The Republican Party State Central Committee is expected to pick a new leader Jan. 10.

Several members of the party’s Central Committee said Gopal Krishna, who served as the party’s co-chairman in the late ‘90s and currently serves as its treasurer, and Danny Carroll, the former speaker pro tempore of the Iowa House, are both close to garnering the number of votes needed to win the seat when the committee convenes Jan. 10.

But enough of the 17 committee members remain undecided that the door is still open for another candidate.

“I’m not sure there is a clear front-runner right now,” said Jason Hutchinson, a member of the party’s State Central Committee.

“I know there are some members who see a couple front-runners right now, but I honestly don’t. I think it is still too early to be determined. There are still several candidates who can get there.”

The names that come up most often as other potential chair candidates are Matt Strawn, co-owner of the Iowa Barnstormers arena football team, and Paul Pate, former Iowa Secretary of State and mayor of Cedar Rapids.

Several committee members said the voting process could be long and drawn out, with no candidate easily getting the majority needed to win the position.

Committee member Isaiah McGee, who also serves as a councilman in Waukee, said he is pleased with all the candidates but hasn’t heard enough from any one of them to make a decision. Additionally, he said if no one emerges who fits the qualifications the party needs, the process should start over.

“If at the end of the day, no candidate meets all the qualifications that we need as a party chairman then I think we should go back to the drawing board and keep looking,” McGee said.

Every candidate has pluses and minuses, McGee said, and if the vote goes to multiple ballots, it could be anyone’s race.

Hutchinson agrees, saying the committee members he has spoken with are open to any candidate, even if they say they already have a preference.

“A lot can change before we finally vote,” he said. “Once we see everyone’s plan for the party’s future, that could change everything. I personally remain completely undecided, and I think a majority of members feel the same way.”

Central Committee will host a forum from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Dec. 27 at GOP headquarters for the public to meet the candidates for chairman and co-chairman. But McGee said many members won’t be able to attend due to the meeting being scheduled so close to the holidays.

Party seeks unity

Several common themes emerged in conversations with committee members about what they are looking for in the next chair, the first and foremost being an ability to unify a fractured party.

Moderates within the party are arguing that the RPI’s drift to the right has hurt party in recent elections. Social conservatives counter that a party thrives when it sticks to its core principles, and in Iowa the GOP has been defeated of late because it has forsaken those values.

Each of the declared candidates seems likely to appeal to the social conservative wing of the party, but each has also expressed a desire to make the party more inclusive.

Hutchinson said the ability of the next chair to bring everyone under the same tent would determine the party’s success for years to come.

“This has become a fractionalized party,” Hutchinson said. “The last two cycles haven’t been particularly kind to Republicans, and when that happens, frustration develops. It tends to make us bicker back and forth. I’m looking for someone who will be able to unite us in a common mission and push forward. I don’t think the divide is as big as it has been made out to be.”

Krishna, the consummate party insider, has become a lightning rod for criticism from the conservative blogosphere, with most critics pointing to his tenure as co-chair, when his fellow Republicans accused him of trying to undermine the party’s leadership. Krishna is dismissive of the bloggers, saying they are trying to create a rift in the party.

But every candidate has his downside, McGee said. The question is what can they bring to the party, and that is what has to be measured, he said.

The party has fallen behind its rival in use of technology, Hutchinson said, which is another thing a party chair must address.

“But technology goes beyond simply having a Facebook page,” McGee said. “You should be able to answer why having a Facebook page is important. How can things like Twitter help us advance our party?”

Fundraising ability will also be key, Hutchinson said.

“Labor injected a lot of money into this last election cycle, so we have got to fund-raise heavily to make up for that advantage the Democrats have,” he said.

With a gubernatorial contest just around the corner, Hutchinson said it is important for a strong leader to be in place in order to ensure the GOP has a viable shot at taking back Terrace Hill.

“Right now our activists, our donors, even our leaders within the party are kind of waiting and looking for leadership to emerge,” he said. “I’m sensing there is a lot of energy out there to move the party forward, but everyone is waiting for a leader to move us forward.”

Ideology aside, the next chair has to be someone who can win elections, McGee said.

“That might be the most important thing,” he said. “You can be against abortion all you want, but you have to be in a position to do something about it.  You can be against the tax policy all you want, but you actually have to be in a position to change the policy. Winning is important, and it’s critical to find someone who understands how to win in the future.”

The Republican Party of Iowa is selecting a new chairman to replace Stewart Iverson.

While the party’s bylaws state that the State Central Committee vote on the chairmanship is to take place in January, some believe the matter could be taken up Saturday when the group holds its December meeting.

Republicans have already selected new leadership in both the House and the Senate, leaving the state party chairmanship as one of the final pieces to the puzzle in determining the future of a GOP that has fallen on hard times in Iowa.

Former Speaker Pro Tempore of the Iowa House Danny Carroll confirmed to the Iowa Independent that he is running for the position. Carroll served six terms in the Iowa House before being defeated by Eric Palmer in 2006. He was defeated a second time by Palmer in November.

“I saw an opportunity to offer my experience over the last 20 years in elected politics,” he said.

Carroll declined to comment further, saying he wants to respect the process of the State Central Committee.

State Central Committee member Mathew Randall also confirmed to the Iowa Independent that he wants to be the next RPI chairman. Randall is vice president of operations for Randall Corp. in Ames. He also declined to comment further, saying he did not wish to alienate any of the other candidates or his fellow Central Committee members.

Polk County Republican Party Chairman Ted Sporer has made his intentions to run for state chairman public on several occasions, both on his blog and on the radio program of Christian conservative Steve Deace. Sporer did not respond to several requests for comment.

Paul Pate, who has previously served as Iowa’s secretary of state and as mayor of Cedar Rapids, announced his desire to serve as RPI chair in an e-mail to several Central Committee members and county chairs. Included in that e-mail was his outline for “victory in 2010.”

Another candidate for the position is Christopher Reed, who ran an unsuccessful campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin. Reed, who owns a telecommunications business in Marion, said several Central Committee members have contacted him about running, and while he is interested and will serve if elected, he will not be actively campaigning for the position.

State GOP Treasurer Gopal Krishna has been the center of several rumors saying he is seeking the position. Some conservative bloggers, like Grant Young and anonymous blogger Krusty Konservative, had suggested Krishna and Sporer had partnered to try to push a vote on the chairman position before January.

Krishna told the Iowa Independent that there is no truth to the rumor, adding that the bloggers are trying to divide the party.

“We can express opinions without bashing people,” he said. “I try not to pay attention to them.”

Krishna added that while several members of the State Central Committee have approached him about running, he has not decided whether he will enter the race.

“Right now it’s too premature for me to even talk about it,” he said.

Carroll, Randall, Reed and Krishna all said they believe the vote on the chairmanship should follow the party’s bylaws and take place in January.

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.

Sporer, who made his announcement during an appearance on Christian conservative radio host Steave Deace’s drive-time radio program on WHO 1040, said the reason he should be RPI chair is because he “understands the disconnect between the state party and the county parties.”

“We don’t get support from the state party or information from the state party,” he said. “In 2002, the counties got money for phone banks. There were no phone banks. There were one or two lonely phone banks funded entirely by the Victory Program out of D.C. To keep doing to same thing over and over again really is insane.”

Current RPI Chair Stewart Iverson announced Thursday that he won’t seek another term. Iverson, a former Senate majority leader, stepped into the position after Sioux City activist Ray Hoffmann resigned shortly after the 2006 election, an election that saw the GOP lose control of both houses of the legislature and the governor’s mansion.

Sporer said his major difference with current leadership is that he wants to fight.

“We need to fight with the Democrats. I want to fight with the Democrats every day,” he said. “I want our party leadership to join me in that.”

The current GOP leadership has led the party to the bottom, he said.

“If 2009 doesn’t look like the bottom has dropped out, I mean if this isn’t truly where you bottom out, what’s it going to look like?” he said. “We have to turn around and start fighting back.”

Sporer said the party must return to its conservative values, from fiscal to social and everywhere in between.

“We were so not conservative in the last election cycle,” he said, adding: “[Republicans] are so afraid of losing power that they pander to the middle instead of running hard and proud as who they are.”