last time, I took the race personally. This time, it’s about the people. So the vitriol and the remarks are not going to be there this time because there is too much at stake. This campaign has to be about defeating Dave Loebsack and what he votes for in Washington.”

Reed is expected to square off in a primary with Mariannette Miller-Meeks, the party’s 2008 nominee in the 2nd district, and Steve Rathje, who Reed defeated in 2008 for the right to take on Harkin.

But Civic Skinny, the anonymous gossip columnist for Des Moines’ Cityview, says the contest is as much about revenge and staking a claim on 2012 as it is about who gets to challenge incumbent Democratic Gov. Chet Culver.

[According to a source] “A part of this is settling scores, another part is Iowa caucus related and, yes, [part is] the contest on the ballot,” this person said. He, or maybe she (“Keep my name out of the mix,” she, or maybe he, said) continued: “There was bad blood between Doug Gross and Bob Vander Plaats during the ’02 GOP gubernatorial race [which Gross lost to Tom Vilsack], especially at the end. The two ripped one another, nearly allowing Rep. Steve Sukup, as the good guy, to win a razor-thin, three-way primary race. As it was, Gross barely exceeded the minimum threshold of 35 percent to avoid the battle going to a state convention. Since then, Gross sided with [loser Jim] Nussle in his poorly run ’06 [gubernatorial] effort that saw Vander Plaats join the ticket after dropping his primary candidacy.”

There’s more: “Differences continued during ’07 and early ’08 with Gross leading the Mitt Romney effort in Iowa and Vander Plaats chairing the Mike Huckabee campaign, which won. Both former Governors are quietly preparing encore efforts. Huckabee will deal with high expectations; unclear yet what commitment Romney would make to Iowa a second time around. Huckabee has endorsed Vander Plaats in the ’10 GOP primary, as you know. With a ’10 victory, a newly re-inaugurated Terry Branstad would be in the thick of the action with governors and former governors dominating the field — possibly including Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, even George Pataki, who made early stops in Iowa in ’05-06, only to defer to Rudy Giuliani when he made his candidacy clear. A governor Branstad would likely remain neutral, but not necessarily his political team with a data base of updated names.”

In other words, Gross is still pissed, and one reasons he’s backing Branstad is so he can settle a few scores.

Gross, who served as Branstad’s chief of staff when he was governor, has become a controversial figure for Iowa social conservatives thanks to a series of Op-Ed columns he penned earlier this year calling on his party to be more inclusive and focus less on social issues that are turning off a younger generation of voters.

The four-term governor held a pair of meetings with a group of pastors, social conservative activists and leaders Christian organizations last week. Two of those in attendance initially balked at the encounter, criticizing Branstad and comparing him to Democratic Gov. Chet Culver.

Tuesday, IDP Chairman Michael Kiernan’s lammed Branstad for telling the group he didn’t have a plan to reform state government but would appoint a commission to look into the matter.

By Wednesday, Kiernan had moved on to another comment Branstad made, this time about the Iowa Commission for the Blind. Branstad said the organization didn’t get cut during his administration “because the Legislature just couldn’t take the heat from the tap-tap-tap of the white canes.”

“Comments like Branstad’s have no place in Iowa, no matter what party you’re affiliated with,” Kiernan said. “I condemn both the content and the language he used in the strongest possible terms.”

Recently hired Branstad spokesman Tim Albrecht told The Des Moines Register that the criticism was unjustified because the former governor was “merely alluding to [the group's] successful lobbying techniques.” Democrats are desperate to find fault in “the governor’s 16 years of success,” Albrecht said.

The IDP posted the audio of the meeting on their Web site.

By Thursday, even Register columnist Kathie Obradovich was calling for Branstad to apologize, saying he probably would have already “if someone at the meeting had called him on it. But as long as the only ones complaining are Democratic Party officials, it’s easy for the Branstad campaign to circle the wagons.”

“I don’t think it’s a referendum on Obama,” the Republican lawmaker said in a conference call with reporters. “I think it’s a — it’s a referendum on some of his programs — not that his programs are not well-intentioned, but are they working and, in some instances, are they going too far?”

Republicans won governorships in New Jersey and Virginia Tuesday night, two states Obama carried in 2008. The lesson of 2009 is that the GOP must court the independent voters who supported Obama but are not solid Democrats, Grassley said.

“You haven’t seen Republican numbers go up. You haven’t seen Democrat numbers go down,” Grassley said. So the real battle is for independents, and that is where the GOP can be victorious.

Grassley said he’s heard voters express a lot of fear in recent months, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect an anti-Obama mentality.

“I never hear anything bad about Obama,” Grassley said. “Now, maybe — maybe you can read a lot into ‘I’m scared’ as being anti-Obama, but nobody brings up that, you know, the Obama name very often, compared to the words ‘I’m scared.’”

Iowa’s municipal elections are non-partisan, so it will be hard for either party to claim victory. But after years of Democratic dominance of election night, an evening where most high-profile races saw incumbents roundly rebuked is being celebrated in Republican circles, even for races where it was Democrats doing the ousting.

Ron Corbett, who was elected last night as Cedar Rapids Mayor.

In Cedar Rapids, former Republican House Speaker Ron Corbett defeated City Councilman Brian Fagan to become the city’s mayor. While there was technically no incumbent in the race, Corbett ran a distinctly anti-incumbency campaign, focusing on the current city council’s “culture of delay.”

Indianola voters ousted Mayor Jack Kelley, who has led the suburb on Des Moines’ south side since 1995. Kelley came in third in a three-way race, with Kenan Bresnan, a Democrat, emerging victorious.

The long-time mayor of Pleasant Hill, Phil Hildebrand, a Democrat, also came in third place in a three-way contest, ending his 17-year tenure.

Norwalk voters overwhelmingly chose Doug Pierce over incumbent Mayor Pat Wahl. Pierce received more votes than his two competitors combined.

In Des Moines, 20-year incumbent councilman Tom Vlassis barely edged 23-year old Halley Griess, but not by enough to avoid a runoff Dec. 1.

Waukee incumbent Mayor Bill Peard managed to squeak out a victory against city councilman and Republican Central Committee member Isaiah McGee.

The Iowa Secretary of State released updated voter registration figures Tuesday as well. The figures showed Democrats continue to outnumber Republicans by more than 100,000 voters.

The ad will air in the Des Moines and Cedar Rapids markets as well as some cable around the state. It is titled “Stronger Than Ever” and focuses on the governor’s response to last year’s flooding and to the state’s economic downturn.

“The new ad … puts the economic situation and recent budget decisions in context,” Culver campaign manager Andrew Roos said in a press release announcing the ad. “With the worst natural disaster in Iowa history, and the deepest economic downturn since the 1930s, Iowa has faced real challenges. Culver has taken these challenges head-on, managed the state responsibly and made smart investments that will help Iowa emerge from this storm stronger than ever.”

In the ad, Culver sounds like he’s running a politically conservative campaign, focusing on cutting spending and cutting his own salary, as well as emphasizing his decision against raising taxes.

Culver launched his first TV ad in mid October, focusing solely on his economic record.

Terry Branstad

And for a candidate whose last political campaign took place long before the Internet age and the prevalence of the blogosphere, the reaction on the Web is proving to be a valuable lesson in 21st century politics.

The pair of meetings, which included several pastors, social conservative activists and leaders Christian organizations, initially received poor reviews from at least two of those in attendance who called the former four-term governor “a Republican version of [Democrat incumbent Chet] Culver.”

On Monday, controversial Christian radio host Steve Deace offered more details about the meetings. His sources said Branstad came across as “arrogant” and as “no threat to the [liberal] status quo at all.”

One of the most amazing exchanges came during a discussion about Branstad introducing the destructive gambling industry to our state.  During one of the meetings, Branstad tried to defend his actions by saying he had vetoed it twice previously, but he was getting booed at Hawkeye football games and 70 percent of the voters wanted it so there was nothing else he could do.

That realpolitik answer didn’t sell this audience.

“Someone then asked him what else he was willing to give in on if the public wants it,” one little birdie told me.

It didn’t take long for Iowa Democrats to get in the mix.

Conservative blogger Shane Vander Hart posted audio from the meeting he attended and Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Michael Kiernan honed in on one exchange in particular. When asked by former Des Moines School Board member Jonathan Narcisse about whether he had a specific plan prepared on how to fix or repair state government, Branstad replied “OK, well I don’t.”

Branstad pointed the Committee on Government Spending Reforms, which he established in 1991 in response to a projected $300 million budget deficit in fiscal year 1993. The commission identified nearly $400 million in spending cuts, although both Branstad and legislators disagreed with and ultimately ignored many of the group’s recommendations.

“Now we have to go further,” he said.

Branstad proposed creating another commission made up of Republicans and Democrats, as well as representatives from the private and public sector, to look at reforming state and local government.

Kiernan said that rather than confronting Iowa’s problems, Branstad “created commissions to avoid making tough decisions.”

“Branstad’s entry into the race may excite his wealthy far-right cronies who stand to profit from a Branstad administration, but it’s not good news for anyone who cares about the state’s financial well-being,” Kiernan said.