Free Republic

It just seems like it was...well, eight years ago, when Dr. Howard Dean got a little wound-up celebrating his 3rd place finish in the Iowa Caucus. Shortly thereafter, his "Dean Scream" was commemorated in a variety of musical mashups...but this one is my favorite. Short MP3 at link....fun stuff.

SALEM - A HILLARY Rodham Clinton campaign stop was interrupted when two men stood in the crowd and began screaming, 'Iron my shirt!' during one the US senator's final appearances before New Hampshire voters cast first-in-the-US primary ballots on Tuesday. Mrs Clinton, a former first lady running to become the United States' first female president, laughed at the seemingly sexist protest that suggested a woman's place is doing laundry and not running the country. 'Ah, the remnants of sexism - alive and well,' Mrs Clinton said to applause. The two men were removed from the auditorium after raising a pair...

..

Though he's polling in single-digits, Republican Alan Keyes says he's confident in his third try for the White House. At the Pizza Ranch restaurant, in Rock Valley, Iowa, Tuesday morning, Keyes told folks why he's running for president. Keyes thinks the country has lost it's "moral direction" and that God does have a place in politics and education. "What I have to do, is simply to make sure that really believe in the Godly principles in the country and the policies that will support strong borders, abolish the income tax, that will return choices in education to parents," Keyes said....

Oops! To cap off his four-year campaign to win Iowa's Democratic caucus Thursday night, John Edwards planned a 36-hour marathon bus tour through 15 of the crucial state's 99 counties with a whole series of policy announcements to garner publicity and caucus votes. But 12 hours into the political odyssey -- billed as Edwards' "Marathon for the Middle Class" -- his Main Street Express bus began making very disturbing noises in western Iowa. In darkness, the bus with the entire Edwards entourage pulled over at a service station and was abandoned. Oh, the awful symbolism for a political campaign struggling...

DAVENPORT, Iowa - U.S. Sen. George Allen gave a breakfast speech Saturday here in Iowa, a state that could be crucial if he runs for president in 2008. Several hours later, he gave a dinner speech in Virginia Beach, the largest city in his home state, where he faces a re-election battle this fall. As the Republican senator juggles his two apparent political goals, he edges closer to creating a campaign issue at home. Allen, 54 , will not commit to serving out his six-year term should he reclaim his Senate seat in November. "I'll consider the future when I...

DAVENPORT, Iowa -- U.S. Sen. George Allen preached a message of fiscal discipline this weekend to Iowa Republicans eyeing him as a potential Republican candidate for president in 2008. "We don't have a revenue problem in Washington, we have a spending problem," the Virginia senator said to Republican audiences in Cedar Falls on Friday and Davenport yesterday. "He sounds like he's got a lot of Ronald Reagan in him," said Al Kroeger, who had journeyed from Wilton to a breakfast meeting in Davenport yesterday morning to size up Allen. Maryann Cooper of Garrison said she liked what she heard at...

March 18, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - Rudy Giuliani will soon make a pilgrimage to the politically potent state of Iowa - the first stop in the presidential nominating process - fueling further speculation that he's eyeing a 2008 bid, The Post has learned. The official reason for Giuliani's trip is to star at a May 1 "Get Motivated" leadership seminar that's already being advertised in The Des Moines Register. But the trip to Iowa, site of the first presidential nominating caucus, has much bigger symbolic value for Giuliani. "It tells us, at a minimum, that he's looking to keep his...

Publisher Steve Forbes is using an Iowa campaign trip to criticize President George W. Bush's handling of Social Security and the Iraq war. During a Des Moines stop Saturday for Secretary of Agriculture candidate Mark Leonard, Forbes said Bush has been his own worst enemy in his decline in the polls. Forbes said Bush failed to get the Social Security changes he wanted because his plan was too vague and people feared what might happen to their older relatives. In handling the Iraq war, Forbes said Bush again failed to give the public specific information on what was happening there.

Last summer, as other potential 2008 presidential candidates were making their first sojourns to Iowa, Hillary Clinton did something a little different. She brought Iowa to Washington. In June, the senator, who is up for reelection this year but who has yet to draw a Republican challenger worth fretting about, entertained several key caucus-state activists and donors at her five-bedroom brick home on Embassy Row. Known to Hillary aides simply as Whitehaven, the 4,700-square-foot mansion is the site of the senator's regular Washington fund-raisers and strategy sessions. Other 2008 contenders--Evan Bayh, Bill Richardson, John Edwards, John Kerry, and Mark Warner--have...

DES MOINES, Iowa - Potential White House candidates are calling Iowa's top political operatives. Trips to the Midwest are on the schedule. Personal notes to the state's top Democrats and Republicans are in the mail. AP Photo   In the realm of nonstop presidential politics, this is the slow time, when 2008 hopefuls are putting out early feelers in Iowa, a state critical to any White House aspirant. The calendar may show two years and 10 months to the next round of caucuses, but the courting continues. Consider the experience of John Norris, who worked as a field director for...