As I report for the Boston Globe's website, Herman Cain served on Whirlpool's board for the better part of the past 20 years including when decisions were made to shutter the Maytag factory in Newton in 2006 and to cut retiree health benefits in 2009. This will present an interesting challenge for Cain as both one of the leading GOP contenders in Iowa and someone who served on the board of a company that laid off thousands of Iowa workers.

I wanted to share a piece I wrote for the Boston Globe's Angle on how Rick Perry's role as a major Texas A&M booster may cost him support from Iowa State Cyclones fans if Texas A&M's move to the SEC is successful.

UPDATE from desmoinesdem: I've added an excerpt after the jump.

MyDD has a post and a long thread about College Democrats. Both Chase from Iowa Progress and myself have posted comments there about Grinnell, which is I think a real exception for college dem chapters. I was curious what Chris and Drew and everyone else thought about College Democrats and how to get Democrats at various colleges around the state. Drew and I (though mostly Drew) wrote the state party’s college field plan for the last cycle and I thought it might be worthwhile to talk about different strengths and weakness for College Dems on a chapter by chapter, statewide and nationwide basis. I also included a poll for the sake of doing one on the most effective College Dems chapter in the state.