Most people refer to today’s featured wildflower as “evening primrose,” but the name “common evening primrose” distinguishes Oenothera biennis from dozens of other evening primrose species that are native to North America. Common evening primrose blooms all over Iowa from mid- to late summer, along roadsides and bike trails as well as on prairies. Several photos are after the jump, along with a bonus picture of some berries from the nightshade plant Bleeding Heartland discussed in July.

I’ll post a new discussion thread on the Democratic National Convention later this evening. Comments on any other topic are welcome in this open thread.

The latest figures from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office (pdf) show 666,279 active no-party voters statewide, 620,868 active Republicans, and 602,636 active Democrats. That represents slightly larger gains for Democrats than Republicans since the beginning of August. After the jump I’ve posted the latest active voter registration numbers in all 99 Iowa counties, grouped by Congressional district.

Any comments about the 2012 elections in Iowa are welcome in this thread.

The Rothenberg Political Report’s latest rankings of competitive House districts does not include the IA-01 race between incumbent Bruce Braley and challenger Ben Lange. Rothenberg considers the IA-02 contest between incumbent Dave Loebsack and challenger John Archer to be “Democrat favored.” He puts the the “Toss-up/tilt Republican” label on both the IA-03 clash of incumbents Leonard Boswell and Tom Latham and the IA-04 race between incumbent Steve King and challenger Christie Vilsack. Although I haven’t seen internal polling from any of the Congressional races, I doubt that Vilsack has as good a chance of winning as Boswell. True, Boswell can’t keep pace with Latham’s fundraising. But he is an incumbent who’s represented most of the counties in IA-03 before and has outperformed the top of the Democratic ticket in previous presidential elections. He also faces a much smaller GOP voter registration advantage in his district, as you can see below.

A Polk County District Court judge ruled yesterday that the Libertarian nominee for president, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, met the conditions to qualify for the Iowa general election ballot.

Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan just wrapped up his event at Kirkwood College in Cedar Rapids, the first stop in a two-day swing through Iowa.

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Added clips from Ryan’s rally in Adel.

The Democratic National Convention opens tonight in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a tightly-packed schedule of speakers. Broadcast television networks will show only the last hour of prime-time speeches: Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, Congressional candidate Joaquin Castro of Texas, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, Elaine Brye (a “military mother with four children serving in different branches of the armed forces”), and First Lady Michelle Obama.

O’Malley and several other possible future Democratic candidates for president are meeting with Iowa’s delegation in Charlotte this week. Details and other convention-related news are after the jump.

Voting for the so-called “failed stimulus” has become a stock phrase in Republican attack ads against Congressional Democrats. But as Bleeding Heartland has discussed many times before, the “Great Recession” would have been more devastating without the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

State budget cuts are a huge drag on the economy. Follow me after the jump for a picture that’s worth a thousand words on how a favorite conservative punching bag helped soften the recession’s impact in Iowa.

Hope the Bleeding Heartland community has been enjoying the long holiday weekend. This is an open thread. I’ve enclosed some Labor Day-related links after the jump, including an excerpt from the Iowa Policy Project’s recent report on wage theft, which “deprives low-wage Iowa workers of an estimated $600 million, deprives state and local government of revenue, and puts law-abiding businesses at a competitive disadvantage.”

Getting out the vote early was a major theme of President Barack Obama’s campaign rallies in Urbandale and Sioux City yesterday. Democratic candidates for other offices need a strong early vote as well, but there’s no sign the president is concerned about electing Democrats up and down the ticket.

Mitt Romney formally accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for president last night. A surprise appearance by actor and director Clint Eastwood overshadowed Romney’s speech.

Supporters of Mitt Romney filed an emergency petition for judicial review in Polk County district court yesterday, seeking to reverse a state panel’s decision to allow Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson to appear on the Iowa general election ballot.

The Iowa Hospital Association’s board has “unanimously agreed that expanding Medicaid in Iowa is the appropriate public health policy for Iowa.” After the jump I’ve posted the full text of the association’s policy brief explaining why Medicaid expansion would be good for Iowa individuals, businesses, and the state as a whole.

Like goldenrod, featured at this blog a couple of weeks ago, wingstem is one of several yellow wildflowers blooming in woodlands, meadows and along streams throughout Iowa in the late summer. Several pictures of this distinctive plant are after the jump.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

A three-member panel voted today to allow Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson to be on the Iowa ballot, but supporters of Republican Mitt Romney are expected to take their case to court.

UPDATE: Added more background below on why the Iowa Secretary of State’s office rejected the Libertarians’ first set of petitions to place Johnson on the ballot.

SECOND UPDATE: A Polk County district court will resolve this dispute.

Normally I am a political party convention junkie, but I haven’t watched any of the Republican National Convention so far. Judging from media accounts of the prime-time program, it seems that Ann Romney gave a decent speech, dwelling on the theme of love, after which New Jersey Governor Chris Christie talked mostly about himself and said Republicans need to seek respect, not love. He also praised presidential nominee Mitt Romney for being willing to tell the hard truths about how to fix the deficit, but naturally, didn’t share any details on those tough budget cuts to come.

Any comments related to the GOP convention are welcome in this thread. Many links and news stories related to the Iowa delegation are after the jump.

President Barack Obama held a campaign rally in Ames today, drawing a crowd of approximately 6,000 on the Iowa State University campus. I enclosed the transcript of the president’s remarks at the bottom of this post. As in all his campaign speeches, he framed the election as a “choice” between two paths, rather than as a referendum on his performance. Obama also emphasized his administration’s efforts to make college tuition and student loans more affordable.

The president will need strong turnout in places like Ames this November, because yet another Iowa poll shows the gap between Obama and Romney within the margin of error.

Some politicians at the federal and state level would have you believe that rules intended to protect public health and the environment are “job-killing regulations.” Congressional Republicans and some Democrats have voted several times to block air quality rules that would force certain industrial plants to retrofit. Although the Obama administration has enacted promising rules to reduce air pollution from coal-fired power plants, President Barack Obama has occasionally validated Republican scaremongering over pollution regulations. For instance, he delayed new smog rules from going into effect in 2011, citing a concern for “reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover.”

The reality of pollution control looks different. It looks like hundreds of construction workers getting a job, and Ottumwa-area businesses reaping the benefits.

Luther College in Decorah has built the largest solar array in Iowa, which will power the state’s first college housing facility to be “net zero” as a greenhouse gas emitter.  

Governor Terry Branstad issued two new executive orders last week. One directive rescinded 12 executive orders issued between 1998 and 2009, including two that were intended to make state government operate more efficiently. Branstad’s other order granted “stakeholder groups” new levers for blocking potentially “burdensome” administrative rules.

Highlights from the new and the disappeared executive orders are after the jump.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? I have been thinking about several great Americans who died this week, including Neil Armstrong, the first human being to walk on the moon in July 1969. Here’s a contemporary news account of that day. NASA posted an Armstrong photo gallery here.

Like everyone who ever watched Sesame Street, I was sad to hear that Jerry Nelson, who voiced Count von Count and other Muppet characters, died on Thursday.

A giant of the Iowa journalism world passed away suddenly on August 23. Barbara Mack was a longtime professor at Iowa State University’s Greenlee Journalism school, planning to retire after this semester. She previously worked as a reporter and as general counsel for the Des Moines Register. Mack’s former students and colleagues are posting memories and tributes here. I posted a few of them after the jump.

The Iowa way of assigning delegates for presidential candidates may need to change for the 2016 election cycle, assuming the Republican National Convention approves a rule change sought by Mitt Romney’s campaign.