Perhaps more notably, Vice President Joe Biden will still headline the dinner (as far as we know). That will put him pretty far outside the Washington beltway as the Senate’s health bill is finalized.

While questioning Attorney General Eric Holder about the idea of prosecuting five men accused as co-conspirators in the Sept. 11 attacks in a federal court in New York, Grassley said assurances that they will be convicted ring hollow since “I think a lot of Americans thought O.J. Simpson ought to be convicted of murder, rather than being in jail for what he’s in jail for now. It seemed to me ludicrous.”

“I’m a farmer, not a lawyer, but I just wanted to make an observation,” Grassley said.

Kiernan said Grassley is engaging in “Karl Rove-style fear-mongering tactics” that are designed to “distract from the larger national security issues facing our country.”

“Trial by jury is the bedrock of the US Constitution,” Kiernan said. “Grassley calls this constitutional right into question and insults the American people, who every day make difficult and complicated decisions. There is simply no place for Grassley’s disrespectful politicization of this issue in today’s debate.”

After Grassley’s statement, Holder assured Iowa’s senior senator that even if acquitted terror suspects would not be released in the U.S.

Liberal blog Talking Points Memo has video of the exchange between Grassley and Holder.

The latest attack was delivered in Dubuque by state Rep. Chris Rants against former Gov. Terry Branstad. Rants said he spoke earlier in the day with activists who wanted him to support an increase of the gas tax.

“I told him ‘if you’re looking for someone to raise taxes, I’m not your candidate,’” Rants said, adding: “You’re not going to find a candidate that is going to tell you what you want to hear. And he told me that’s not true – Terry Branstad will raise the gas tax.”

Rants said he defended Branstad by saying “just because he raised it once doesn’t mean he’s going to raise it again.”

“He said, ‘No, he’s already told us he’s going to raise the gas tax,’” Rants said.

Iowa Democrats posted video of the speech on their “Iowa Knows Better” Web site. IDP Chairman Michael Kiernan called the speech “deeply troubling in that it would seem Terry Branstad has not learned his lessons about tax increases on Iowans and intends to be a repeat offender.”

This isn’t the first time the IDP has highlighted GOP intra-party conflict. In September, Democrats pointed to Rants’ criticism of rival Bob Vander Plaats’ tenure as CEO of the nonprofit Opportunities Unlimited and his statements regarding paying off state bonds. Last month, a meeting between Branstad and social conservative leaders resulted in two separate IDP attacks against the four-term governor.

The Democrats’ strategy also points to one of the dangers posed by a contentious GOP gubernatorial primary. Observers have said a nasty primary fight could create fissures within the party structure that may not heal before Election Day. However, there are also those who believe the eventual nominee will benefit from a rigorous primary, as all potential attacks will be made public, avoiding an “October Surprise” in 2010.

The Iowa Democratic Party launched a Web site over the summer to promote criticism of each Republican candidate for governor, and they added Branstad to the list after he resigned as president of Des Moines University to focus on building a campaign.

The Democratic party also paid for advertisements through the Google AdWords ad network that ran on many political news sites, including the Iowa Independent. The ads say, in large, red, letters, “Terry [loves] taxes,” with a 1980s-style stencil depiction of the former four-term governor’s face. It links to a page that lists tax increases that happened under the Branstad administration. For Iowans who read political news, they were an almost constant presence on every Web page they visited.

Web ad from Gov. Terry Branstad (Screen grab: 11/13/09)

Now, Branstad’s campaign is fighting back with a Web advertisement of their own. In theirs, Branstad appears in front of a podium wagging his finger next to large text that says, “Proven. Tested. Ready.”

The ad uses messages pretty common to establishment-supported Republican campaigns. In 2000, then-Gov. George W. Bush used the tagline “Proven. Tested. Ready to lead America.” at the end of television advertisements.

That’s the closest to an exact copy I could find, but there are more: In 2007, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney ran an ad called “Tested, Proven” in Iowa. In 2008, former Nebraska Gov. and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns used the phrase “Proven. Tested. Trusted.” as his catchphrase in a successful bid for U.S. Senate.

In terms of political strategy, there’s no doubt that this one is “Tested.” Arguably, it has also been “Proven.” But is it “Ready”?

Either way, the ad shows that the Branstad team knows they need to define themselves to Internet users before the other side does it for them.

Online ads are not incredibly expensive, but to ensure that Branstad’s ads appear rather than Democratic attacks, the campaign is forced to ‘outbid’ all other buyers for the same space. Google typically charges buyers money each time a visitor clicks on their advertisement on Google’s site or a third-party Web site like the Iowa Independent, and they pay third-party Web sites a portion of the revenue that generates. Each time a page with a Google advertisement loads, the system decides which advertisement to display based on the highest price each advertiser is willing to pay for it.

That means that the Iowa Democrats can continue to offer higher prices for displaying their ads, forcing Branstad to raise his bids, and vice versa. All in all, over the course of months, a bidding war could cost each side a few thousand dollars — and make lots of Web site owners happy.

And for the record, no matter how many times I see excessive punctuation in campaign ads, it bothers me every time.

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.”

“Latham has been taking the health insurers’ money and living it up at the same time he’s part of the Republican fight to stop health care reform in Congress,” Kiernan said in a statement. “He should be ashamed of himself – this is not what Iowans expect of their elected officials.”

The reaction comes on the heels of an Iowa Independent investigation, which found that nearly a quarter of the money raised by Latham’s leadership PAC, known as For America’s Republican Majority (FARM PAC), was spent on trips around the country touted as fundraisers, mostly to prestigious golf resorts. During the 2008 election cycle, a little more than 34 percent of the PAC’s money went to political contributions, a practice that is supposed to be the main focus of these types of organizations.

A recent joint report by the nonprofit site ProPublica, ABC News and the Washington Post found that a majority of the money raised by leadership PACs goes to entertainment, administrative costs, fundraising and other categories that “are so vague that it’s impossible to know for sure how the money was spent.”

However, of Iowa’s five members of Congress and two Senators, all of which have leadership PACs, Latham is the only one conducting this type of spending, which campaign finance watchdogs contend turns PACs into political slush funds that flout laws governing fundraising conduct.

“Who’s contributing to Latham’s PAC so he can party like a rock star?” Kiernan’s news release said. “This should come as no surprise, it’s major health insurers.  Among the top ten for this year are Blue Cross Blue Shield and AFLAC.  Also on the list are Kirke Van Orsdel and USAA, both insurance providers. “

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, one of the largest donors to FARM PAC is Emergent BioSolutions, a multinational biopharmaceutical company that donated $5,000 in 2009. However, of the PAC’s top 20 contributors, only $5,500 comes from health insurers or health insurance executives.

“Latham will surely be a ‘no’ vote on any health reform package that emerges,” Kiernan said. “After all, it’s starting to get cold again in Iowa, and the beach calls.”

“We are absolutely thrilled to have the Vice President back in Iowa,” said party chair Michael Kiernan in a statement.

The event will take place Saturday, November 21, in Des Moines. It is typically the party’s largest fundraiser of the year.

The last time Biden spoke at a “JJ” dinner in Iowa was in 2007, in the lead-up to the 2008 Iowa Caucuses, when he was still a presidential candidate. That year, he claimed on stage that then-Sen. Barack Obama had bused in many of his supporters from Chicago, a claim that could not be verified. Times have obviously changed since then.

Here’s a short video from Biden’s 2007 speech:

Fairfield Democrat Bob Krause blasted Kiernan for statements he made on IPTV’s “Iowa Press” about another candidate the IDP chair promised was going to enter the race to unseat U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley. Kiernan called the candidate a “a first-round draft pick” that would give Grassley “the race of his life.”

Krause said he felt making those types of statements would lead Iowans to believe the Democratic nominee for the U. S. Senate is being picked by “a small elite inner circle.”

Kiernan said Monday that his statements should not be taken as an endorsement of the “mystery candidate.”

“My goal as chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party is to recruit the best possible candidates at every level to run for office,” Kiernan said in a statement. ” The party has remained neutral in this primary. I am absolutely certain the party will have a very strong nominee with a real chance to be elected to the U.S. Senate.  I am excited about that.”

In addition to Krause, Tom Fiegen and Sal Mohamed are also candidates in the Democratic primary. During the “Iowa Press” broadcast, Kiernan praised the “amazing candidates” already running, saying they are “good people, they’re running, and they’re doing a great job out there.”

During a taping of IPTV’s “Iowa Press,” Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Michael Kiernan said another candidate, with high name recognition, was “100 percent” committed to running against Grassley in 2010, joining the field of Democrats that already includes Krause, Tom Fiegen and Sal Muhammad. He called the mystery candidate “a first-round draft pick” that would give Grassley “the race of his life.”

In a statement released to the media, Krause criticized Kiernan’s decision to tease the possiblity of a fourth candidate without actually naming them.

“The act of promoting the idea that there is a mystery candidate that no one can know about — except equally mysterious rumor mongers — smacks of a throw-back to the era of the king makers,” Krause said. “It is a practice that leads to public distrust and feeds the public perception that the Democratic nominee for the U. S. Senate is being picked by a small elite inner circle. That will be damaging to our chances to unseat the incumbent senator”

Krause then challenges the mystery candidate to “come forth, announce plans to become a candidate, and present his or her case.”

“And I call upon all Democrats to listen to their higher self and not allow king-maker politics to engulf the party,” he said.

The news comes on the heels of evidence that Grassley could be vulnerable to a challenge from a well-known Democrat.

Rumors have been circulating about a possible another candidate, with deep pockets and high name recognition, jumping into the senatorial primary. But over the past few months, all names associated with the race, from former Principal CEO Barry Griswell to Iowa Power Fund Chair Fred Hubbell, have denied interest.

At a Friday afternoon taping of IPTV’s “Iowa Press,” Kiernan said the rumors of another candidate are true, although he declined to say who it will be.

From a report at Radio Iowa:

“Doug Gross has gone and pulled out of retirement Terry Branstad to run for governor so it got a lot of Democrats thinking, including myself, ‘Maybe it’s time,’ — and I’ll put this in a football analogy since my counterpart (the chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa) owns a football team, that ‘Maybe it’s time to get a first-round draft pick,” Kiernan says.  “I’m going to tell you here today that Chuck Grassley is going to be in for the race of his life.”

He later said that the mystery candidate is 100 percent committed to entering the race, but will wait until after former Gov. Terry Branstad announces he will run for the GOP gubernatorial primary to reveal their intentions.

Bob Krause of Fairfield, Tom Fiegen of Clarence and Sal Muhammad of Sioux City are currently seeking the Democratic nomination to take on the six-term senator.