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Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/02/15/president-election-2016-hillary-clinton-column/5340999/

Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) -- In Iowa, the state that pulled the first block out of her wobbly Jenga-game of a presidential campaign six years ago, Hillary Clinton enjoys stratospheric approval ratings, well-heeled outside groups toiling on her behalf, and important political connections that date back decades. From a distance, she appears invincible once again, far outpacing her rivals in the polls and primed to redeem herself in the caucus state that has never been especially friendly to the Clintons, or to female candidates. Iowa has not elected a female governor, senator or member of Congress. In 2016, Clinton could...

For Immediate Release Contact: tomhoefling@gmail.com January 9, 2014 As part of a campaign to get the Republican Party back to basics, candidate for Iowa Governor Tom Hoefling and District 10 State Representative Tom Shaw today released the text of their “2014 GOP Unity Platform” in advance of the January 21st Iowa Caucus. “Ronald Reagan said that political parties cannot be all things to all people. He was right. They can’t be, and they shouldn’t try to be. That’s why this platform contains the key principles and clear purposes that represent the core of true American republicanism. However, with this document,...

Former Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said he’s still pondering a run for the White House because he doesn’t want Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) define the GOP. King, who’s made five trips up to early primary state New Hampshire and admitted in July that he’s toying with the idea of a presidential campaign, told MSNBC he hasn’t made up his mind yet and his decision should come “sometime next year, either next year or the beginning of 2015.” “Again, I’ve been up there five times. I am looking at it. People are talking...

The day after Chris Christie, the cuddly moderate conservative, won a landslide reelection as the Republican governor of Democratic New Jersey, I took the Internet Express out to Iowa, surveying its various newspapers, blogs and such to see how he might do in the GOP caucuses, won last time by Rick Santorum, neither cuddly nor moderate. Superstorm Sandy put Christie on the map. The winter snows of Iowa could bury him. From a Web site called the Iowa Republican, I learned that part of the problem with John McCain and Mitt Romney, seriatim losers to Barack Obama, “is they were...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20131122/NEWS09/311220100/?odyssey=nav%7Chead

It is always wonderful to have a first hand account of someone’s experience at a Sarah Palin event. There is nothing like being in the same room or in the same vicinity as her, but most importantly, the lasting feeling that only those who have been in her presence leaves forms a special kind of bond or “special membership” that is permanent. Inspiration and energy are renewed with each new story shared. This article is no different. It was written by Iowan Kristi Honas who was fortunate to be at the Faith and Freedom Coalition annual convention in Iowa this...

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will be back in Iowa Saturday. The Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition says Palin will be a featured speaker at its annual family banquet being held on the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines. Palin will join a speaking lineup that includes Senator Mike Lee of Utah. Palin’s last formal appearance in the state was at a 2011 rally in Indianola. Another high profile Republican will be in the state on Monday. Former presidential candidate and Iowa Caucus Winner Rick Santorum will be heading to Jordan Creek Mall to watch a movie. The former...

Democrats and Republicans alike have plenty to say about the news New York Senator, Chuck Schumer, dropped in Iowa Saturday night. Schumer announced his endorsement for Hillary Clinton to run for president in 2016. The endorsement created quite the buzz among the Democrats. Political Columnist, Kathie Obradovich, says, “They’re very much waiting on Hillary to decide what she is going to do.” Clinton’s resume as US Senator, former First Lady and Secretary of State has Democrats believing she could master the role as the first female president. The Iowa chairman of the Republican Party also feels a woman could do...

Was the end result of Ted Cruz’s effort to derail Obamacare in the recently concluded budget debate a good one? Rick Santorum doesn’t think so. “I would say that in the end, he did more harm,” Santorum said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” adding that while Cruz’s aim was worthy, his follow through wasn’t effective. Does it matter what Santorum, a failed 2012 White House contender, thinks of Cruz, a freshman Texas senator and rising conservative star? Yes. Because of Iowa. Cruz made his third swing through the first-in-the-nation caucus state over the weekend, building more bridges with conservative...

Sen. Ted Cruz will give the keynote speech Friday night at Iowa’s Reagan Dinner, riding a wave of attention and sudden celebrity that’s shot him to the top of the pack in the extremely early 2016 sweepstakes. The early comparison some activists are making is to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who hung back during the government shutdown and, by comparison, looked more reasonable to some of his party’s leadership and donors. But 2012 was the cycle of the rise-and-fall candidate with a base in search of the next Sarah Palin. Any number of anti-Mitt Romneys crashed about as quickly as...

Nationally syndicated talk-radio host Steve Deace, an Iowa native who has built a national brand as an in-house critic of the conservative movement, says Democrats are out-gunning Republicans on strategy and message. “Say what you will, the Democrats offer solutions,” Deace said. Meanwhile, the GOP issues statements that come across like sponsors’ patches on NASCAR drivers or scout badges, he said. Deace, 40, spoke for about two hours to a crowd of 80 people at the Santa Maria Winery in Carroll last week, an event organized by the Carroll Area Tea Party. His central theme: Republicans shouldn’t get mad with...

LET Rand Paul have his epic filibuster and Ted Cruz his scowling threats to shut down the government. Let Chris Christie thunder to a second term as the governor of New Jersey, his hubris flowering as his ultimate designs on the White House take shape. Jeb Bush, lying low in the subtropics of Florida, has something they don’t: the unalloyed affection of many of the Republican Party’s most influential moneymen, who are waiting for word on what he’ll do, hoping that he’ll seek the 2016 presidential nomination and noting with amusement how far he has drifted off fickle pundits’ radar,...

One word, my friends: RINOgeddon. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that Christie earns 21% support when Republican voters are asked whom they would vote for if the party’s primary in their state were held today. Florida Senator Marco Rubio runs a close second with 18% of the GOP vote, followed by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush at 16% and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul with 15% of the vote. Congressman Paul Ryan, the unsuccessful Republican vice presidential candidate in 2012, picks up 13% of the Republican vote, with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker dead last at six percent (6%)....

Money line: “This is what I do for a living.” Didn’t he predict a Bush/Clinton race in 2016 just nine months ago? If he believes what he says here about the parties swinging like “pendulums” from moderate nominees to ideologues and then back again, why would he have named Jeb as a strong contender last November? In fact, the roots of the counterargument are in Matthews’s own shpiel here: Most of the time, they head to the center. This is what Republicans did most successfully in 1952 – when, after twenty years of Roosevelt and Harry Truman – they wanted...

Des Moines, Iowa — The front line of the Republican civil war may be Grand Avenue, a hilly road that cuts through the heart of Iowa’s biggest city. On one side of the street is the gold-domed state capitol, home to Republican Terry Branstad, Iowa’s longest-serving governor. On the other side is a weathered brick building housing the Iowa GOP, which is chaired by A. J. Spiker and David Fischer. Both men are faithful allies of Ron Paul, the retired Texas congressman who twice ran for the Republican presidential nomination. These days, relations between the two camps are as messy...

Representative Steve King of Iowa, a prominent House conservative, says Congress should be cautious about rushing immigration reform, especially after Monday’s bombing in Boston, where three people were killed. “Some of the speculation that has come out is that yes, it was a foreign national and, speculating here, that it was potentially a person on a student visa,” King says. “If that’s the case, then we need to take a look at the big picture.” On immigration, King says national security should be the focus now, and any talk about a path to legalization should be put on hold. “We...

Federal investigators are probing allegations that Rep. Michele Bachmann, or members of her staff, inappropriately used money raised during her presidential campaign, her lawyer and former campaign staffers said today. Bachmann has not been formally accused of any wrong doing, but staffers said they had been questioned by federal authorities. The investigators are working on behalf of the Office of Congressional Ethics. Bachmann's attorney confirmed to ABC News.com that Bachmann was being probed by the OCE, but denied any wrongdoing. "There are no allegations that the congresswoman engaged in any wrongdoing," campaign lawyer William McGinley told ABCNews.com in a statement....

In an interview with the Daily Times Herald in Carroll, Iowa, state Rep. Dan Muhlbauer said governments should start confiscating semi-automatic rifles and other firearms. Muhlbauer, a Democrat from the western Iowa town of Manilla, is a cattleman and farmer. The newspaper reported that he owns a .410 shotgun, a .22 rifle and a .22 pistol. “We cannot have big guns out here as far as the big guns that are out here, the semi-automatics and all of them,” Muhlbauer told the newspaper during a December 19 audiotaped interview. “We can’t have those running around out here. Those are not...

I really hope you hold accountable every conservative writer you see in the next few days freaking out over “Obama winning Ohio!” because this is ridiculously apocryphal; anyone who has ever lived in the buckeye state should know it is going to award its 18 electoral votes to Mitt Romney this year and it won’t even be close. Look for Romney’s win to be a 54% to 46% blowout for Republicans. That’s because Ohio is not a swing state this time around…since Obama’s deliberate push to the Left over the last four years has forced a pendulum correction shift that...