Free Republic

Evangelical activists are sharply divided just 10 weeks before Iowa's leadoff presidential caucuses, and a half-dozen Republican contenders hoped to gain an edge with the state's most potent conservative voting bloc. The candidates, including businessman Herman Cain, sought Saturday to sharpen their Christian conservative credentials, and at times allay doubts, among this influential group before the state's Jan. 3 caucuses, which officially open the Republican nominating process. Iowa voters have yet to rally around any single candidate and aggressively court them, seeking the kind of lift that carried former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to victory in the leadoff caucuses in...

DES MOINES, Sept. 26 - They're off and voting in Iowa, even before all the corn has been harvested. In the state's 20 most populous counties, which account for about 60 percent of the vote, more than 140,345 absentee ballots had been applied for as of last Wednesday, according to a survey of county auditors by The Des Moines Register. Under Iowa law, anyone can request an absentee ballot, no questions asked, and roughly three times as many Democrats as Republicans did so in the counties studied by The Register. Early voting began on Thursday, 40 days before Election Day....