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Businesswoman Carly Fiorina is introducing herself to Iowa's Republican voters by drawing contrast with the top prospective candidate on the Democratic side. Fiorina went hard at Hillary Rodham Clinton in a speech Saturday at the Iowa Freedom Summit. Fiorina cast the former secretary of state as a disappointment on the world stage who failed to defuse serious foreign policy threats.

Sen. Ted Cruz delivered an impassioned speech Saturday before conservatives at the Iowa Freedom Summit that called on lawmakers to pass bold reforms like abolishing the Internal Revenue Service and stripping the Environmental Protection Agency of much of its authority.The Texas firebrand also pressed his fellow conservatives to "repeal every word of Obamacare" and to steel the southern border against illegal immigration."This country was built on incredible opportunities that if you're a single mom waiting tables, you can do anything," he said. "There's been no country in the history of the world that has let so many millions come and...

The race for the Republican nomination has started. It is vital that Republicans nominate a conservative leader who will use Republican political strength to implement a peaceful, lawful, but revolutionary change in the way Washington does business. Establishment Republicans like Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney do not see the need for radical change and do not have the rhetorical skills to make the case for such change. Moreover, RINO nominees have proven electoral poison in presidential elections. Scott Walker offers the best chance to win the general election and then to use a Republican Congress to transform American government.

Ted Cruz wows Iowans with sermon-style political speech and corny Islam jokes: Those 9/11 hijackers 'weren't a bunch of ticked off Presbyterians'  At the Iowa Freedom Summit, he boomed a Reaganesque sermon complete with scripture references and an altar call – just send a text messageCruz had spent all week in Washington, he told a Des moines crowd, 'So it's great to be back in America'He said the US should close the IRS and post all 110,000 employees on its southern border – an army of tax agents to scare illegal immigrantsHis biggest applause line was a call to strip U.S....

p>The summit, which Ed is covering live, is breaking all sorts of news. One interesting item to come out this weekend is a new proposal from Steve King in the House and Ted Cruz in the Senate which would strip the US citizenship of any persons who sign on to fight with ISIS or other terrorist groups. Two arch-conservatives unveiled legislation on Friday to revoke the U.S. citizenship of anyone who seeks to join a group designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.The Expatriate Terrorist Act, offered by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX),...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Texas' junior senator is challenging early caucus state voters to back only presidential candidates with a proven conservative track record. Sen. Ted Cruz tells conservatives gathered at the Iowa Freedom Summit that the standard should be, "Don't talk, show me." The Republican was among several would-be presidential candidates appearing Saturday at the forum.

Des Moines, Iowa – The love affair between the Iowa voters and Ted Cruz is going strong. The Texas senator, pacing across the stage at the Iowa Freedom Summit in a tan blazer and slacks, praised the state’s “unique and special role in the political process.” Iowa voters, he said, have a responsibility ”to scrutinize every candidate for national office, to look them in the eyes and to hold them to account.” The tea-party darling urged them to be discerning when presidential contenders begin streaming through the state vaunting their conservative credentials. It helps, of course, that nobody can out-conservative Ted Cruz. “Every candidate is...

The Texas conservative and his team are trying to lock down a state director for his White House run.DES MOINES -- Ted Cruz's presidential campaign​ in Iowa is unofficially underway. The Texas senator and his lieutenants have been making calls to top Iowa activists and consultants for the past two weeks, multiple Republican sources told National Journal, hoping to lock down a state director for his White House campaign. Cruz has not yet made that critical hire, the sources said. But he's making other moves in this first nominating state. At the end of a fiery speech here Saturday to...

Ted Cruz unveiled a possible new theme for a 2016 presidential campaign — “reigniting the miracle of America” — as he wooed the Iowa conservative activists critical to a victory in the Republican caucuses next year. “It is the most important cause that unifies us together, and Iowa believes in the miracle of America,” he said Saturday. Appearing at the Iowa Freedom Summit, the unofficial kickoff of the race to win the Iowa caucuses, Texas’ junior senator appealed to the evangelical voters who could cast about half of the votes in February. Cruz spoke thoroughly about both Mayor Annise Parker’s...

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker eschewed the podium at Saturday’s Iowa Freedom Summit, opting to use the full stage to work the room with an incredibly high-energy speech that repeatedly stressed the themes of “common sense conservative reform” and the GOP’s need to “go big and go bold” if they want to win in American politics today. Walker ended by telling Iowans, “I’m going to come back many more times in the future” and pointed to a broader American revival similar to the one he said he’s led in Wisconsin. This seemed to be a clear sign that Walker intends to...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) delivered a fiery speech in Iowa on Saturday, wowing the conservative crowd with a passionate argument for small government and his own lengthy resume.

DES MOINES -- Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum began the 2012 presidential race here trailing badly in both the polls and the money chase, and ended it with a narrow win in the Republican caucuses. Now he's gearing up for another shot at victory in Iowa with a message that's once again geared at courting social conservatives, positioning himself as an alternative to the GOP establishment -- and appealing to disaffected working class voters. Santorum, wearing a navy Air Force One jacket from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, worked the lobby at the Marriott hotel here Friday night, passing out...

efore Mike Huckabee ran in the 2008 Iowa caucuses, Lori Jungling, a mother of four in Altoona, about 15 minutes outside Des Moines, had never been involved in a presidential campaign. Actually, Jungling had never even bothered to vote. But in 2007, the message from the Baptist minister-turned-Republican Arkansas governor made its way to Jungling’s personal faith-first foundation, and soon enough she was volunteering—a lot. Calls, emails, tweets, events. She even served as state director for Huck PAC, Huckabee’s 2008 grassroots political action committee. She didn’t take one dime. “He believes what I believe,” she told me. That’s the kind...

Yesterday, while in Las Vegas, Governor Palin said "of course" she was interested in running for president in 2016.  Naturally, this got quite a response from the mainstream media.As such, she arrived in Iowa last night and greeted many supporters, fellow commentators, and other perceived hopefuls for the nomination where she was asked to clarify her statement:As Bob Costas reports: Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin told The Washington Post in an interview Friday that she is “seriously interested” in running for the White House in 2016.“You can absolutely say that I am seriously interested,” Palin said, when asked to clarify her thinking about a...

DES MOINES, Iowa - For months, the 2016 Republican presidential race has been dominated by the "invisible primary" scramble for the backing of the party's donor class. On Saturday, it goes grassroots. At least eight likely candidates will give their pitches to 1,500 conservative activists at the Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines, trying to seduce the people who pack a punch in the GOP caucuses, where the first votes of the party's nominating process are scheduled to be cast in a little over a year. "This is the kickoff to the caucus season," said Cody Hoefert, the Rock City...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is adding a veteran GOP strategist and Iowa expert to his political team as the Wisconsin Republican considers a possible 2016 presidential bid. The addition of David Polyansky gives Walker's team a big dose of Iowa experience. The strategist helped engineer former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's win in the 2008 Iowa Republican caucuses and also served as deputy campaign manager for former Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who won the 2011 Iowa straw poll.

A national correspondent for “The Atlantic Magazine” who gained attention for an article calling on the United States to study possible reparations for slavery was in Iowa this week to speak at Grinnell College’s Martin Luther King Junior Day events. In an interview with Radio Iowa, Ta-Nehisi Coates says the idea of reparations for slavery is as old as the country itself. “Immediately after the Revolutionary War you had black people who had been enslave by the British making that argument that post-colonial, not really colonial government, reclaimed the property of British slave holders that African Americans who had been...

MASON CITY, Iowa —Authorities said a man charged with being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm was sentenced Wednesday. Bill Douglas Thorne, 58, of Mason City, received a prison sentence of 21 years in federal prison. Thorne was convicted by a jury on the charge in April. Federal authorities said Thorne traded his dog for a .22 caliber rifle that he intended to use to shoot his son on July 24, 2012.

DES MOINES, Iowa–Saturday will be a “Who’s Who” of Republicans thinking, running or wanting you to think they are running for president in 2016. Congressman Steve King hosts his Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines. But pies, books, thank you’s and speeches will fill some of the time away from the summit. The speakers’ list includes some of the most well-known names on the Republican circuit. They include: Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Donald Trump, Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Newt Gingrich, Marsha Blackburn, Ben Carson, Mike Lee, Carly Fiorina, Jim DeMint, John Bolton and Jim...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Choice of Ernst about personality, not policy. Congressional correspondent Luke Russert said on MSNBC Tuesday that freshman Sen. Joni Ernst was a pig farmer this time last year and marveled that she is now she is giving the rebuttal to the president’s State of the Union address. “That is an extraordinary rise in politics right there,” Russert told Joy Ann Reid. Russert said that Ernst is emblematic of what the GOP wants to be. “That is what you’ll see her do tonight, sell her personality as a war veteran and somebody who was a pig farmer around this time last...