Eight Republican presidential candidates are debating this evening at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. Texas Governor Rick Perry will be most closely watched tonight, because he hasn’t participated in any of the previous debates.

I am curious to see who tries to take Perry down a peg tonight. Representative Ron Paul is on the air in Iowa and New Hampshire with a television commercial hitting Perry, and the Reagan Library is a perfect backdrop for his message. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney just released a big jobs plan yesterday, so I wonder whether he will try to poke holes in Perry’s claim to be the country’s best job creator.

I’ll update this post with further thoughts on the debate after the jump. Meanwhile, use this thread to discuss tonight’s action or any developments in the presidential race.

New Iowa teachers would no longer receive automatic raises based on years of experience or post-graduate degrees under an education reform proposal to be revealed in the coming weeks. Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass and Governor Terry Branstad’s special adviser on education, Linda Fandel, shared the outlines of the proposed changes with journalists yesterday.

Iowa House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Tom Sands did not face a Democratic opponent in 2010, but Sara Sedlacek announced this week that she is running against the five-term incumbent in the new House district 88.

Representative Ron Paul just answered my question about which Republican presidential candidate would be the first to go after the new front-runner, Texas Governor Rick Perry. A 60-second television commercial going up in Iowa and New Hampshire presents Paul as a longtime supporter of Ronald Reagan, in contrast to Perry, who backed Al Gore’s 1988 presidential campaign. I’ve posted the video and transcript below.

Representative Michele Bachmann is replacing the top two national figures in her presidential campaign, as the latest Rasmussen poll of Iowa Republicans shows the largest lead yet for Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Hope the Bleeding Heartland community has been enjoying the long holiday weekend. The weather couldn’t be more perfect across Iowa. This is an open thread, but I’ve posted a few links that to get the conversation going after the jump.

Count me among the Iowans who didn’t care about former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s speech to yesterday’s tea party rally in Indianola. She doesn’t appear to be running for president this cycle, having laid no groundwork for a successful campaign. She wasn’t likely to have anything new to say about public policy.

I figured Palin would eventually endorse Texas Governor Rick Perry, who seems similar in style and ideology. Some of her sound bites from Indianola made me rethink that assumption.

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.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released another grim monthly report on the nationwide employment situation today.

UPDATE: Added statements from two members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation below.

Iowa Farm Bureau delegates defied the organization’s leadership yesterday, passing a resolution without language requiring compliance with conservation standards as a condition for receiving federal crop insurance.

I’ve seen a lot of hippie-punching by professional Democrats, but the Iowa Democratic Party’s attack on Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement yesterday was a particularly cynical example.  

Salaries for chief executive officers of major U.S. corporations rose sharply in 2010 despite the weak national economy, and various tax-dodging strategies allowed highly profitable companies to pay little or no corporate income taxes. That’s a small taste of the distubring news from the Institute for Policy Studies’ report on Executive Excess: CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging.

The Cedar Rapids Gazette ran a story over the weekend about Christie Vilsack’s Congressional campaign as a potential “ethics quandary” for her husband, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. While possible conflicts of interest exist in this situation, some of the points raised in the article seem unwarranted.  

Texas Governor Rick Perry has quickly become the front-runner in the Republican presidential field, so it’s time to catch up on his campaign in Iowa and around the country.

Samples from the governor’s rhetoric and policy statements are below, along with recent poll numbers and some Texas-sized chutzpah from Perry’s latest Iowa speech.

Democratic Congressional candidate Christie Vilsack rolled out her first specific proposal to create new jobs last week. The plan to expand apprenticeship programs was light on specifics but heavy on conservative catch phrases.  

A year ago, the recall of half a billion eggs laid in Iowa made national news headlines. But if you thought that federal or Iowa government agencies would take meaningful steps to reduce the chance of another salmonella enteritidis outbreak in egg factories, guess again.

Economist Kenneth Rogoff, no liberal, is arguing for a higher inflation target:

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? Newt Gingrich is probably wondering who’s going to pay for him to fly around the country on private jets. His presidential campaign can’t afford the expense anymore, and his former gravy train 527 group American Solutions went belly up last month.

Representative Steve King is demanding Congressional hearings on what he described as the Obama administration’s new policy of “executive amnesty to illegal aliens.” My only question is, what took him so long?

U.S. Senator Tom Harkin argued yesterday that getting the economy moving again is more important than cutting the federal deficit, adding that President Barack Obama isn’t showing enough leadership on the issue. I share Harkin’s view and hope other Democrats who have bought into the deficit hysteria will get the message.