Stories

For U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, there’s no such thing as a velvet hammer when it comes to pounding fear into his political rhetoric.

Two months after the Iowa caucuses, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin still finds himself defending our first-in-the-nation status – not in the future but the here and now, the 2008 election.

At issue is the Hillary Clinton-backed efforts to allow delegates from Florida and Michigan to be seated at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) even though those [...]

Eleanor Clift, the Newsweek contributing editor and McLaughlin Group gadfly, is in Davenport this week. She will no doubt be taking in the grandeur of eastern Iowa’s snowbanks when she’s not taking part in classroom discussions as St. Ambrose University’s Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow.

An interview with the political pundit is below the fold.

Ann Selzer hasn’t exactly invented a time machine.

But with her recent spot-on predictions on the highly visible presidential campaign stage, this Des Moines pollster can make as strong a claim for clairvoyance as any earthly being today.

Selzer Co., the Des Moines Register’s pollster of record, called the Iowa caucuses for U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and [...]

(Commentary) Three days have elapsed since the Iowa caucuses, and while most of the presidential candidates have moved on to New Hampshire, some Iowa Democrats cannot shake the sense that Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status may be in jeopardy. Others are left wondering whether the caucus system itself will be resurrected four years from now.

While the Iowa [...]

Media observers Matt Palevsky and Bess Kalb witnessed the caucus at Brody High School in Des Moines and caught an example of what they termed “mob mentality” on the part of the front-runners’ supporters.

Writing at “Off the Bus” on the huffingtonpost.com, they have an article and video footage from the event, including the voice vote [...]

Bill Bishop of the Center for Rural Strategies has crunched the county numbers for the Iowa Caucuses to give us a picture of rural and urban trends Thursday, useful information for campaigns as they move on to future battegrounds.
Republican Mike Huckabee and Democrat Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses last night. That’s what they have [...]

[Commentary] I attended the Democratic caucuses last night in Iowa City and recorded the results. Our precinct was allotted 9 delegates and over 500 caucusers showed up in the cold. 

There were reports that some people even walked to their precinct caucus site.

At night. In the winter. To vote.

Can you imagine? As they say [...]

Iowa Independent caught up with former Iowa Democratic Party chairman and Barack Obama adviser Gordon Fischer last night at the Obama victory party, where he shared his thoughts in this quick video clip.

Sonia Walsh of Carroll, who is a Libertarian, participated Thursday in the Ward 1 caucuses in Carroll. She shot the following video of her experience. Walsh, 35, a mother of four and Internet entrepreneur, started out as uncommitted but moved to the Barack Obama camp as the numbers showed that with her support and that [...]