Last month, Offenburger called on Branstad, whom he describes as someone he has always liked and respected, to stay put as president of Des Moines University and abandon any potential return to statewide politics.

Now that summer has turned to Autumn, a Branstad candidacy has gone from bad idea to “even worse idea,” he said.

Branstad’s possible candidacy for governor, and the public’s slobbering endorsement of it, is really a stinging indictment of Iowa itself. It is even a worse black eye for the Republican Party of Iowa.

If I were a young Iowan age 40 or younger, I’d be asking myself right now what it says about my own career opportunities, if we’ve got Baby Boomers refusing to leave the stage like this.

That’s one thing a Branstad candidacy for governor represents.

The group actively pushing Branstad back into politics is made up entirely of people over the age of 60, Offenburger said. Despite the fact that the Republican Party of Iowa, under the leadership of 35-year-old Matt Strawn, is doing “an amazingly good job of traveling all over the state the rest of 2009, helping rebuild and re-energize many Republican county organizations that had fallen apart or were demoralized,” a Branstad candidacy could undue much of that work in one fell swoop.

A Branstad candidacy would only serve to remind Iowans of the “woeful job Republican Party leadership did from 1999, when he left office as one of the state’s most successful politicians ever, through 2008″ and overshadow the progress made in 2009 under Strawn.

Branstad should do everybody a favor and end this speculation about him getting in the governor’s race, and end it right now. He should announce that he will not be a candidate for governor.

And if he won’t, then Chairman Strawn should immediately line up some influential Republicans, go to Branstad and tell him to get out.

GOP gubernatorial candidate Rod Roberts (left) speaks with former Gov. Terry Branstad at a fundraiser in September.

Will four-term Republican Gov. Terry Branstad come out of political retirement and run for the 2010 GOP gubernatorial nomination? It’s a question making the rounds in Republican circles, and it is apparently starting to have an impact on the fundraising efforts of other candidates up and down the ballot.

Controversial Christian radio host Steve Deace said Wednesday on his blog that multiple sources have confirmed to him that Branstad will indeed come out of retirement and run for a fifth term as governor.

Deace said he expects an announcement shortly after the State Fair concludes on Saturday.

Branstad will have to sell his conservative credentials to a statewide grassroots skeptical of anything attached to Polk County and Doug Gross.  A grassroots that barely remembers his years in office, but do remember his ties to the gambling entities that have dominated our state since he first brought them here, the judges he appointed to the State Supreme Court that recently decreed sodomy marriages (including the one who wrote the actual opinion), and the fact he made one of Planned Parenthood’s chief cheerleaders his Lieutenant Governor—and Joy Corning has been in a bur in the saddle to pro-lifers in Iowa ever since.

Conservative leaders from around the state tell Deace that Branstad entering the GOP primary will result in a “bloodbath,” as so-called Polk County moderates do battle with social conservative activists.

Veteran Iowa journalist Chuck Offenburger, formerly with The Des Moines Register and now managing his own Web site, called on Branstad, whom he describes as someone he has always liked and respected, to stay put as president of Des Moines University and abandoned any potential return to statewide politics.

… Branstad was a perfect match for Iowa at the time he was building his political and governmental career. He was the right person at the right time for Iowa, someone who had wide support across the state and could lead on major initiatives, some of them very controversial – like legalizing gambling and completely overhauling the structure of state government. I’m reasonably confident he is not the right person now. If elected, he’d be dealing with new generations of legislators, state employees and opinion leaders. And you know what? Not all of those people are going to be charmed by the idea of an old political hero trying to re-start his government career. Many will see him as an impediment to their own futures.

I agree with that last thought, by the way. Just the fact that he now says he is considering running for governor is very damaging to our Republican Party. It just stifles the ambitions of a lot of the young up and comers we need so badly in the GOP.

Offenburger called on Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn to reach out to the “legendary Branstad” and ask him not to run.

Even anonymous gossip columnist Civic Skinny weighed in on a potential Branstad run, saying he is getting mixed signals from those close to the former governor about his intentions.

So will he run? A woman who is in the inner councils of Iowa Republican politics bet a friend last week — two meals to one — that Branstad would run. A woman in the inner councils of Democratic politics told the same friend he shouldn’t have taken the bet.

You figure it out.

For his part, Branstad has repeatedly said he has not made a decision about gubernatorial bid and will not until this fall.  But at least one GOP strategist tells the Gazette’s James Lynch that Branstad’s indecision is “freezing donations to gubernatorial candidates as well as down-ballot candidates,” something that could have a negative impact on the party’s eventual nominee.

It’s a good field of candidates for the chairperson position, but I think there’s a clear choice here. I believe the person who can best lead the party rebuilding and unification that needs to happen across Iowa; who can lead the way in candidate identification and development; who can be the most effective fundraiser; who can articulate Republican philosophy in a broad compelling way, and the person who can get the Iowa GOP back to winning ways again, is Ames businessman Matt Randall.

Randall, 33, is the youngest person in the race. But instead of being a disadvantage for him, Offenburger said his age merely allows him to be his own man.

Randall said he thinks his not having been allied with any particular candidate or group in the party could be an asset in his efforts to unify Republicans. Or, as he put it rather bluntly, “I haven’t been anybody’s boy, and I don’t come with an any hidden agenda.”

Offenburger said he knows his party needs a “wholesale rebuilding” after two straight election defeats, and his hope is that leadership will see Randall for what he is — “a key player in the future of not only the Republican Party but also the state of Iowa.”

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speaks at a rally in Des Moines last Friday.

Langston, a Democrat, scouted the full field, arguably the deepest ever for her party in terms of resumes and star quality, before picking U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as her candidate — a choice she made during a ride to the Cedar Rapids airport with Obama amid discussions of the state’s understated beauty.

She saw something within Obama that helped her to make what was a personal decision to support the first-term senator.

“As we were talking, we just became four people,” Langston said. “At that moment in time what I saw was that Senator Obama still had a piece of his humanity. Running for president and all the challenge and hoopla can really put you into a very unusual atmosphere.

“It can change you. I had at that moment, and I continue to have, a sense of Obama as a person. That’s also certainly true with (his wife) Michelle. There is a humanity that still exists within that family that has not been subverted by running for president.”

It’s that unflappable quality and connection to people that Langston believes helped Obama win the nomination.

John McCain speaks to a crowd in Le Mars during the Iowa caucuses. Immigration dominated that forum in northwest Iowa.

While insiders spent time recently thinking about what has made Obama’s campaign successful, most talk of the McCain campaign was more about its missteps than its successes.

Many see McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running-mate as a turning point in the election.

Former GOP gubernatorial candidate David Oman, a top staffer for Iowa’s last two Republican governors, says McCain would have been better served by picking former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

“I’ve thought a handful of times the past month that he would have helped, perhaps a lot, in energizing GOP base, appealing to folks deeply troubled by downturn and so-called bailout, and in several southern and border states now close,” Oman said.

He said that Palin has not benefited the Republican ticket.

“Look at the [Des Moines Register] Iowa Poll breakouts with 60 percent of people feeling she is not qualified to assume the presidency,” Oman said.  “Huckabee would have passed that test. Romney, too, though he would have cemented many peoples’ classic impressions of the GOP brand — wealth — and probably not turned around a single state, including Michigan.”

Oman said that if Obama is elected Tuesday he will have to remember where his journey initially received traction.

“It wasn’t in Pennsylvania, or many other states,” Oman said. “It was in Iowa, first.  Lack of success here followed by second in New Hampshire would have shut down his campaign for the nomination.”

Oman said Obama clearly will have higher priorities that need to be addressed before he can focus on a more specifically rural agenda.

“I suspect Obama will focus first on the mega problems of the economy, energy, and health care, not to mention national security with or without the incident [VP nominee Joe] Biden forecasted,” Oman said.

Former Iowa Democratic Party chairman Mike Peterson, now an executive with AT&T in St. Louis, Mo., says at this point, it seems as if the presidential race is all about margin of victory.

“I will be surprised if Obama receives fewer than 350 electoral votes,” Peterson said.

Peterson said he still believes that Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty would have made a stronger running mate for McCain than Palin.

In terms of governing following the election, Peterson said an Obama win is good for rural Iowa.

“I am told that Obama’s first legislative package will be an infrastructure bill,” Peterson said.  “Iowa’s seniority should be a plus there.”

Veteran Iowa writer Chuck Offenburger runs a popular Web site and churns out prolific articles for a variety of publications from a renovated farmhouse outside of Cooper in Greene County. He sees Obama as a stronger leader for rural Iowa than McCain.

“Rural Iowa will fare much better under Obama than it would have under McCain,” Offenburger, a Republican, said.  “Obama understands the Midwest. He understands agriculture and what a huge role ag will play in the new energy era. And he will never forget the huge role Iowans played in enabling his candidacy.”

On the eve of the election State Rep. Tom Schueller, D-Maquoketa, recalled the early days of the Iowa caucuses when he was receiving call after call from candidates.

“I supported Joe Biden in the caucus,” Schueller said. “I thought he would have done better. To be honest with you, I really blame the media for that. They picked up on who they thought was the front-runners and that’s who ended up being the front runners. The other ones didn’t get hardly an honorable mention. Those folks — Biden, (New Mexico Gov, Bill) Richardson and (Connecticut Sen. Chris) Dodd — had a lot of good things to say too.”

Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues in Lexington, Ky., puts it flatly.

“I see no chance for McCain,” Cross said. “Hindsight is always 20/20. Romney would have brought the base around, though not stimulated crowds and volunteers like Palin. He would have been viewed as qualified, and could have probably made more coherent arguments than McCain, so the election would have been closer.

“But this is all a parlor game because McCain wasn’t about to pick someone he couldn’t get along with, and I agree with that approach. You have to think about governing, not just winning. Obama did that with Biden, an example of his better judgment.”

Down in southern Iowa, State Sen. Jeff Angelo, R-Creston, says McCain has a chance when one looks at the internals in a lot of the state polls.

“Right now, both the Democratic base and the Republican base are fired up,” Angelo said.  “So you assume in a record turnout that the bases are cancelling each other — sorta like my wife and I — you then look at the number among if McCain can swing some of them and the undecideds in the battleground states, he pulls out the electoral win.   Obama was hoping for a blowout based on the participation of new and infrequent voters — but early returns indicate that the early voters are mostly the same voters who always vote early.”

Angelo said McCain’s selection of Palin brought passion to base and delivered a middle-class relevancy.

There is a reason that “Joe The Plumber” became a central figure in this campaign, Angelo said.

“With Palin and Joe’s involvement, McCain got his campaign groove back by realizing that there are a large group of middle class voters who didn’t believe their concerns were being addressed in the campaign,” Angelo said.  “Romney doesn’t have that power to harness the energy of those voters and get them to the polls. Palin does.  She’s ‘one of us.’  In short, I don’t think the race is close without Palin.”

Sarah Palin at a recent rally in Sioux City.

Offenburger thinks McCain’s problem wasn’t in choosing Palin, but in shackling her to a script and cocooning a natural campaigner.

“Let me admit that I still think Palin was a good choice, especially given where the McCain campaign was in August” Offenburger said  “And that leads me to what I think is the biggest mistake McCain made — letting his campaign staff mismanage Palin from the moment she said ‘yes.’  They should have let her talk one-on-one to every reporter, columnist and broadcaster who wanted to talk, instead of packaging her up for those huge exclusive interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric — under the glare of the brightest lights and widest audiences imaginable.  That was unfair to Palin.

“If the rest of the press corps had been getting frequent access to her immediately, one-on-one and in small gatherings, she would’ve learned quickly to relax and be herself.  I think she would have then shown people the knowledge, ability, personality and savviness that have helped her become governor of a huge, complex and important state.  By the way, I think she would do very well in the kind of retail politics that the Iowa caucuses require.”

For his part, Schueller said Obama has picked a running mate who understands the middle class.

“Look at how he gets to work everyday and look at what he’s done since he’s been there,” Schueller said. “Second of all, Obama has some Midwest roots, being from Illinois and all. So, he’s going to understand our needs a little better than McCain ever would or could. And he’s going to have a better grasp of agriculture than McCain ever would or could. That’s been reflected in Obama’s campaigning. McCain’s record reflects what he thinks about ethanol, renewable energy and so-forth.”

Langston said she knew McCain was in trouble when she saw him speak during the caucus campaign season at a Cedar Rapids Rotary Club meeting.

“That’s a rather large group of over 200 significant business people,” Langston said. “Really, [McCain’s] presentation was not good. By my estimation, it was appallingly bad. While the campaign was talking about having no money, they came into the meeting with drapes and curtains and tele-prompters. I thought, ‘Oh my.’ I mean if you can’t stand up in front of an Iowa Rotary and give a speech without all of this.”

With the election only days away, Offenburger has found good news for the Democrats at Sam’s.

Keep in mind that when you’re taking the public pulse here, you’re in a town of 2,274 and a county of 6,479 that is overwhelmingly white and rural. There’s an even split in the county between Republicans, Democrats and independents.

For our Barber Poll to be showing a strong Democratic leaning – and that was reinforced by a half-dozen haircut customers while we talked – it is significant.

We all agreed that this has been the most fascinating presidential election, at least in the 28 years that Sam’s Barber Shop has been serving as my sample precinct in Iowa.

While they differ on projections and advice for the candidates, political analysts with rural ties contacted by the Iowa Independent agree on one point: this is a defining political night for the nation.

Gov. Sarah Palin

Al Cross, the director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, said Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden, a U.S. senator from Delaware, may be better known in Iowa, but in the country as a whole, Palin, although only a first-term Alaska governor, is now better known.

“The possibilities for Palin encompass almost the whole spectrum,” says Cross. “She’s supposed to be a quick study, and proved to be a good debater in Alaska when she had the facts at her command, so she could ju-jitsu the recent bad press on her and beat the expectations game. Also, this will be a calm, controlled situation, unlike those that produced the slips.”

But there’s no way Palin can bone up on everything, Cross added from his office in Lexington, Ky.

“Some of the issues can be relatively arcane so she could also fall all over herself like she did with Katie Couric,” Cross said. “This will be a high-wire act and draw a huge audience.”

Over in Greene County, outside of Cooper, veteran Iowa observer and writer Chuck Offenburger, a Republican, said Palin needs to have the performance of her life.

“Not that Sarah Palin needs one more bit of pressure on her, but I think this vice-presidential debate may well be a last stand for the Republican ticket, as far as rural America is concerned,” Offenburger said  “She must re-convince us of her legitimacy as a running mate, after her disastrous interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric.  When John McCain, in last Friday night’s debate, said so matter-of-factly that he’d ‘eliminate ethanol subsidies,’ I could sense a lot of Republicans across the Farm Belt saying, ‘That’s the last straw.’  If Palin bombs Thursday night, that would really seal the deal.”

Offenburger said Palin should come out swinging tonight, maintain her confidence and attempt to convince Americans that she is indeed the “new energy,” as she’s said.

“I also think she should make a strong stand with her pro-life position, and challenge Biden on his views on abortion and those of Obama,” Offenburger said. “Also, she should separate herself from the Bush administration and the Republican past, and that it’s time for mavericks like her to re-shape the GOP.”

State Sen. Jeff Angelo, R-Creston, says Democrats underestimate Palin at their own peril. He believes she is the victim of a generalized liberal media caricature.

“What I have found amazing is that the national media doesn’t let the facts get in the way of their master narrative,” Angelo said.  “We’ve been told that Palin is an embarrassment and that the economic crisis hurts McCain.  Yet, in today’s new ABC poll, McCain has taken the lead among independents and has actually gained on Obama in the last week.   This is the problem with commentary being put forward as objective news.”

In Storm Lake, Art Cullen, the progressive co-owner/editor of The Storm Lake Times, who endorsed Biden for the presidency during the Iowa caucuses, said most Americans who care already understand that Biden is an expert on foreign affairs and Palin is not.

“So I think Biden needs to undermine Palin at her supposed strength — energy policy,” Cullen said. “Rural Iowans would like to hear Biden embrace renewable energy in all its forms. I doubt that Palin knows what the wind energy production tax credit is, or what percentage of the corn acreage goes to ethanol production. Biden should know. He should talk about Obama’s plan to invest $150 billion in renewable energy research and deployment as a domestic economic stimulus and as a foreign policy foil.”

Se. Joe Biden

There should be no gender-based double-standard in the debate, Cullen added.

“I don’t think that Biden should go soft on her because she is a woman,” Cullen said. “If she acts like a fool, Biden should pounce on it. But I have never won a debate, much less an election.”

Republican insider David Oman, a former GOP candidate for governor, said Biden is smart enough to avoid being condescending toward Palin.

“Senator Biden is well known to two generations of Iowans from running for the White House in 1987-1988 and this last caucus cycle, 20 years later,” said Oman, a Des Moines businessman.  “He has made friends in Dubuque and Carroll Counties and in Iowa’s larger cities where there are many voters who are Roman Catholic.”

Biden is a  Catholic.

Oman said the debate time rules will likely help with Biden’s need for brevity.

The real questions, Oman said, are about Palin.

“Sarah Palin can read a teleprompter and work a rope line well — both with energy and personality,” Oman said. “Can she answer philosophical questions beyond talking about her own life experiences? Can she answer political questions beyond relating Alaska anecdotes? Can she articulate an understanding of America’s security, economic, and social challenges?”

Oman said Palin may benefit from low expectations, but he questions whether  “clearing a low bar really wins votes.”

“I remember the tried- and-true gasoline ad from my childhood: ‘You expect more from Standard, and you get it.’” Oman said. “Americans expect more from nominees for the two highest offices in the land.”

One veteran chronicler of Iowa life, Chuck Offenburger, lives in Greene County, in the tiny town of Cooper, and he published a blog post at Offenburger.com with detailed background on the hog farm, which supplies to Hormel Foods of Austin, Minn.

There’s no way to put this nicely. We apparently have had a moral failure in a major hog production facility in Greene County, and the stories about what happened are right now spreading across the nation and around the world.

We who live in Greene County – especially those involved in pork production here – will be a long time recovering from this.

The organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) – considered a pariah and almost a joke by many people in agriculture – has suddenly gained big credibility publicly with a detailed revelation of shocking animal abuse here. News reports have stopped the hog industry and farm organizations in their tracks, and most farm leaders are calling for the same intense level of investigation and prosecution that PETA officials are.

Former long-time Des Moines Register “Iowa Boy” columnist Chuck Offenburger, a writer who understands small towns and their people as well as any Hawkeye Stater, says Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama can “do very well with rural voters” not only in Iowa but across the nation.

“One thing he can do to build his rural base is to remind people in the farm states that John McCain is anti-subsidies and anti-earmarks, and neither of those positions squares very well with the expansion of the agricultural economy we are currently enjoying,” Offenburger told Iowa Independent. “As a state legislator and later U.S. senator from Illinois, a state with a robust farm economy, Obama has been a supporter in the development of the bio-economy.”Offenburger, a Republican who operates a Web site, authors books and does freelance-writing from an old farmhouse outside of Cooper south of Jefferson, said he thinks Obama can make a persuasive argument that he will be much better at helping develop strong U.S. relationships and trade agreements with the fast-developing potential markets in Asia, South Asia, Africa and South America — all of which would benefit agriculture and manufacturing areas in rural America.

“And if Obama spends enough time campaigning in rural America, the people will see he is young, fun and focused on the future,” Offenburger said. “McCain isn’t. Specifically in Iowa, Obama should remind voters that he spent a whole year in this state, convincing many skeptical people that he is a legitimate candidate, articulating and defending his positions, diligently building his base, and then scoring a huge victory in the Iowa caucuses.”

In August 2007, during the Republican straw poll, Offenburger posted a piece on his Web site in which he made the case that no members of his party in Iowa should vote for John McCain, Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson because they skipped the festivities in Ames.

“McCain essentially skipped the Iowa campaign and caucuses and was even arrogantly dismissive about our whole process here,” said Offenburger.

All of this said, Offenburger sees the abortion issue as potentially looming large in the fall in rural America.

“Obama has one huge problem, and I think it will be more of a problem for him with rural voters than those in urban areas — the abortion issue,” Offenburger said. “Obama has one of the most liberal, pro-choice voting records in Congress on this issue. A lot of people of the pro-life position, like me, find a whole lot to like about Barack Obama as a presidential candidate. But many of us will have a very hard time voting for him, knowing what his Supreme Court appointments would do to the future balance of the high court. We’ve made great progress there under President George W. Bush — in fact, his Supreme Court appointments have been one of the very few bright spots of his presidency — and I’d hate to give that up.”

Offenburger, a Republican, is the former long-time “Iowa Boy” columnist for The Des Moines Register and one of the most well-known commentators and writers in the state.

Here is Offenburger:

For us Republicans, Romney may be our only hope of winning the general election. His business acumen, his international experience including his salvation of the Salt Lake City Olympics, his pro-life position, even if he came to it later than some, and the way he governed with consensus in heavily-Democratic Massachusetts – all those credentials highly recommend him. I also think Romney would give us an immigration and security system that would work and would not constantly embarrass us.

And I personally think his strong Mormon faith is another reason to support him. Devout Mormons, and he is one, live their faith a helluva lot better than most of the rest of us do. I think his faith has helped Romney maintain a strong moral compass, a deep concern for the poor, and a respect for other cultures and nations. As persecuted and put-down as Mormons so often have been and still are, they have empathy and compassion for people who are getting beat up in life.