Free Republic

An early look at likely Iowa Republican Caucus participants shows a strong conservative tilt as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker leads the pack with 25 percent, twice as high as his nearest rival, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Voters who identify as "very conservative" make up 45 percent of the caucus participants surveyed by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University. Tea Party supporters make up 32 percent of likely caucus-goers and Walker gets 33 percent of that Tea Party vote. There is a horse race for second place, with 13 percent for U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, 11...

An early look at likely Iowa Republican Caucus participants shows a strong conservative tilt as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker leads the pack with 25 percent, twice as high as his nearest rival, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Voters who identify as "very conservative" make up 45 percent of the caucus participants surveyed by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University. Tea Party supporters make up 32 percent of likely caucus-goers and Walker gets 33 percent of that Tea Party vote. There is a horse race for second place, with 13 percent for U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, 11...

Congressman David Young Reception with Governor Jeb Bush Please join Special Guest Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush for a reception in support of Congressman David Young Iowa’s Third Congressional District Friday, March 6, 2015 Living History Farms * 11121 Hickman Road * Urbandale, Iowa Sponsor Reception (Spots are Limited) 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Gold - $2,500 (includes VIP photo) * Silver - $1,000 Dessert Reception 7:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. (check-in begins at 7:00 p.m.) $100 per person Questions: rsvp@heartlandcampaign.com or 515-207-2959

Gannet paper, link only: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2015/02/19/kent-sorenson-sentencing-iowa-caucus-2012-paul/23684721/

GOP Senator Lindsey Graham is heading to Iowa Thursday to test a campaign message focused heavily on national security, marking his first visit to the important caucus state since he launched a presidential exploratory committee last month. The South Carolina senator’s two-day visit -- which The Post first reported on last week -- will give him an opportunity to assess the strength of a campaign message focused on foreign affairs while he meets with voters, local leaders and activists. The well-known foreign policy hawk is slated to deliver a speech in Des Moines Thursday afternoon that will emphasize the “threat...

AMES, Iowa–An Iowa State University student is recovering at the hospital after his family says he was attacked. Twenty-year-old Cale Truhlsen was leaving a party last weekend when his family says he was confronted by a group of adult males. ...........................

A leading Republican consultant has ranked the top 10 presidential candidates for 2016 while claiming that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has about the same odds of winning the party’s nomination as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, The Washington Post reported. The unnamed strategist divided the GOP race for 2016 into "four lanes" — establishment, tea party, social conservative and libertarian, according to the newspaper. Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are the leading candidates in establishment, the largest lane, while former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is battling it out with retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum...

ess than a year before the first presidential contests begin, a trio of new NBC News/Marist polls show that the Republican race is wide open in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. In fact, seven different possible Republican candidates get double-digit support in at least one of the states. But only two candidates — former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — are in double digits in all three states.

CEDAR RAPIDS — MoveOn and Democracy for America members will be in Hiawatha Monday to open the local Run Warren Run office to show the broad, grass roots support for Sen. Elizabeth Warren to run for president in 2016. The groups supporting the Run Warren Run effort will open an office at 764 N. Center Point Rd., Hiawatha at 6 p.m. Feb. 16. After holding 220 Run Warren Run house parties across the country, Run Warren Run supporters are following up with Presidents Day actions — holding rallies, barbecues, and other traditional Presidents Day Weekend activities — with a goal...

The debut edition of our leader board of the Republicans most likely to win the presidential nomination, based on what we know now, shows the field may not be as big as most people think. 1) JEB BUSH (age 62, to Hillary’s 67): He’s got money, momentum, Florida, big ideas. His surprise, early signal that he’s running is THE PLAY OF THE CAMPAIGN so far — pushing OUT Mitt and perhaps Christie by freezing or stealing their money and talent. Jeb will be first Republican to $100 million by a mile. Now, watch for the use of overwhelming force to...

If Republican Jeb Bush's political contributions offer any signs, there's little doubt that the former Florida governor plans to seek the 2016 presidential nomination. More than half of the $122,800 Bush contributed Friday is going to candidates and state Republican Party organizations in the four states scheduled to begin the presidential voting next year. The candidates include Sen. Chuck Grassley and Rep. David Young of Iowa, Sen. Kelly Ayotte and Rep. Frank Guinta of New Hampshire, Sen. Tim Scott and Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, and Rep. Joe Heck of Nevada.

This column is so easy to pick apart, it's amazing that the Washington Post actually published it. This is by far the strangest column I’ve read on Senator Ted Cruz’s potential — he hasn’t even announced yet — candidacy. It’s written by Jennifer Rubin, who basically argues that Cruz is unpopular because he’s too “extreme.” He behaves, she writes, like an “angry young man,” and is not “presidential” at all. The “evidence” she uses? He’s “only” polling at 5%, she says, at RealClearPolitics. OK, so let’s look at RCP’s poll of polls. And what do we see? Jeb Bush is...

The Republican Party of Iowa has gotten bids from four different sites in central Iowa competing to be the host of the Iowa GOP’s Straw Poll this summer. Jeff Kaufmann, the Iowa GOP’s chairman, says the second Saturday in August is the likely date for the event. “That’s one part of the tradition we’d like to keep in terms of having it in August, so August 8 is still our target date,” Kaufmann told Radio Iowa today. “…I can’t say absolutely that if there was once heck of a deal and a great site and they absolutely couldn’t do it...

NEW KENT COUNTY, Va. — Trucker Kevin Kimmel is a father and grandfather. He says several things about a RV parked in the Pilot Truck lot in New Kent caught his attention. The biggest red flag was catching a glimpse of a distraught looking girl who abruptly disappeared behind a black curtain, that’s when he quickly called police. “I only learned the gruesome details through the news,” Kimmel said. Kimmel was inside his rig, parked behind the Pilot station. A couple of doors down he notices suspicious activity in the RV. “All of the sudden the thing was rocking and...

e is what you need to remember – Rand Paul is never going to get Andy Cable’s, Don Kass’, or Doug Gross’s vote. Spiker is tasked with organizing the people who he has a good rapport with. This is nothing new to politics. Campaigns of every shape and size target certain coalitions of voters, and Spiker is tasked to work with the libertarian leaning voters. Besides all of that, Spiker proved that he was one of the better organizers in Iowa in 2012. People tend to overlook the fact that his candidate received more votes at the Ames Straw Poll...

Speaking today in Iowa, Vice President Joe Biden called out to his "old butt buddy" Neil Smith, wondering whether his friend was in attendance for his speech:

If Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee run for president, their Iowa supporters could have a choice between the head or the heart. Or vote for someone else. Santorum and Huckabee won remarkable victories in the Iowa caucuses, galvanizing social conservatives to pull off unlikely upsets against amazing odds. But while the two had very different paths to victory in Iowa, they achieved it with similar coalitions of social conservatives and evangelical leaders.

Although he is always preternaturally placid, Mike Pence today exemplifies a Republican conundrum. Sitting recently 24 blocks from Capitol Hill, where he served six terms as a congressman, and eight blocks from the White House, which some Republicans hope he craves, Pence, now in his third year as Indiana’s governor, discussed two issues, Common Core and Medicaid expansion, that illustrate the following: Today’s president, whose prior governmental experience was meager and entirely legislative, probably has strengthened voters’ normal preference for actual executives — governors rather than legislators — as chief executives. Governors actually govern, which means continually making choices and...

On Feb. 3, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) re-introduced his Protect Interstate Commerce Act (PICA), which he attempted to amend into last year’s farm bill. King’s bill would prevent states and local jurisdictions from interfering with the production and distribution of agricultural products in interstate or foreign commerce. In his statement about PICA, King referenced California’s statewide ban on the sale of eggs from hens raised in battery cages. “Just within the last month in anticipation of the new law coming into effect, California experienced a 79 percent increase in egg prices,” King said. “Outside of California, the Midwest has seen...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is the front-runner in a new 2016 Republican presidential preference poll in South Carolina, while U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham is close enough to make it a statistical tie here. But the news is less favorable for Graham in three other early voting states - Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada - where his level of support registers at negligible among GOP voters, totalling at 1 percent and below. The poll, by the conservative Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, put Walker is out front in South Carolina but statistically tied with Graham, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and...