Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul spar tonight in Jacksonville, their last debate before next Tuesday’s Florida primary. Several polls released this week have shown slight leads for Romney, but Gingrich is still in contention. It helps that a couple of wealthy supporters have given a pro-Gingrich super-PAC $10 million. A large chunk of that money is funding anti-Romney television commercials in Florida.

CNN is broadcasting tonight’s debate, with Wolf Blitzer moderating. I’ll update this post later with highlights. Any comments about the Republican presidential race are welcome in this thread.

UPDATE: I’ve added an anti-Romney and an anti-Gingrich ad after the jump.

SECOND UPDATE: Post-debate thoughts are now below.

The House Majority PAC, a super-PAC created last year to help Democrats win back control of the U.S. House, is running a television commercial criticizing Representative Tom Latham, the Republican candidate in Iowa’s new third Congressional district.

House Majority PAC is also showing interest in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district. Yesterday the group released topline poll numbers from eight House races, including the IA-04 contest between Representative Steve King and challenger Christie Vilsack.

Follow me after the jump for the anti-Latham ad video and transcript, as well as further details on the IA-04 poll.

Not when it comes to the banksters, anyway.  While I would like to be optimistic on this topic, I think the claim of victory is premature, at best.  

Last night I heard that Huffington Post was reporting that the White House has created a new unit to investigate the financial collapse and the mortgage crisis, and Eric Schneiderman would chair it.  I got excited until I read the article, at which point hope mostly died.

President Barack Obama hits the road today through Friday to promote proposals from last night’s State of the Union address. Cedar Rapids is the first stop on his itinerary, which also includes Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver, and Detroit. All cities are in states Obama hopes to win or at least put in play this November.

Follow me after the jump for links on the president’s Cedar Rapids visit. I will update this post later with highlights and reaction.

MARCH 16 UPDATE: Rasmussen did not file for re-election. The Republican candidate in this district is Jim Givant; Bleeding Heartland will cover his campaign in a future post.

Iowa’s new map of political boundaries created a large number of competitive House and Senate districts in the northeast part of the state. Yesterday Democrat Bruce Bearinger announced his candidacy in the new House district 64, now represented by Republican Dan Rasmussen. A district map and background on both candidates are after the jump.

President Barack Obama is making economic fairness a central theme of tonight’s State of the Union address. To bolster his proposals to increase tax rates on some forms of unearned income, billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s secretary will be one of First Lady Michelle Obama’s guests. A few excerpts from the prepared speech are after the jump, along with some White House “talking points” for allies. I’ll update this post later.

This thread is for any comments about the president’s speech or the Republican response, to be delivered by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.

UPDATE: Added the text of Daniels’ response below, along with some thoughts about the president’s speech and reaction from members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation.

This morning former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign released Romney’s 2010 tax return and some details on the “unemployed” candidate’s 2011 income. Some links and analysis are after the jump.

The final four Republican presidential candidates debate tonight in Tampa, starting at 8 pm central time on NBC. Mitt Romney will try to keep the focus off his own finances, having promised to release two years of tax returns tomorrow. Romney may also be more aggressive about drawing contrasts with Newt Gingrich, judging from a new Romney tv ad I’ve posted after the jump.

In the latest Republican debates, Ron Paul criticized Gingrich and Rick Santorum repeatedly, while mostly ignoring Romney’s record. I expect him to stick to that plan, which has a double benefit: it keeps Paul on good terms with the most likely GOP nominee while undermining his rivals for the “not Romney” vote.

I assume abortion will be a significant topic tonight, in light of the 39th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade decision. I don’t know what more the candidates can say on the subject, which has been explored in several previous debates.

Any comments about the debate or the GOP campaign generally are welcome in this thread.  

I just got a call and participated in a very long political survey.  Based on the questions as the survey progressed, I'm guessing it's a Latham or NRCC poll. (Thank you for the Tarrance background and NRCC information in your comment, DesMoinesDem.  Diary is edited to reflect your insight.)

The run-down of questions, based on my scribbled notes, after the jump. 

Governor Terry Branstad struck a blow against what he considers overly burdensome business regulations today. He moved to help farmers regain an exemption from having electrical work inspected.

UPDATE: Added language from Iowa Code below. I don’t see how it supports Branstad’s argument.

Last week, the U.S. House passed a resolution to disapprove President Barack Obama’s latest request to raise the debt limit. The mostly party-line vote was also mostly symbolic and consequently received little media attention. However, Republican challengers in Iowa’s first and second Congressional districts are likely to highlight this vote in their campaigns against Representatives Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack.

Crime and punishment are on my mind this weekend. Yesterday two men were sentenced for breaking into Representative Leonard Boswell’s farm house last July, and an Iowa Democratic operative was charged with perpetrating identity theft against Secretary of State Matt Schultz. Follow me after the jump for more on those and other crime-related stories.

This is an open thread; all topics welcome. The Bleeding Heartland thread on the South Carolina primary results is here.  

Polls close in South Carolina at 7 pm eastern time, and most observers now expect Newt Gingrich to beat Mitt Romney. Gingrich led the last several polls to come out of the state, and an unnamed Romney aide is spinning a tale about a Newt win being good for the GOP front-runner going forward.

Any comments about the Republican presidential primaries are welcome in this thread. I don’t think Rick Santorum will drop out at this stage, even if he finishes a distant third or fourth place tonight. He may as well stick it out until the Florida primary on January 31, to see whether Gingrich fades again as the preferred “not Romney.” Whether Santorum has the money to compete is another question. Romney has been up on Florida tv and radio for a while. Gingrich is running what sounds like a devastating Spanish-language radio ad against Romney, although Cuban-American GOP members of Congress from South Florida have endorsed Romney.

UPDATE: It’s Newt by a mile. With about 88 percent of the votes counted, Gingrich has 40.5 percent of the vote, Romney 27.0 percent, Santorum 17.4 percent and Ron Paul 13.4 percent. Excerpts from the candidates’ speeches tonight are after the jump.

LATER UPDATE: With 100 percent reporting, Gingrich received 40.4 percent of the vote, Romney 27.9 percent, Santorum 17.0 percent and Paul 13.0 percent. Gingrich won 23 of South Carolina’s delegates, while Romney won the other two. Romney carried only three counties.  

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee signaled this week that it is willing to spend additional resources supporting Christie Vilsack’s campaign against Representative Steve King in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district.

Several environmental groups are mobilizing against $5 million in proposed state funding to rebuild the Lake Delhi dam on the Maquoketa River in Delaware County.

With Rick Perry dropping out of the race to endorse Newt Gingrich this morning, four Republican presidential candidates remained for tonight’s CNN debate in South Carolina. Any comments about the debate or about Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul or Rick Santorum are welcome in this thread. I’ll update with my thoughts later–so far I’m most encouraged to hear some statements by the candidates against the Stop Online Piracy Act.

UPDATE: Missed the first part of the live broadcast, but finished watching the replay on CNN and added some comments after the jump.

The Republican Party of Iowa will not declare Rick Santorum the winner of the Iowa caucuses, even though he leads Mitt Romney by a few dozen votes according to the certified results, and led Romney unofficially in the eight precincts where results could not be certified. A narrow margin of victory with a clear winner would have been great for the Iowa GOP, as it would show multiple paths to winning the caucuses. A disputed result that produces no official winner is a public relations nightmare.

UPDATE: Iowa GOP Chair Matt Strawn now admits Santorum won the caucuses. The episode still makes the party look bad, for reasons I discuss below.

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is running its first television commercial in Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. Follow me after the jump for the video and annotated transcript.

President Barack Obama announced today that his administration is rejecting the application for the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would take oil sands from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast of the U.S. In a statement I’ve posted after the jump, the president blamed Congressional Republicans, who attached a “rushed and arbitrary deadline” for the Keystone decision to the temporary payroll tax cut extension bill in December.

Obama’s decision takes the pipeline off the table for now. House Republicans may look for ways to override the administration’s decision, but the Democratic-controlled Senate is unlikely to approve such legislation this year. However, all bets are off after the 2012 elections. TransCanada may resubmit its application after finding a different route through Nebraska.  

By this summer, I predict that “Keystone” will be a household word in the U.S., as Republicans and corporate-funded groups blame Obama’s decision for rising gasoline prices and continued high unemployment. Environmental groups that have opposed the pipeline have a huge public education task on their hands.

UPDATE: I’ve added Representative Steve King’s reaction after the jump.

Republican State Senator Merlin Bartz confirmed this week that he will run for re-election in the new Iowa Senate district 26. His race against Democratic incumbent Mary Jo Wilhelm is probably a must-win for Senate Democrats in order to preserve their majority. After the jump I’ve posted a district map. Bleeding Heartland previewed the Bartz/Wilhelm matchup here.

Bartz has given Iowa progressives plenty of reasons to want him gone, from encouraging county recorders to ignore a Supreme Court ruling to trying to block the most significant water quality regulations of the last decade. Bartz’s record is so bad that even learning he “has performed for over 35 years in north and northeast Iowa with various dance bands” didn’t give me any sympathy for the guy. Democrats who live within striking distance of Worth, Mitchell, Floyd, Howard, Chickasaw, Cerro Gordo, or Winneshiek counties have a golden volunteer opportunity here.

P.S. to the Des Moines Register’s editorial staff: that last link was to William Petroski’s blog post. I liked the dance band detail. When you read something interesting on a blog, it won’t kill you to link to it. I mention this because your January 15 comment on Bartz’s crusade against “obsolete” laws reads a lot like Bleeding Heartland’s post from January 10.