With the arrival of the Iowa Caucuses tonight, The Des Moines Register’s website will be receiving its quadrennial spike in traffic that accompanies the event. That’s why many found it interesting that surrounding the paper’s coverage of the Republican caucuses are controversial ads for Barack Obama’s campaign.
If you plan on staying up late and watching coverage of the first-in-the-nation Republican caucus, you’re going to need this. Keep these rules and a 12-pack handy as you wade through merciless hours of punditry and spin-doctoring.
Is Iowa more white, evangelical, and rural than the rest of the country? Yes. It’s just a fact.
Rick Perry spent ten times as much on television advertising as did Rick Santorum. Lot of good it did him.
So who will win the caucus? Romney, running slow and steady along the rail? Paul, peaking at the right time? Santorum in a sudden surge?
For the past few days, I’ve been carrying around a sketchbook and markers and asking young people at caucus events in Sioux City, Orange City, Rock Rapids, Mason City, Cedar Falls, Des Moines, and Urbandale, Iowa what their idea of the American dream is. Here’s what they said.
Political twitter becomes a firehose on nights like last night. Here’s some of what you missed.
Which is why Romney would like primary season to end tonight.
Romney says he’ll win, Santorum has to beat Romney, and Paul isn’t playing your stupid expectations game. What you need to know for tonight.
Never mind all those Republicans. This Iowan makes the progressive case for his state.
I spent two days with Rick Santorum in Iowa and traveled over 500 miles to 6 different meet-and-greets and rallies in Knoxville, Pella, Ottumwa, Sioux City, Orange City, and Rock Rapids, Iowa. Here are some of the observations I made along the way.
The Libertarian tells voters there’s no difference among his rivals.
In December he was a man in full, but now Gingrich is fluish and down in the polls. He does promise to keep talking about pets, however.
Reporters, operatives, and junkies tweet through the night and the early morning. You may not have been paying attention, but we’re culling the good ones.
The hot candidate learned the good news about his poll results from BuzzFeed last night. But the same reason’s he’s winning in Iowa may mean he’ll lose everywhere else. In fact, this may be the only social conservative Mitt Romney can beat in South Carolina.
During his final campaign stop in the Hawkeye State, Rick Santorum was assailed by the sparkling menace of a gay rights activist in Johnston, Iowa. The former senator from Pennsylvania wore purple glitter for the duration of his visit at the Okoboji Grill. Watch Video ›
Absurd excuse for flip flopping on an important issue for the sake of wooing Iowa evangelicals? Or the absurdest? A quote from Rick Perry explaining why he changed his mind from allowing abortion in cases of rape and incest, a position he held as recently as last month, to wanting a total ban.
Newt Gingrich vs. what he calls the, “1/10 of 1%” at a press conference in Des Moines, Iowa.
And it was directly to his face. That’s Tom Sorensen of Iowa City, and he is not fond of the former Speaker. If you must know, the insult rhymes with “fucking asshole.”
Remind me why the media thinks that focusing on the electoral impulses of Iowa Republicans at this stage in the contest is somehow good for the country.
Yes, a bag of kittens was almost completely liquified. Some terrible waste of DNA tossed a litter of kittens into a Meow Mix bag and left it on a rural Iowa highway. Sadly, the bag was run over and all but two of the kittens were killed. Then Reagan the yellow lab betrayed his instincts and did something remarkable.
For an attack ad, it’s actually pretty funny. The Democratic National Committee is running this in 6 battleground states, suggesting they don’t think the Newt bubble is going to prevent Romney from getting the nomination. Ew. “Newt bubble.”
At the faith-based Republican debate Thanksgiving Family Forum on Saturday evening, Newt Gingrich shared his particularly mean sentiments about Occupy Wall Street with Iowa churchgoers. (via gotchamediablog.com)
Watch Video ›
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul used to publish a libertarian newsletter in the ’80s and ’90s. They were not, shall we say, sane. From those newsletters, here are some racist/homophobic/anti-semitic musings on everything from AIDS to Hate Whitey Day (aka Martin Luther King Jr. Day). Paul says he didn’t write any of the following quotes, but they all appeared under his name. Yiiiiiikes.
During a 40-minute speech in Iowa this afternoon, Sarah Palin demonstrated both her classiness and spelling skills while failing to announce anything significant. Watch Video ›
Sarah Palin got everyone to pay attention to her today in Iowa and proceeded to make no news at all. (via.) Watch Video ›
Case closed. View Image ›
From the same Q&A at the Iowa State Fair in which he said corporations are people, here’s Mitt Romney getting mad at the notion we should tax rich people. He’s a man of the people. Insanely wealthy, private equity firm-founding, job-liquidating, chinos-pressing people. Watch Video ›
Remember, that’s Rick Parry with an “A.” For America. From Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC, whose sole purpose is to mock Super PACs, an ad that intentionally attempts to sew confusion about the spelling of Rick Perry’s name. It will begin airing this week in Iowa, just in time for the Ames Republican Straw Poll, where voters write in the candidate’s name. How thoughtful. Watch Video ›
The Princeton Review has come out with their annual list of the Top 20 Party Schools in the United States. This list probably influences the decision of prospective university students more than we’d care to admit. Here are the Top 10 with school appropriate photos. 11 thru 20 only warrant an honorable mention. View List ›
