Free Republic

While Ron Paul is still in search of his first win of the 2012 Republican presidential campaign, one of his Iowa strategists, A.J. Spiker, was elected Chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa. Spiker will fill out the remainder of Matt Strawn’s second term, which will end in January. Strawn resigned after being criticized for his handling of the Iowa Caucus results and the ensuing certification process. The selection of Spiker by the Republican State Central Committee (SCC) has raised questions from some Republican activists. Spiker is an unabashed supporter of Ron Paul and was on his payroll. Since being...

DES MOINES — The leader of the Senate Republicans is pushing to reinstate a limited death penalty in Iowa for any adult who kills a minor in the commission of a rape or kidnapping. But Democrats say it’s a political ploy to interject a distracting social issue during a session focused on job creation and reforming the state’s property tax, education and mental-health systems. Senate GOP Leader Jerry Behn of Boone introduced the death-penalty measure this session as he has done in previous years. He says it is a way to deter perpetrators of Class A felonies in Iowa from...

PLANO, Texas — Standing in front of a massive crowd at a rally in Plano, Texas, Rick Santorum unleashed criticism of Barack Obama and threw out some campaign red meat to supporters hungry for it, telling them the president has an “overt hostility to faith.”“(He’s) trying to weaken them, churches, trying to say that anybody who believes in the values of the Judeo Christian policies,” Santorum said to about 2,000 people in a converted barn, one of his largest audiences of the campaign. He told the audience at the raucous rally that Obama is restricting religious freedoms in this country,...

The teacher posts: "Governor Scott Walker AKA Fascist Bastard. What an undemocratic assh*le. Wisconsin, will you please get this horrible excuse of a person out of the fold of office? This man (Walker) is outrageously out of control. He represents no one except himself.Shame on Wisconsin for allowing his election, and further shame if they allow his continuance."

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) have introduced legislation that would permanently discontinue the $1 dollar note and replace it with a coin. Harkin and McCain penned The Currency Optimization, Innovation and National Savings (COINS) Act in response to reports from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) that indicate that abandoning the note could save around $5.5 billion over the next 30 years. Specifically the COINS Act would require that Federal Reserve Banks discontinue the $1 note four years after enactment or once circulation of $1 coins exceeds 600 million annually.

DES MOINES, Iowa -- A Des Moines man has been arrested after police say he used, or tried to use, the identity of Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz in a scheme to falsely implicate Schultz in perceived unethical behavior in office. Zachary Edwards was arrested Friday and charged with identity theft. The Iowa Department of Public Safety issued a news release saying Schultz's office discovered the scheme on June 24, 2011 and notified authorities.

In the 13 years since he suffered a string of political setbacks and quit the third most powerful job in Washington, Newt Gingrich has been busily laying the foundation for a comeback to an even grander perch. On any given day, the former Speaker of the House can be found on a chartered jet headed to Iowa to train future GOP candidates through his American Solutions group, or in Phoenix discussing ways to lower health-care costs with drug makers through his for-profit Center for Health Transformation. He might also be in Philadelphia, narrating a film produced by Gingrich Productions, or...

Rick Santorum said he would be pleased with a third-place finish in South Carolina Saturday but vowed to stay in the presidential race through the Florida primary no matter what. He also blasted his "desperate" rival Mitt Romney for perpetrating "cheap stuff" as Mr. Romney's position as front runner here melted away the past week... "We finally were given the victory in Iowa," Mr. Santorum said. "If we had had it two weeks ago, it might be a very different situation. It might have been a very different race." Mr. Santorum also said he was disappointed in Mr. Romney after...

Auroras may dazzle more people than usual this weekend as Earth receives a glancing blow from an enormous solar outburst that erupted on Jan. 19. The outburst, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), was detected by sun-watching satellites. Researchers at the University of Alaska's Geophysical Institute predict that auroras should be visible from Seattle, Des Moines, Chicago, and Cleveland, to Boston and Halifax, Nova Scotia Saturday and Sunday nights, weather permitting. ... Space Weather Center forecasters say they expect the encounter to generate a weak geomagnetic disturbance beginning around 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time Sunday Jan. 22 and lasting...

Barack Obama’s 2008 Iowa New Media Director was arrested Friday for attempting to use the identities of Secretary of State Matt Schultz, and/or his brother Thomas, with the intent to falsely implicate the Secretary Schultz in illegal or unethical behavior. Zach Edwards, 29, of Des Moines, currently works for Link Strategies, a Democrat-affiliated organization with ties to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. Edwards is the Director of New Media for Link Strategies. The Secretary of State’s office discovered the alleged crime and reported it to authorities. Edwards turned himself in to the Iowa DCI agents Friday afternoon. He was charged with...

Barack Obama’s 2008 Iowa New Media Director was arrested Friday for attempting to use the identities of Secretary of State Matt Schultz, and/or his brother Thomas, with the intent to falsely implicate the Secretary Schultz in illegal or unethical behavior. Zach Edwards, 29, of Des Moines, currently works for Link Strategies, a Democrat-affiliated organization with ties to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. Edwards is the Director of New Media for Link Strategies. The Secretary of State’s office discovered the alleged crime and reported it to authorities. Edwards turned himself in to the Iowa DCI agents Friday afternoon. He was charged with...

GREENVILLE, S.C. — On the eve of the South Carolina primary, ­ Iowa Republicans dealt Mitt Romney’s campaign a blow by formally declaring Rick Santorum the winner of their Jan. 3 caucuses. At 18 minutes before midnight Friday, South Carolina time, the Republican Party of Iowa released a statement revising its Thursday announcement that reported Santorum ahead of Romney but also saying the two-week-old race had no clear winner. “In order to clarify conflicting reports and to affirm the results released January 18 by the Republican Party of Iowa, Chairman Matthew Strawn and the State Central Committee declared Senator Rick...

oday the Iowa state GOP announced that Rick Santorum beat Mitt Romney in this year's caucuses after all, but that they can't be totally sure because vote totals in eight precincts somehow went missing. Here's to hoping this results in a major rethinking of the caucus process, if not stripping Iowa of its first in the nation status altogether. I've been a longtime critic of the outsized influence Iowa has in electing a president. Not only does it get showered with attention from candidates who voters in later states won't have a chance to support, but most of its population...

Mitt Romney made a "polite" phone call Thursday to rival Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum to "concede victory" in Iowa, according to Santorum's spokesman Hogan Gidley. But Romney's team objected, saying his campaign didn't concede. “He just called him. They talked, and he recognized his efforts," a top campaign aide told CNN. Santorum finished the Iowa Republican caucuses 34 votes ahead of Mitt Romney, but results from several precincts are missing and the full actual results may never be known, according to a final certified tally released Thursday by the Iowa GOP. The new numbers show 29,839 votes for Santorum...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Iowa Republican Party will certify this month's presidential caucuses as a split decision between former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, citing missing data from eight precincts, the Des Moines Register reported on Thursday.

A recount of the Jan. 3 Iowa Republican caucus results has Rick Santorum leading Mitt Romney in the race for the GOP presidential nomination by 34 votes, with data from 8 precincts missing and never to be certified, GOP officials told The Des Moines Register on Wednesday. Despite Santorum's advantage, the state Republican party views the results as a wash.

We’ll see if a rough debate or a stumble in South Carolina derail the Romney train, but so far, he’s on path for a big, big win at the end of the month in Florida: Two weeks away from the Presidential Preference Primary, Mitt Romney holds a commanding lead over the Republican presidential pack in Florida, according to a Sunshine State News Poll of likely primary voters. Romney tops the poll, which was conducted by Harrisburg, Pa.-based Voter Survey Service (VSS), with 46 percent. Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich places a distant second with 20 percent. Former U.S. Sen....

LINCOLN — Californian Therese Ebert dreamed of being a modern-day homesteader, pulling up stakes from her rented room in Poway, Calif., to build a home of her own in Beatrice, Neb. Chasing the promise of free land, she packed her two dogs and her belongings into the back of an SUV and set off for Nebraska. She had signed up last January for a free lot in Beatrice on condition that she build a home on the property within five years. "Everything I owned was with me," Ebert said. "The car was packed, I wasn't looking back." But, alas, homesteading...

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. -- It's conventional wisdom in Republican circles here in South Carolina that if Mitt Romney wins the state's primary this Saturday -- having already won in Iowa and New Hampshire -- he'll be the GOP presidential nominee. "If for some reason he's not derailed here and Mitt Romney wins South Carolina -- no one's ever won all three -- I think it should be over," Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday. "That would be quite a testament to his ability as a candidate and a campaigner." But what if Romney did not actually win Iowa? That could change...

If for nothing else, Jodi Kantor’s The Obamas will be remembered for an anecdote from 2010. After he spent hours disputing an allegation in the French media that Michelle Obama thought life in the White House was “hell,” press secretary Robert Gibbs encountered senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. She told him the first lady was unhappy with his work. Gibbs exploded in a rage, informing Jarrett that she didn’t “know what the f— you’re talking about” and that if Mrs. Obama was displeased, well, “f— her too.” Subsequent relations between the senior adviser and press secretary were strained. Gibbs told Kantor...

Following much thoughtful consternation, I have decided to pull my support and endorsement of Texas Governor Rick Perry for the GOP presidential nomination.  I realize the redstate diary commenters, won’t be kind but this needs to be said.  This decision wasn’t easy but a serious evaluation of the field should inform us that Rick Perry has no realistic path to victory in South Carolina, Florida and beyond. I realize that redstate.com’s Erick Erickson continues to stick by him, that South Carolina is Perry’s state and that he has re-tooled his staff.  But it is too little too late and at...

GOP Presidential Primary: Total Numbers after Iowa and New Hamshire: Thought I would create a thread that shows the totals of the primaries thus far in terms of total votes, totals by candidate, percentages, and delegates thus far. So, here it is Total Votes Cast (with percent in parens): Iowa = 121,914 (33.57%) New Hampshire = 241,299 (66.43%) Total Votes = 363,213 Total Vote/Percent and Delegates by Canddiate : Romney = 126,185 (34.74%) (12 Delegates) Paul = 82,122 (22.61%) (10 Delegates) Santorum = 52,921 (14.57%) (7 Delegates) Huntsman = 41,650 (11.52%) (2 Delegates) Gingrich = 39,321 (10.83%) 2 Delegates Perry...

[ed note: Found! In a dumpster behind Hamburg Inn, the first draft of University of Iowa professor Stephen G. Bloom's anthropology dissertation for Atlantic magazine explaining the bizarre cultural mores of the primative Aborigines who pay his salary.] IOWA CITY -- On January 3, Iowans will trudge through snow, sleet, sludge, mud, ice, corn, beans, pig feces, flaming lakes of ethanol, gale-force blizzards -- whatever it takes -- to join their neighbors that evening in 1,784 living rooms, barns, community halls, recreation barns, silos, wigwams, and public-school Corn God sacrifice altars in a kind of Norman Rockwell-meets-HR Geiger old timey...

The nominating process may officially be underway, but Republicans have yet to enthusiastically embrace a potential nominee for president - and despite the late date, most would like to see other candidates enter the race, according to a new CBS News poll. The survey finds that 58 percent of Republican primary voters want more presidential choices, while just 37 percent say they are satisfied with the current field. The percentage of Republican primary voters that wants more choices has increased 12 percentage points since October. Mitt Romney, the frontrunner for the nomination, has struggled to break 30 percent support in...

Mitt Romney: 36 Newt Gingrich: 25 Rick Santorum: 17 Ron Paul: 7 Other: 5 Undecided 10 Other: 5

I developed a theory last month that the Iowa primary voters were just messing with us. They'd all get together in their coffee shops, diners and bars and start a phone tree, saying, "What shall we tell the pollsters this week?" "How about a Bachmann boomlet?""Think that'll fly? We can't fool these pollsters forever.""No, polling is based on the premise that, most of the time, people tell the truth. I'm sick of polling. If we all lie in the same way, we can make those needles go up and down and drive the press and the politicians crazy. So a...

(CNSNews.com) - Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania won a plurality of votes from the Tea Party supporters who attended Tuesday night's Iowa caucuses, while former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won a plurality of those who say they oppose the Tea Party, according to an entrance poll published by CNN. Sixty-four percent of caucus-goers described themselves as Tea Party supporters, 10 percent described themselves as opponents of the Tea Party, and 24 percent said they were neutral about the Tea Party. Among Tea Party supporters, Santorum won 29 percent and Romney and Rep. Ron Paul tied for second with 19...

WASHINGTON, Iowa – A missing Iowa businesswoman's car has been found near St. Louis, Missouri but the 45-year-old still hasn't been located. The Washington County Sheriff's office said Sunday that Sharon Ruth Hopf's 1999 white Chevy Lumina had been found. Investigators are searching the car for clues that might lead to Hopf. The Crawfordsville woman was reported missing Thursday after she didn't show up for work at a home furnishings company she owns in Kalona. Anyone with information regarding her whereabouts is asked to contact the the Washington County Sheriff’s Department at 319-653-2107 or 1-800-TIPS-492.

GOP New Hampshire primary debate tonight on ABC at 9pm ET By Nate, on January 7th, 2012 Tonight will mark the first of two debates this weekend focused on the New Hampshire Republican primary. This evening's debate will take place at Saint Anselm College and is sponsored by ABC News, Yahoo! and WMUR. Sunday morning will feature a GOP debate broadcast on NBC at 9am ET (yes, am) but look for more details on that later today. Air Time: Saturday, January 7th at 9pm ET / 6pm PT on ABC Live Stream: WMUR and Yahoo! News Participants: Santorum, Romney, Paul,...

UPDATED: Mitt Romney got 20 fewer votes in Moulton precinct, Appanoose County GOP chairman says!!!!!

Ready, aim fire. That’s apparently Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s idea of relaxation before returning to the campaign trail this weekend. Ahead of Saturday night’s ABC News-Yahoo-WMUR debate in New Hampshire Perry took a few moments to himself at an Austin-area shooting range. “Just relaxing a bit @ Red’s Range before we leave for New Hampshire!” @governorperry tweeted Friday along with a photo of himself wearing a green sweatshirt and a baseball cap with a firearm in hand. On the campaign trail, Perry, a staunch defender of second amendment rights, has not been shy about talking about his “long love affair”...

This is an appeal to all long-time conservatives. Let's start lining up behind Newt Gingrich, as Thomas Sowell, Art Laffer, JC Watts, Jim Robinson (Free Republic honcho) and others have. The hazzard of holding back an endorsement is that the media, pudits and PAC TV commercials will continue to shape negative opinion against Newt and we may lose our best conservative warrior. The result of the media, pundit and PAC TV onslaught may cause the nominee to be Romney or Santorum. Romney is a moderate and Santorum does not have the experience to Push the conservative agenda in the general...

Have we lost ye, Michele Bachmann? The answer would seem to be yes, as the sharp-tongued, googly-eyed Minnesota Congresswoman suspended her presidential campaign after receiving only five per cent of the Iowa Caucus vote in the state where she was born. To put that in perspective, Michele Bachmann only got 6,000 more votes in Iowa than Johann Sebastian Bach. It was the culmination of a stunning turn of events over the past few months, after her candidacy surged when she won the Iowa straw poll in August. Soon afterwards, however, her poll numbers went south faster than General William Tecumseh...

Johnston, Iowa — “Please! Move for the senator! Arms back! Get outta the way!” Near midnight on Tuesday, in a cramped, first-floor hallway at the Stoney Creek Inn, it was a madhouse, a circus of flying elbows and Klieg lights. Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator — who for months could barely draw a local blogger to his events — was suddenly at the center of the American political scene, the near-winner of the Iowa caucuses. As he made his way toward the stage, Santorum was swarmed by scores of reporters and supporters. Slow step by slow step, his advisers,...

What a difference a caucus makes. Rick Santorum who two months ago had one percent (1%) support among likely South Carolina Republican Primary voters now is running a close second there with 24% of the vote. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the Palmetto State finds former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney still in the lead, earning 27% support from likely GOP Primary Voters, up from 23% in early November. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is in third with 18% of the vote, followed by Texas Congressman Ron Paul at 11%. Bringing up the rear are Texas Governor Rick Perry...

Immigration wasn't the top issue on the minds of Iowa voters today. But it is worth noting that they chose as their clear winners the two top contenders who have taken the most unequivocal stands against amnesty -- Romney and Santorum. The other two top contenders were Paul and Gingrich who came in third and fourth and each has backed a limited but sizeable legalization for illegal aliens. Paul has proposed giving many illegal aliens "green cards with an asterisk" while Gingrich has proposed giving them "red cards." In both cases potentially millions of illegal aliens would be allowed to...

Several news reports have it that Romney did not win the Iowa Caucuses. Mr. True supposedly has a photo showing 2 votes for Romney, not 22, on a piece of paper. Barring any objective, verifiable proof that shows more than 12 votes mistakenly being credited to Santorum, Romney lost. On the flip side, if Romney did win, the Weekly Standard, in a news piece entitled "Answers from Iowa," says that Romney's 24.6% in the Iowa Caucuses was the worst ever (for either party) for a candidate winning the Iowa Caucuses. Romney spent millions in Iowa, had the worst percentage ever,...

On Wednesday’s edition of Now with Alex Wagner, the eponymous host asked MSNBC commentator Meghan McCain if her party was in crisis. McCain trashed the Iowa caucus and dreaded the rise of surging Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum. “My father did not become the nominee having anything to do with the Iowa caucus. I find it completely irrelevant. If Rick Santorum becomes the nominee of this party, I mean, it is going to be bedlam and hysteria like you have never seen.” With her over-the-top prognostication for the pending apocalypse in that scenario, McCain appeared to be channeling Bill Murray...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is shrugging off reports that the vote count from Iowa’s caucuses might be wrong, saying the errors appear not to change the fact that he and Mitt Romney were nearly tied. Santorum tells Fox News that a party official says the two cases in which errors were reported in the count from Tuesday night nearly cancel each other out. A Ron Paul supporter told Des Moines TV station KCCI that the posted count from his precinct in Appanoose County gave Romney more votes than he actually received. The GOP chairman...

"When Mitt Romney won Iowa by eight votes and I've got a 20-vote discrepancy here, that right there says Rick Santorum won Iowa," True said. "Not Mitt Romney." True said at his 53-person caucus at the Garrett Memorial Library, Romney received two votes. According to the Iowa Republican Party's website, True's precinct cast 22 votes for Romney. "This is huge," True said. "It essentially changes who won." Read more: http://www.kcci.com/news/30144582/detail.html#ixzz1idkjA1l6

Caucus Vote Counter Says Romney Mistakenly Given 20 Votes (Video report at link) DES MOINES, Iowa -- Caucus night was chaotic in many places, with hundreds of voters, candidates showing up and the throngs of media who followed. The world's eyes were on Iowa. But in the quiet town of Moulton, Appanoose County, a caucus of 50 people may just blow up the results. Edward True, 28, of Moulton, said he helped count the votes and jotted the results down on a piece of paper to post to his Facebook page. He said when he checked to make sure the...

“This is not a time for us to shrink. This is a time for us to have bold colors, not pale pastels.” -- Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum campaigning at the Rockingham County Nursing Home in Brentwood, N.H. It doesn’t look like Mitt Romney could lose New Hampshire, but then again, he can’t really win it either. Even a 20-point landslide by Romney in New Hampshire would be instantly discounted as merely meeting expectations for the former governor of the neighboring state who keeps a summer home there. The only way Romney could make news in New Hampshire would be...

For those that were wondering how my predicted simulation worked out, it was okay if you switched Gingrich and Santorum's numbers for the most part, moved Bachmann to where Santorum was and bump Paul up more. I've done some analysis on the results. I was in the process of doing a county-by-county note update, but after 30 counties of 99, it's taking too damn long. So I'll just get to the basics: As for accuracy, it seems I know the people of Davis County like Rush knows his glorious naked body /sarc. It was my most accurate projection county-wise though...

I'm thinking the only way we will be able to beat Obama will be to have a brokered GOP Convention and a "dark horse" candidate rise out of the ashes. Do I think it will happen? Heck no. So, we are, as my granny used to say: "In a mell of a hess". The GOP Candidates currently running, and the drop-out, Michele Bachmann, have beaten, bruised and bloodied each other so badly that we’re going to make doggone sure we send a nominee into the General Election damaged beyond repair; making victory easy for Obama. The Dems are loving our...

As the results of the Iowa caucus dribbled in, Americans got to see how the GOP candidates greeted victory and defeat. Top vote-getter Mitt Romney was gracious toward Rick Santorum, who came in second by eight thin votes, but uninspiring as he pledged to get America back to work. Santorum pronounced, "Game on," then hailed his Italian grandfather's decision to leave Italy to dig coal, if that's what it took to bring his family to the United States. Ron Paul, who came in third, saluted the work of his enthusiastic volunteers and credited his success to his role as a...

If Rick Perry was a legitimate conservative (which I always warned he was not) he would have dropped out of the campaign today and endorsed Rick Santorum, Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich. Yet "Pay-for-Play" Perry stays in, and heads for South Carolina. So what's the deal? The big winner of Perry staying in, by far, is Mitt Romney. The big loser is the conservative movement and the candidates who appeal to that movement. Keeping in mind my long-held view that Perry is not conservative, just a "pay-for-play" guy, what is in it for Perry? 1. Perhaps Romney offered Perry a...

DES MOINES, Iowa - With only eight votes separating them, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have proved after last night’s Iowa primary vote that the battle between moderate and conservative forces in the Republican party will continue to both define and divide the GOP 2012 caucuses. Ron Paul landed in a close third place, while U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, one of the strongest social conservatives in the race, announced the end of her candidacy Wednesday after coming in at sixth place. In the final count released this morning, Santorum’s 30,007 (24.54%) votes were defeated by 30,015 (24.55%) cast for the...

MANCHESTER, N.H. — If this is Mitt Romney’s idea of a victory rally, one shudders to think what would have happened if he had lost the Iowa caucuses. The day after his impossibly thin eight-vote victory, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination flew here for a town hall meeting at Manchester Central High School, where he was to bask in the endorsement of his 2008 arch rival, John McCain. But the senator grimaced when he was introduced, and as Romney delivered his own stump speech, an increasingly impatient McCain pulled up his sleeve and checked his watch. McCain gave...

As a supporter of Sarah Palin before her decision last October 5 not to run for President, I have been casting about for a candidate who might fill the void left by her departure. Last night, I believe Providence answered my prayer with a thunderclap from the Hawkeye state and the emergence of Rick Santorum as the "not-Romney" candidate. Let me say at the outset that I have tremendous respect for Newt Gingrich and I fervently hope that he and Santorum can form some sort of entente cordiale against the common foe....Mitt Romney. Gingrich has already made an overture in...