Stories

Tim Albrecht, a veteran Republican strategist and the man behind the conservative news aggregator TheBeanWalker.com, will join the 2010 campaign of former Gov. Terry Branstad as communication director.
In addition to his website, Albrecht has acted as communication director of the conservative group American Future Fund for more than a year. He has also served as [...]

A group working to convince former Gov. Terry Branstad he should re-enter politics and run for a fifth term in 2010 announced Monday that they would air a statewide radio ad.
The ad, which will run throughout the week, focuses on the governor’s record, saying he “cut taxes and balanced the budget,” “helped make Iowa education [...]

Des Moines-based American Future Fund Thursday launched a multi-state television ad campaign, coinciding with the president’s national health care address, hoping to convince conservative Democrats to oppose health care reform legislation.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley has no aprehension going into a full day of town hall forums scheduled for Wednesday, despite reports of rowdy crowds at forums across the country.
Grassley will be in Winterset, Afton, Panora and Adel Wednesday to meet with his constituents. The August recess has been marked by protesters repeatedly disrupting town hall [...]

Nevada Sen. John Ensign will continue to stoke the rumors of his presidential aspirations tonight when he speaks to an Iowa crowd as part of a conservative lecture series designed to define the Republican Party heading into next year’s congressional elections.
This will mark Ensign’s first trip to Iowa, and despite being more than 2 years [...]

The Federal Election Commission has rejected a complaint by the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party alleging Iowa-based American Future Fund violated federal election law by failing to register and report as a political committee.
The complaint alleged the conservative non-profit aired a television advertisement advocating the re-election of former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. Under federal election law, the [...]

Iowa’s conservative blogosphere is getting a little more crowded this week, as two veteran Republican operatives are launching their own sites with the hope of spreading the GOP gospel.

The conservative non-profit group Iowa Progress Project (IPP) has released a series of e-mail exchanges between state officials that it says calls into question Gov. Chet Culver’s response to last summer’s flooding.
A spokesman for Culver said the allegations fall “somewhere between nonsense and paranoia.”

The American Future Fund, an Iowa-based non-profit that advocates nationally for conservative policies, is focusing its gaze on U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada.
The group has launched a Web site, Watchin’ Reid, with the goal of ousting the senator from his seat in 2010.
AFF’s spokesman, Tim Albrecht, told The Washington, D.C., Examiner that the [...]

In addition to his recent hire to contribute to Des Moines alternative weekly Cityview, fired Des Moines Register cartoonist Brian Duffy has also become a mercenary, of sorts.
The Iowa Progress Project, a politically conservative non-profit based in Des Moines, commissioned Duffy to draw a cartoon critical of Gov. Chet Culver’s ties to labor unions, specifically [...]