Bret Hayworth of the Sioux City Journal reports Branstad faced tough questions about his stance on same-sex marriage, his choice Joy Corning as lieutenant governor and his past support of Democratic U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Each of the issues has been used over the past few months to attack the former governor’s conservatives credentials.

The fact that Branstad didn’t mention overturning the 2009 Iowa Supreme Court ruling that brought same-sex marriage to the state displeased two area Republicans — a middle-aged guy who wouldn’t identify himself other than being a Sioux City Republican and Woodbury County Republican Party Chairman Brian Rosener of Bronson. The first man said Branstad should have included his stance on marriage in the list of priorities. He added that when voters have the chance to vote on gay marriage, it has unanimously (31 times) been cast aside in support of traditional marriage by a man and a woman.

Branstad reiterated that he supports a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and thinks it’s wrong Democratic legislative leaders have refused to let lawmakers vote on the issue.

In an interview with a conservative blog, Branstad upped the rhetorical ante by voicing support for calling a constitutional convention to overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling. Every 10 years, Iowans get the opportunity to vote on whether to hold a constitutional convention. In 2000, the last time Iowans voted on whether the state should convene a constitutional convention, only about 32 percent supported it.

Some same-sex marriage opponents have advocated for the idea, saying it is the quickest way to reverse the court’s ruling. But most have concluded that since Democrats will likely control the legislature beyond 2010, Democrats would also control any constitutional convention.

From The Iowa Republican:

Branstad said that as governor, he would offer to preside over such a convention. While groups like [Iowa Family Policy Center] are afraid to explore the constitutional convention option because they concede that Mike Gronstal will remain in his leadership role, Branstad thinks the idea is worth exploring. He also added that, no matter what comes out of the constitutional convention, the people of Iowa still must vote on each proposed change to the state’s constitution.

Branstad also said that while he would not criticize the Iowa Family Policy Center for publicly pledging not to support his candidacy should he win the GOP nomination, he did say he was disappointed in Danny Carroll, IFPC chairman and a former lawmaker from Grinnell.

But the typically low-turnout caucuses held during non-presidential years still play a major role in Iowa politics. And depending on the outcome of June’s primaries, what happens on Saturday could have a huge impact on national politics as well.

“If campaigns aren’t paying attention to the caucuses they are making a mistake,” said Tim Hagle, a professor of political science at the University of Iowa and a former member of the Johnson Country Republican Central Committee.

While the caucuses are historically dominated by each party’s base – liberals for Democrats and religious conservatives for Republicans – the emergence of the Tea Party movement could be the great unknown in 2010. At least one candidate with strong ties to the movement is working to turn supporters out for the usually quiet, off-year caucuses.

Even though this year’s caucus attendees won’t be choosing the next president, they will start the process of shaping the state party platforms and will choose county convention delegates. Those delegates will go on to the various district conventions in May, and eventually the state convention in June.

That’s important, because if no candidate in an Iowa primary election receives at least 35 percent of the vote, those delegates decide who will be the party’s nominee.

“If you look at the Republican gubernatorial primary, with four candidates running, and the Republican 3rd District [Congressional] primary with five candidates, there is a chance these races will ultimately be decided at the party convention by the delegates chosen on Saturday,” said Dennis Goldford, a professor of political science at Drake University in Des Moines.

Hagle said most campaigns are already organizing their supporters to turn out and attempt to become delegates to the conventions.

“The convention scenario is a plan B, a failsafe, for campaigns,” he said. “They would much rather win in June, and that’s the ultimate goal, but you can’t ignore the possibility.”

Ryan Rhodes, who serves as political director for Republican Dave Funk’s campaign to unseat U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell in Iowa’s 3^rd District, said because of the crowded primary field, the campaign is asking supporters to turn out in big numbers for the caucus.

“We want to see a great caucus turnout and afterward we will be competing for each and every vote,” said Rhodes, who is also Iowa chairman of the Tea Party Patriots. “If this goes to convention we will be prepared but we feel this will be decided on June 8 after an exciting primary.”

Funk, a retired pilot, is facing physician Patrick Bertroche, former Iowa State University wrestling coach Jim Gibbons, retired architect Mark Rees and state Sen. Brad Zaun for the party’s nomination.

Lessons of history

Republicans don’t have to look too far back into history to learn the lesson of how important the caucuses can be. U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, is living proof.

In 2002, King and three other candidates faced off for the 5^th District Congressional seat, and when no one reached the 35 percent mark the race went to a special district convention.

The now four-term congressman narrowly defeated Iowa House Speaker Brent Siegrist 272 to 253 on the third ballot.

Also in 2002, GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Gross narrowly avoided convention in a three-way primary. He won with 36 percent of the vote.

In 2006, Democrats had four candidates for governor going into the caucuses. One of the candidates, Ed Fallon, urged his supporters to turn out in big numbers in order to improve his chances if the race was decided at convention.

The strategy almost paid off, as Gov. Chet Culver garnered 39 percent of the vote, outdistancing Mike Blouin’s 34 percent and Fallon’s 26 percent.

The lesson, Goldford said, is that the caucuses matter.

“These are typically low-turnout events,” Goldford said. “So it doesn’t take a lot of people to make a big difference.”

And the people who typically turn out are the “diehards,” Hagle said.

“These events are usually dominated by those that are more ideologically driven,” he said. “They tend to have a bigger stake in these matters.”

For Republicans, who are dealing with far more competitive primaries this year than Democrats, that means delegates will likely be much more conservative than the general populace, Goldford said, a factor that will help candidates like Bob Vander Plaats.

“For Vander Plaats, who is the candidate of the social and religious conservatives, it really could become his strategy to simply hold [Terry] Branstad to under 35 percent,” he said. “He is the candidate likely to win if it goes to convention. So, in that sense, it is Branstad against the field.”

Hagle said Vander Plaats and Branstad are surely organizing supporters to turn out on Saturday. As for the gubernatorial campaigns of state Reps. Rod Roberts and Chris Rants, they may not have the money and organization to mount an effective caucus strategy.

And while Branstad may have much more money than Vander Plaats, the caucuses are usually more about fervor than fundraising.

“The race between Vander Plaats and Branstad is viewed by many as a struggle for the future of the party,” he said. “So that could motivate people to turn out in larger numbers than previous years.”

But for the race to come down to convention, one or both of the race’s other candidates must garner a higher percentage of the vote than currently expected, Goldford said, at least in the double digits.

On the congressional side, the convention scenario would seem to work out best for candidates like Funk in the 3^rd District, who claims support from many of the Tea Party activists who turned out in record numbers last summer to protest health care reform. In the 2^nd District GOP primary, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Christopher Reed and Steve Rathje are facing off for the right to take on U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack.

Reed is considered the candidate with the most to gain from a convention scenario, given his campaign’s focus on his conservative credentials and Miller-Meeks’ past problems with the party’s anti-abortion base.

Dominance of the base

When some Republicans complain about the influence social and religious conservatives have in the state party, they are really complaining about the caucus process, Goldford said.

“Those are the folks who turn out and do the work at the caucuses,” he said. “They stay until the bitter end and work on the party platform. They show up to be precinct delegates. That’s why they are influential.”

Former Lt. Gov. Joy Corning, who served under Branstad, told the Omaha World-Herald that she has been lobbying more moderate Republicans to show up at the caucuses to try to exert influence over county delegates and the party’s platform.

Hagle, who has participated in numerous caucuses in Johnson County, said many times there are more delegate spots open than people interested in running.

“Each precinct gets a certain number of delegates to the county convention based on the number of votes cast for governor the previous election,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t have enough people, and everyone who wants to be a delegate gets to be a delegate.”

If there are more candidates than seats at the convention, the caucuses will hold elections, and each candidate will give a speech on why they should be chosen.

“That’s when you might begin to see which campaign turned out their supporters,” Hagle said. “They may say ‘vote for me, I’m a Branstad supporter.’ But otherwise, there is really no way of knowing, at least initially, who succeeded in positioning themselves for the convention.”

“It really is grassroots democracy,” Hagle said.

Branstad and Vander Plaats are considered the front runners for the Republican nomination.

State Rep. Kent Sorenson, R-Indianola

“To a lot of you out there in the grassroots, nothing smacks of elitism more than thinking anybody ought to be governor for 20 years,” Sorenson said of the four-term former governor. “I fear that by nominating someone viewed by many as a career politician who hasn’t run a race in 15 years, the Republican Party may end up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory next November.”

Sorenson, a first-term lawmaker who is giving up his seat to run for the state Senate, pointed to comments Branstad made about the “confrontational right” as simply “country club nostalgia for a bygone era.”

“You’re darn right we’re confrontational when our freedoms, traditions, and liberties are being taken from us,” he said. “We need a governor that understands that and will fight the good fight with us.”

He went on to attack Branstad for signing into law “the highest tax increase in Iowa’s history” and for growing government while Iowa’s population remained the same. Ultimately, Sorenson believes Branstad is not different than the current incumbent Democratic governor, Chet Culver.

“Branstad had a lieutenant governor who was for abortion-on-demand, just like Culver,” he said, referencing his choice of Joy Corning as his running mate. “Branstad appointed judges to the courts that take away our freedoms, just like Culver.”

Sorenson garnered headlines numerous times in 2009, first for writing an open letter to U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the senior-most Republican official in Iowa, criticizing several of his positions, then for using his Twitter to disseminate false information about national health care reform.

While he is a relative newcomer to state politics, Sorenson has managed to attract lots of support from within the Tea Party movement and other anti-government groups. Last November, Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, held a fundraiser for Sorenson in Des Moines.

The calls, which feature the voice of Republican Joy Corning and were paid for by gay rights group One Iowa, say the Iowa Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage continues “Iowa’s tradition of protecting the civil rights of all Iowans.”

One of Branstad’s rivals for the 2010 gubernatorial nomination, Bob Vander Plaats, said the calls are another reason to question Branstad’s commitment to opposing same-sex marriage.

“Terry Branstad enters the governor’s race on Saturday night without stating where he truly stands on the issue and on Tuesday night his lieutenant governor does an automated call urging Iowans to support same-sex marriages. All of that takes place not too long after his former chief of staff wrote an opinion piece saying the Republican Party needs to nominate a candidate with ‘centrist’ views on social issues,” Vander Plaats said. “Urging Iowans to support same-sex marriage is not only out of touch with Republican values but it is overwhelmingly out of touch with Main Street Iowa.”

Conservative group Iowa Family Policy Center issued a statement saying if Branstad had never appointed a “public supporter of abortion and homosexuality” to be his lieutenant governor she would never have a platform to “undermine traditional family values.”

“Joy Corning has given us another clear example of just exactly why as Christians and conservatives we should no longer sacrifice our convictions for perceived political victories,” said Chuck Hurly, president of IFPC. “When we elect people like Joy Corning, we elevate and advance the destruction of the family.”

Conservative blogger Craig Robinson believes that since the calls didn’t encourage people to attend One Iowa’s Marriage Equality Public Forums in December, they could be attempts by liberals to thwart a Branstad candidacy.

“…Corning’s call might have also been orchestrated by gay activists and liberal Democrats to lessen the chance that Branstad will win the Republican nomination for governor,” Robinson said.

He also wonders whether One Iowa is “taking advantage of the 77 year-old former lieutenant governor in hopes to advance their own political agenda.” Corning is a long time supporter of marriage equality, even writing joint letter to the editor of the Des Moines Register promoting same-sex marriage with former Democratic Lt. Gov. Sally Pederson. She is also a member of Plymouth Congregational Church in Des Moines, which is a prominent supporter of civil rights, including same-sex marriage.

It’s a question that doesn’t have an easy answer. Social and evangelical conservatives have gained more and more power within the state party for years, slowly building their influence both in Iowa politics and nationally due to the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses.

The Republican Party of Iowa used to be defined by its moderates and pragmatists, said former Lt. Gov. Joy Corning. Republican Govs. Robert Ray and Terry Branstad helped the party hold on to Terrace Hill for nearly 30 years, she said, but now many who consider themselves centrist Republicans feel abandoned.

“I hear it all the time,” said Corning, who runs the Iowa chapter of the centrist Republican Leadership Council. “I have had so many people say to me personally, ‘I did not leave the party, the party left me.’ What has happened is some moderates have opted out instead of staying and trying to be part of the party structure and make a difference. This started years ago.”

During his four terms as governor, few would have considered Branstad a moderate. But in today’s party, the former governor would certainly fall into that category, showing how far to the right the GOP has drifted, Corning said.

Social and evangelical conservatives have a powerful voice in the Republican Party of Iowa because they participate, said Steve Roberts, a former chair of the Republican Party of Iowa who for many years represented the Iowa GOP on the Republican National Committee.

“The Republican Party, like the Democratic Party, is dictated by who shows up and participates,” Roberts said. “Frankly, the more conservative Republicans, the social evangelical conservatives, not only show up but they are organized. The more moderate folks are frustrated and don’t want to spend the time that it takes to make a difference.”

Roberts has seen the evolution of his party first hand. At last year’s state party convention, Roberts, a relatively moderate Republican, was replaced as a male representative to the Republican National Committee by Steve Scheffler of the Iowa Christian Alliance. The female representative position was won by Kim Lehman, director of Iowa Right to Life. Many saw these moves as the evangelical base asserting its authority within the party.

“There is no question the party has gotten more conservative,” Roberts said. “But that’s because they’ve been the ones showing up and working.”

The problem many within the party point out is that, as the party has grown more conservative, it has seen its numbers dwindle in the statehouse. In the last three election cycles, Republicans have watched as Democrats took control of both chambers of the legislature and the governorship.

A cause for hope

Iowa Republicans have a lot going in their favor as the 2010 elections get closer, Roberts said.

“I think we are in a really good position following the legislative session,” he said. “Issues like spending, the Democratic plan to end federal deductibility on state tax returns, various pieces of labor legislation and gay marriage have put us in a good position in terms of having hope of election success in 2010.”

Republicans successfully fought off several pieces of the Democratic agenda during the legislative session, despite being in the minority, and the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage has energized the social conservatives.

“But we need a strong gubernatorial candidate to articulate our beliefs,” Roberts said. “There have been a lot of names come up, but no one has stepped forward or chosen to pursue it.”

But while the gay marriage issue is an opportunity, it also poses a potential pit fall for the party, Roberts said, if it ends up being the main issue associated with GOP candidates. He cited the 1998 campaign for governor between Republican Jim Ross Lightfoot and Democrat Tom Vilsack. Lightfoot focused his attacks in the closing months on Vilsack’s voting record in the legislature on the issue of restricting or banning nude dancing.

“It backfired on him,” Roberts said. “People had other issues that were more important to them. I think gay marriage is something that is an important issue for a lot of people, but with the economy the way it is, focusing solely on social issues could be a mistake.”

Not holding the governor’s office for more than a decade has contributed to making the GOP more conservative, said Dennis Goldford, a professor of politics at Drake University.

“The more Republicans are a party defined by state legislative districts, which are by nature more homogeneous than the statewide population, so you can ignore people who think differently, the more conservative the party will be,” he said. “With no executive, it’s going to get more conservative.”

Searching for the moderate’s candidate

Civic Skinny, the anonymous gossip columnist for Des Moines alternative newsweekly Cityview, reported rumblings of a group of moderates, headed by Branstad, Ray, Roberts and former GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Gross, who were trying “to settle on a moderate candidate to run against Bob Vander Plaats and Steve King and Christopher Rants and all those other very conservative Western Iowans who want to be governor.”

Roberts denied being part of a secret plan to choose a gubernatorial candidate.

“That conversation is happening, but is not limited to me, Gov. Branstad, Gov. Ray and Doug Gross,” he said. “There are a lot of people discussing it. Ray, Branstad, Gross and I have no official position in the party, so none of us are out there picking candidates. I find that many places I go the question does come up ‘Who are we going to get for a candidate?’”

However, Gross announced Thursday that he will speak to the press about a recent poll he helped commission that shows “that the Iowa Republican electoral base is large enough and cohesive enough to form the foundation for a winning electoral collation in Iowa in the 2010 election.” He will also lay out a plan for his party to emerge from the political wilderness.

Since last November’s elections, which saw Democrats expand their majorities in both legislative chambers, Gross has been calling on his party to be more inclusive and focus less on social issues that are turning off a younger generation of voters.

“Our party needs to enunciate a message that’s attractive to them,” Gross said during a taping of Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” just after the election. “But when our party has litmus tests associated with abortion and homosexual rights or issues such as this we drive the young people away.”

Gross is both anti-abortion and against same-sex marriage but said he believes a person’s stance on those issues alone should not disqualify them from the party. It’s a position that has won him no friends in the social conservative community, as many in the conservative blogosphere have labeled him a a “RINO,” or “Republican in Name Only,” and conservative talk radio host Steve Deace saying he “doesn’t think about [evangelical voters] any differently than the Democrats do.”

“We all know what Mr. Gross’ poll is going to say — that the Republican Party needs to free itself of Christian influence if it wants to win elections,” Deace said Thursday on his drive-time program on Iowa’s largest radio station, later adding that many are going to believe the polling is simply a way for Gross and his cohorts to regain control of the party apparatus “that they lost a long time ago.”

Deace went on to predict that because of the same-sex marriage issue ,the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary would be one of the ugliest in memory.

But with the right candidate at the top of the ticket, the GOP can overcome any differences and be in a good position to win in 2010, Corning said.

“We need a gubernatorial candidate who embraces the big tent and is not focused on the divisive issues but on the main issues Iowans care about,” she said. “Iowans care about education, the economy, the environment and fiscal responsibility. I think a Republican candidate who runs on those issues could be elected.”

The party can’t win without social conservatives, she said. “But it can’t win without moderates either.”

The key, Roberts said, is to find someone who can bridge the gap.

“We used to say the conservatives in the Republican Party and the radicals in the Democratic Party don’t have anywhere else to go,” he said. “You can’t lose them cause they aren’t going to go vote for the other side. But they do have a place to go. They can stay home and not work to get out the vote. We saw that in 2000 when Bush and Gore virtually tied versus 2004 when Bush got out the conservative vote and won. “

While it would appear a strong social conservative candidate would easily win in the GOP primary, which is dominated by those voters, it all depends on who exactly enters the race, Roberts said.

“That’s how Bob Ray got in 40 years ago,” he said. “He was running against two conservatives, and either one of those two individuals would have won the nomination if they both hadn’t been running. They split the vote and Governor Ray went on to win.”

When the votes in Iowa were tallied, 70 percent of the 63 candidates endorsed by the Freedom Fund Political Action Committee, supported by Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa, won their seats. Only four out of 10 state candidates endorsed by the Iowa Right to Life Coalition were elected.

In this election, just as in previous elections, those who sought to ban abortion used letter-writing campaigns to their advantage. The majority of letters to the editor dealing with reproductive health across the state were anti-abortion rights, for instance.

But despite the letters, voters appeared to turn away from socially divisive issues when making their decisions this year.

For example, Danny Carroll, a Republican candidate in Iowa House District 75 who lost Tuesday, actively campaigned on an anti-abortion message. His campaign sent two separate letters to voters that focused on an anti-abortion message, both from national anti-abortion groups like the National Pro-Life Alliance.

Dr. David Hartsuch, a Republican who lost his bid for U.S. House in the 1st District, used the Des Moines Register Soap Box at the Iowa State Fair to declare that “abortion is the leading controllable cause of breast cancer in America.” In addition to using the already debunked claim, Hartsuch ran on his anti-abortion record in Iowa Senate and even accused Arizona Sen. John McCain of barring him from an event because of Hartsuch’s strong social conservative stances.

If Hartsuch’s intention was to draw attention to the Republican presidential ticket’s lack of long-term support on social conservative issues, his efforts were likely thwarted by Iowa Right to Life’s leafleting of the Des Moines metro area with flyers that touted the McCain-Palin ticket.

Overall, it’s a touchy subject for Iowa Republicans, who ousted some moderates from top party offices during their summer convention in favor of others closely aligned with social conservative groups. Kim Lehman, executive director of Iowa Right to Life, and Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Christian Alliance, now serve as the state’s two representatives on the Republican National Committee and on the Republican State Central Committee.

“If we’ve not bottomed out, if this isn’t bottomed out, this is what it looks like,” former Polk County Republican Chairman Ted Sporer told WHO-TV.

In the same piece Stewart Iverson, current Republican Party chairman, said that he sometimes thinks Republicans have “forgotten what we stand for.”

Perhaps the most telling statements in regard to the 2008 election and hot-button socially conservative issues, however, came from a letter written by Joy Corning, a former Iowa lieutenant governor and Iowa captain of the Republican Leadership Council.

“How can any group or person assume that a political candidate is pro-abortion?” Corning asked, referring to an Iowa Right to Life Coalition newsletter article that blasted 2nd District Congressional candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks as a “great pretender.”

“Pro-life can and does mean pro-choice to great numbers of Republicans,” Corning wrote. “It means they want government to let individual citizens decide on matters best left to each person’s dignity, freedom, ability and responsibility. … We are defined by principles that have been our foundation since the time of Lincoln — limited government, strong defense, fiscal responsibility, self-determination and opportunity. We are not defined by a National Right to Life survey.”

Iowa Democrats will continue to control the House (at least 56-44), Senate (at least 31-19), and Gov. Chet Culver is a Democrat. Only two statewide offices in Iowa are controlled by Republicans — Secretary of Agriculture and State Auditor. Neither of those offices were on the 2008 ballot.

The campaign announced today that Paul Pate, former mayor of Cedar Rapids, former state senator and former secretary of state, will not only serve as state chair for Giuliani’s Iowa Leadership Team but will have some help along the way. Pate will spearhead the campaign’s efforts across the state by communicating with other political leaders, building on the existing fund-raising network and increasing support at the grassroots level. He will be assisted by six state co-chairs:

• Iowa Senate Minority Leader Mary Lundby, R-Marion
• Former lieutenant governor and state Sen. Joy Corning (first woman to serve in the Iowa Senate)
• State Sen. Jeff Angelo, R-Creston
• Former state Sen. Jim Kersten
• Former senate minority leader Jack Rife

Russ Cross, chair of the Story County Republicans, will serve as Giuliani’s caucus chair. Regional chairs include Leah Adams (east central), Ann Jorgensen (northeast), Maggie Tinsman (southeast), Theresa Hammond (northwest), Loren Knauss (southwest) and Gene Maddox (central).

In addition, 57 individuals have signed on as either county chairs or co-chairs for the campaign. Of those, 16 hail from either Polk or Linn counties, and strikingly absent are the Republican strongholds of Sioux, Lyon, Osceola and O’Brien counties.