Sarah Palin at a rally in Sioux City last year.

The Alaska Republican’s visit also marks yet another stop in Iowa for a potential presidential candidate. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty spoke at a GOP fundraiser Saturday and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee made three stops in Iowa Sunday to promote his own book.

Now, throw former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee into the mix.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in Des Moines last year promoting another book (Jason Hancock/Iowa Independent).

The winner of the 2008 Iowa Caucuses make three stops in Iowa Sunday, Nov. 8, to promote his latest book, “A Simple Christmas: Twelve Stories That Celebrate the True Holiday Spirit.” Huckabee will be in Davenport at 2:30 p.m.,  Cedar Rapids at 5 p.m., and Des Moines at 8 p.m., a day after Pawlenty gives the keynote speech at a Republican Party of Iowa event in Des Moines.

It will be Huckabee’s second appearance in Iowa this year. In May, he spoke at the Iowa Association of Business and Industry’s annual convention before holding a fundraiser for GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats.

After Pawlenty and Huckabee leave town, Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Paul will return to Iowa for the first time since the 2008 Caucuses, where the Texas lawmaker finished fifth. Paul is scheduled to speak at Iowa State University in Ames on Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. The next morning he will headline a fundraiser for state Rep. Kent Sorenson’s Iowa Senate campaign at the Des Moines Airport Holiday Inn.

An obvious new platform for the earnest Kutcher would be a run for political office.  And the place to do it would be in heavily conservative western Iowa where U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, appears to have a Gordian knot on elections, anchored as he is with an eye-poppingly reliable GOP vote in many northwest counties.

Whether or not there’s a chance that this race could happen, it is an interesting scenario to ponder.

And before you dismiss the idea as completely outlandish, consider this: Doug accurately predicted that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would be the Republican nominee for Vice President months before it was announced, and everybody thought that idea was crazy, too.

Recently, there have been some pollsters or pitchmen trading on the Sarah Palin name – taking a pulse on the Governor’s favorability. None of these polls are authorized by SarahPAC or the Governor. Again, SarahPAC is not doing any telephone solicitation at this time.

As I wrote Monday, there are a lot of other people who would benefit just as much from the poll’s data as Palin would.

Hi, AKM!

I wanted to let you know that I just received an interesting phone call.  It was an automated poll and it asked the following questions:

1. Do you have a favorable opinion of Sarah Palin?

2. Gov. Palin thinks A, B, C, D & E do you agree with Gov. Palin?

3. Do you feel it is important that Gov. Palin is reelected as Gov. of Alaska?

What do you make of that?

It is no surprise that some people are already interested in the next presidential campaign — or that there are already polls in the field.  The list of potential candidates is long, and each of them will have some important decisions to make about their political futures well before 2012 draws near.

Notably, some of the governors whose names are mentioned as possible candidates will have to decide whether to run for reelection in 2010.  Put Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal into that category with Palin.  The three of them might find it awkward to run for reelection as governor with all of their state’s voters asking whether they still even want the job.

Then there’s South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who is term-limited and cannot run for reelection.  Sanford was the first governor to loudly reject federal stimulus money that was appropriated for his state, but Jindal and Palin both followed suit.

It may seem obvious that the Palin poll would be commissioned and paid for by a committee connected to the Alaskan, but it isn’t.

This far out from an election, polling is very difficult, and anybody who is considering running for president might find the results of a poll about Palin more useful than a poll about themselves.  If a recorded voice called you up and started asking whether you thought Pawlenty should run for reelection as governor, would you even know whom it was talking about?

Another reason not to read too much into this: automated, touch-tone phone polls are cheap and not considered very reliable.  Whoever commissioned this poll must still be in the very early stages of a campaign.  Once the live calls start, the race will have actually begun.

Sarah Palin at a rally in Sioux City. (Photo: Douglas Burns)

And the exclusive story is no longer the exclusive domain of the traditional media. In many cases, it’s the small, independent media that are breaking stories and driving the news these days.

With that in mind, the Iowa Independent would like to share the best of the stories that you read here first.

1. Why John McCain will select Sarah Palin as running mate by Douglas Burns (June 29, 2008)

Sarah who?

That was pretty much the reaction in June when the Iowa Independent’s Doug Burns not only said the one-term governor from Alaska should be John McCain’s vice presidential pick, but that she would be his pick. By late August, McCain actually did choose Palin to be his running mate, and Burns (and his crystal ball) were vindicated.

2. Agriprocessors official who sold used cars and favors has fled the country, residents say by Lynda Waddington (June 20, 2008)

If a scoop is defined as getting a story before any other news organization, then Lynda Waddington’s story about Hasom Amara, a former supervisor at Agriprocessors, can be counted as a super scoop. That’s because she not only broke the news to the public that Amara had fled the country, she broke the news to the Department of Justice and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division.

3. Dems’ coordinated campaign largely disbanded, replaced by Obama staff by Jason Hancock (July 3, 2008)

In a year that saw Democrats expand their majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, you wouldn’t think there would be much talk of missed opportunities. But in the months leading up to Election Day, Democrats were predicting (and Republicans were bracing for) huge gains that never came. This despite the fact that Obama overwhelmingly carried the Hawkeye State with his army of volunteers and paid staff blanketing the state and turning out supporters.

So are Iowans just notorious ticket-splitters, or was there something else to blame? Many point back to one of Obama’s first post-primary decisions, to forgo participating in the state party’s coordinated campaign and instead focus all efforts on his own election, a story we broke in Iowa. Many predicted at the time that this could make legislative races tighter, a hypothesis that seems to have panned out.

4. Fallon faces campaign finance questions By Chase Martyn (March 30, 2008)

Former state Rep. Ed Fallon

The Democratic primary for the Third Congressional District between incumbent Leonard Boswell and Ed Fallon garnered national attention and was widely expected to go right down to the wire. In the end, Boswell cruised to victory. Two major factors seemed to pull Fallon’s support down in the months leading up to the primary vote. The first was his outspoken support for Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader in 2000, something Boswell repeatedly used to try and show Fallon was somehow less of a loyal Democrat. The second was a report by the Iowa Independent calling into question the campaign finance ethics of Fallon’s for-profit political advocacy organization “I’m for Iowa.”

One of Fallon’s major lines of attack was Boswell’s stance on campaign finance reform, calling the Blue Dog Democrat a pawn of corporate America due to his willingness to accept millions of dollars from corporate political action committees. So when Fallon revealed that his for-profit advocacy organization accepted contributions that would never be disclosed, cries of hypocrisy quickly followed, whether justified or not. His campaign never seemed to regain traction.

5. Iowa’s intelligence fusion center ‘connects the dots’ By Jason Hancock (July 29, 2008)

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the federal government began creating a nationwide intelligence network with a headquarters in every state. The fusion center concept was born. Here in Iowa, very little was known about the organization, even though its major structure had been in place for years and its director, Russell Porter, was a well-known figure in the national intelligence community. As part of a nationwide series including the Iowa Independent and its sister sites in Minnesota, New Mexico, Colorado and Michigan, the doors of this secretive organization were flung open. Soon after our coverage, the story of the Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center was being told on national television.

6.  The invocation that stole the show from Sen. John McCain by John Deeth (Oct. 11, 2008)

John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, had not yet arrived at an Oct. 11 Davenport event, so naturally very few media members had bothered to show. Luckily, the Iowa Independent’s John Deeth is much like a Marine -– first one in, last one out, which meant he was practically the only one there to file the following report:

Before McCain’s arrival, a minister delivering an invocation said, “There are plenty of people around the world who are praying to their god, be they Hindu, Buddah, or Allah, that (McCain’s) opponent wins. … And Lord, I pray that you step forward and honor your own name.”

The story quickly made its way across the Internet, and the preacher who made the remark, The Rev. Arnold Conrad, past pastor of the Grace Evangelical Free Church, was later “honored” as Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the World.”

7. Obama/Richardson Caucus deal by Chase Martyn and Lynda Waddington (Jan. 2, 2008)

There is a lot of wheeling and dealing on Caucus night. One day before Iowans rocketed Barack Obama to front-runner status, the Iowa Independent reported on possible deals between New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and the Obama campaign that directed Richardson supporters to caucus for Obama in the second round of voting.  Both sides (and nearly every other Democratic candidate) denied the deal, but we found plenty of evidence on the ground.

8. GOP platform calls for end to ethanol mandate By Jason Hancock (Sept. 3, 2008)

It was a move that received very little attention on a night when most of the Republican National Convention was cancelled because of concerns over Hurricane Gustav, but for farm states, it was a big deal. The GOP’s national platform for the first time called for an end to a mandate that gasoline contain a set amount of ethanol. Overall, the 2008 RNC Convention was not kind to the ethanol industry, with Sen. John McCain and his vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin hardly mentioning biofuels as part of the energy mix of the future. The move was seen as a putting the party in line with its presidential candidates, but many observers said at the time that it would cost Republicans support up and down the ballot in agricultural states like Iowa.

Palin, while lauded as a draw for conservative evangelical voters, actually fits uneasily into the theological worldview of the Christian Right. To be sure, Palin’s politics are a close, if not exact match for social conservatives. She is strongly against a woman’s right to choose abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. She is against same-sex marriage and for an expansive reading of the Second Amendment. She is a perfect candidate — so long as evangelicals are able to look past her gender.

But supporting Palin’s vice-presidential bid — and her possible ambitions for 2012 — requires evangelical voters to overlook the “complementarian” conception of the roles of men and women that holds sway among Southern Baptists and other evangelicals. Based on their reading of Scripture, they believe that men and women have distinctly different roles assigned to them by God. Women, in this perspective, are divinely mandated to serve as wives, mothers and keepers of the home. They are not allowed to serve as pastors, and they are obliged to submit to their husband in their own homes and in public.

The power of the belief that women are not eligible to lead came crashing into religious living rooms in September when more than 100 Christian bookstores, run by the Southern Baptist Convention, refused to publicly display an edition of Gospel Today magazine that featured five female pastors on the cover. The magazine had to be withdrawn from public display, said a spokesman, because the story “clearly advocates a position contrary to our denomination’s statement of faith.” Christians could only get the magazine by asking for it from behind the counter, a la Penthouse or Playboy.

How could it be that a female in the White House was acceptable at the same time that females at the pulpit posed a problem?

Albert Mohler, president of the Baptist Convention, offered an answer on his blog: Scripture is vague on the question of whether women can have public responsibilities and besides, Palin has fulfilled her wifely and motherly duties, he argued.

“The New Testament clearly speaks to the complementary roles of men and women in the home and in the church,” he wrote, “but not in roles of public responsibility. I believe that women as CEOs in the business world and as officials in government are no affront to Scripture. Then again, that presupposes that women — and men — have first fulfilled their responsibilities within the little commonwealth of the family.”

The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood argued that:

The Bible calls women to specific roles in the church and home, but does not prohibit them from exercising leadership in secular political fields. Rather, the Queen of Sheba is presented in 1 Kings 10:1-13 in a positive light in her interaction with King Solomon. Queen Esther offers an even better example of a woman who appropriately exerted influence for the good of her people without holding the highest position of national authority (Esther 2:17).  In this light, we cannot categorically say that it was sinful for Queen Victoria to lead England as a single woman strictly because of her gender, nor can we condemn Governor Palin or any other woman for seeking the office of Vice President.

But, as any reader of the Bible knows, these are selective readings. Mohler and the council ignore politically inconvenient passages from the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy that make clear that men, not women, should rule.

“Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.” ~ Exodux 18:21

“Take you wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you.” ~Dueteronomy 1:13

In the the book of Timothy in the New Testament,  a woman’s path in life is outlined as follows:

“I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;

The charitable Christian will leave aside the implications of this injunction for Palin’s notorious  $150,000 clothes shopping spree, and ask how biblical fundamentalists can accept Timothy’s teachings and still celebrate a female politician skilled in forthright rhetoric.

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.” ~ 1 Timothy 2:8-15

The answer is: Not very easily.

For those who believe that there is an all-encompassing plan by God as delivered in the Scripture, the complementarian view is fundamental. The belief in specific gender roles with men being in leadership positions over women cannot be separated from the order that the Bible says God created:

“But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” ~ I Corinthians 11:3

Yet many evangelicals, excited by the worldview expressed by Palin, twist the otherwise inflexible words of the Bible to justify their political passion.

Not all have managed to make the leap.

“Those of us who seek a biblical reformation of the family and the defeat of feminism’s vision for women look at the matter in a very different light,” said Pennsylvania pastor William Einwechter, who wrote of the “Feminization of the Family” in 2005.

“Sarah Palin identifies herself with the anti-Christian philosophy of feminism. She uses feminist terminology, identifies with feminist political objectives, publicly praises liberal icons of the feminist movement, and has built her lifestyle around the feminist ideal of motherhood and careerism. … She establishes the feminist principle that if a woman can do something, and she wants to do it, she ought to do it; there should be no constraints placed on her by her family, her church, or her society. She validates the feminist notion that it is fine for a mother to leave the care and training of her children in the hands of others while she seeks her own version of success in the world. Sarah Palin has brought to light the degree to which feminist ideology has triumphed in American culture and in the American church.”

Even on the religious right.

With that in mind, the Sioux City Journal asked 11 Republican county chairs in the conservative stronghold of northwest Iowa whom they hoped would be victorious, proving that in Iowa it is always a presidential election year.

1. Mitt Romney

Why: The former Massachusetts Governor and CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City was essentially the runner-up in 2008.

What they said: “(Romney) is just a genius when it comes to finances, and our country desperately needs that experience.” — Clay County GOP Chairman George Moriarity of Spencer

2. Sarah Palin

Why: The young Alaska governor was a popular force among base conservatives as John McCain’s running mate.

What they said: “I believe that (Palin) is a woman of integrity and great talent. … She has a gift, a brightness to her, a freshness that we haven’t seen in a long time.” — Emmet County GOP Chairwoman Debra Satern of Estherville

3. Bobby Jindal

Why: The Louisiana governor, at 36 the youngest governor in the United States, offers a fresh face and conservative credentials.

What they said: “(Jindal) has got a good (life) story. He’s an up-and-coming, energetic guy, and he’s a good communicator.” — Woodbury County GOP Chairman Kevin Alons of Salix

4. Mike Huckabee

Why: Huckabee rode a wave of support in Iowa, especially in Sioux County, to a caucus win and appeals to evangelical Christian conservatives.

What they said: “I think we need some new, young, energetic leadership — conservative, but new.” — Lyon County GOP Chairman John Fluit Jr. of Inwood

County chairs were asked to select three, and rankings were tabulated by assigning three points for a top pick, two points for a second and one point for third.

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.”

Hank Williams Jr. joined Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley on the stage in Dubuque for the National Anthem and his new version of "Family Tradition."

DUBUQUE — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin received an enthusiastic reception in Dubuque Monday afternoon, less than a day before voters head to the polls.

Palin told those gathered from the tri-state area of Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin that for too long special needs children in America have been “set apart and maybe have felt excluded.”

“There has been a great disservice done to these children, these blessings,” she said. “Me and John McCain, we have a vision of America where every innocent life counts… that’s the spirit I want to bring to Washington.”

“You’re going to have a friend and advocate in the White House,” she promised.

To say the crowd erupted during this section of her speech would be an understatement. Signs waved. Voices raised. Thunder sticks banged together. Feet stomped. Aside from the applause Palin received as she took the stage, this section of her speech drew by far the biggest reaction from the crowd of roughly 5,000.

Palin also criticized Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden. “Our opponents still haven’t grasped or understand the links within national security, economic prosperity and energy independence,” she said.

She said that coal presents an opportunity for the United States to produce more energy domestically, reducing the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

Blasting even former presidents for simply visiting Saudi Arabia and “asking them to ramp up production,” Palin said that she and McCain would “end this failed energy policy.”

“Those American dollars could be used here to create more jobs for Americans,” she said. “We will drill here, drill now. We will mine, baby, mine.”

Prior to the start of the rally, Abigail Reiff, a 10-year-old from Hazel Green, Wis., sat on the carpet and bubbled with excitement.

“I’ve never seen anyone like this,” Reiff said. “I just want to see her. I’m just now beginning to be interested in elections.”

Although Reiff wasn’t hoping to hear anything specific from Palin, she said it was especially special that Palin is a woman.

“It’s very important,” she said while bouncing up and down. “It’s making history.”

A few steps down the line of spectators, Mike Neigebauber, a Realtor from Buckley, Ill. said he drove more than two hours to come and show his support.

“I want to hear her discuss taxes,” he said, noting that both fiscal and social issues were important to him. “I want to hear that the McCain-Palin ticket is not going to raise taxes for seniors and working people. I also want to hear about tax protections for small businesses.”

Branda Kennedy of Davenport had only an hour drive to attend the election rally.

“I’m just here to show my support,” she said. “Iowa is strong and I want to hear Palin say that. I want to hear again that they are ready and that they are going to fight and win. We can do it.”

As Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-IA, warmed up the crowd, he made a point of throwing his full support not only behind John McCain, his party’s presidential nominee, but directly to the Alaska governor.

“You know from watching television and the debates that no one is more qualified to vice president of the United States,” he said. “All you got to think about is the governors that have gone to Washington to be the chief executive. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind about her qualifications.”