Saw this on the I-Renew list–looks interesting.

Tour a renewable powered- energy efficient home in Iowa City!

Electrical Engineer Don Laughlin built his dream energy efficient
home, using used thermal solar panels and his engineering know-how to
cut costs. Don will lead a tour of the home after a short presentation
by Rich Dana from Union of Concerned Scientists on global warming's
effect in Iowa.

When: This coming Saturday, November 17, 2007, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM

Where: 827 Church St. (Corner of Church and Governor)

Cost: $5 I-Renew Member, $8 Non-Member

For more information and/or a registration form, contact I-Renew by
calling (319) 643-3160 or by emailing irenew@irenew. org. We hope to
see you there!

Cross posted at Century of the Common Iowan. 

The big news in Iowa this weekend is the Iowa Democratic Party's Jefferson Jackson Dinner held in Des Moines tonight.  I attended the event and here are some notes I jotted down throughout the speeches. 

Lt. Governor Patty Judge said we are building a bio-based economy here in Iowa. I wonder how 2 new coal-fired powered plants fit into that.

Governor Chet Culver outlines the accomplishments that were made during the last year including raising the minimum wage, increasing teacher pay, lifting the ban on stem cell research, expanding health care to children. Culver said in Iowa our dreams do come true.

Now onto the Presidential candidates.

UPDATE: Corrected to note that the endorsement comes from Caucus4Priorities, the political arm of the 501 (c)3 Iowans for Sensible Priorities.

Okamichan13 has a diary up on this at Daily Kos: 

 http://www.dailykos….

Greg Sargent reported at TPM that Iowans for Sensible Priorities will endorse John Edwards on November 9:

http://tpmelectionce…

The Edwards Evening News Roundup team at Daily Kos pointed me to this link from ABC News:

http://abcnews.go.co…

The decision to endorse Edwards over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama came down to “courage versus caution,” according to the group's executive director.

 

“There's a rhetoric gap with Obama,” executive director Peggy Huppert told ABC News. “He told me personally: 'Trust me. Ideologically, I'm with you.' But people have told him to be afraid of being pushed too far to the left. He doesn't bring up [cuts in Pentagon spending] on his own. He doesn't incorporate it into his speeches. He skirts around it. He talks around the edges. He never gets to the heart of it in strong, bold language.”

Chase Martyn says Bill Richardson worked hard to get this endorsement, while Hillary Clinton didn't even bother to return the group's questionnaire:

http://cmondisplay.c…

I should note that Peggy Huppert told Sargent that all of the candidates did return the questionnaire. It would surprise me if Hillary did not even bother to seek the endorsement of this group. They are everywhere on the campaign trail and at other events where progressives gather.

UPDATE: From the ABC piece, it is clear that Hillary did return the group's questionnaire. However, according to Huppert:

Although Clinton filled out the group's detailed policy questionnaire, she was not among the final two candidates under consideration for the endorsement.

 

“She didn't answer any questions 'yes' or 'no,'” said Huppert. “She has a refusal to commit to anything.”

Iowans for Sensible Priorities is the group with that nifty pie chart graphic you see on car magnets and yard signs all over the place in Iowa. Here's a link to a photo I took of their spinning wheel on Labor Day:

http://www.flickr.co…

And here's a link to a photo of the car they drive all over the state:  

http://www.flickr.co…

I need to learn how to upload photos on this site!

Anyway, this is a good catch by the Edwards campaign. 

I saw in the Register that STAR-PAC, a group created to oppose the arms race, has endorsed Bill Richardson for president:

http://www.desmoines…

STAR PAC, an acronym for Stop the Arms Race Political Action Committee, said Wednesday that its central committee voted to support Richardson for many reasons, particularly the Democrat's promise to pull all U.S. forces out of Iraq within six months to one year.

“His message is the same wherever he speaks – to a military audience in Georgetown, a New Hampshire town meeting, in a rural Iowa community or at STAR PAC's candidate forum with the governor in August,” said Harold Wells, Iowa's STAR PAC chair.

This is a great get for Richardson. It has to be considered a blow to Barack Obama, who is campaigning as the guy who was right about Iraq from the beginning. I think it was a mistake for him to let other candidates get to his left on defunding the war and bringing our troops home quickly.

The Register notes that only Richardson, Edwards, Obama and Kucinich returned STAR-PAC's questionnaire. I'm not surprised that none of the Republican candidates gave this group the time of day, but I am surprised that Hillary blew them off. 

I'm late to be posting about this, but on Monday some 35,000 supporters of Ron Paul raised over $4.3 million for his campaign, shattering single-day online fundraising records. 

Jerome Armstrong, founder of MyDD, wrote an interesting commentary on this incredible achievement of Paul's supporters. The fundraising drive wasn't even orchestrated by the campaign.

Matt Stoller's take on the Ron Paul revolution is here at Open Left.

Is Ron Paul's campaign doing much in Iowa? I see some yard signs and hear some ads on the classic rock radio station in Des Moines, but that's about it. MyDD linked to some tv ads Paul is running in NH–they are pretty amateurish:

http://www.mydd.com/…

I realize that as a candidate, he is better suited to the political culture in New Hampshire than Iowa, with more religious conservatives. Still, with the money he has in the bank, he could make a very strong ad buy in Iowa. Admittedly, it's late to be putting together a field operation here.

What do you think? Is there any potential for Paul to finish in the top three in Iowa? 

Note: Many of you probably received this mailing, but in case you didn't, or are not from Iowa, I'm cross-posting this entry I wrote for the MyDD audience.

Last week I wrote about John Edwards' recent direct mail piece to Iowa caucus-goers. This past Friday, I received a second mailer from the Edwards campaign, a shorter piece focused on Iraq.
Here is a link to the mailer (pdf file) (thanks to NC Dem Amy for the link).

For those who do not want to download the pdf file, I'm reproducing the text after the jump.

UPDATE: In today's mail I received the latest piece from the Edwards campaign. This one was about health care, and I will reproduce the text when I have time. 

Never mind the rumors about Sam Brownback endorsing Rudy Giuliani for president; the Kansas senator decided to back John McCain after all. Cyclone Conservatives has a good write-up here, or you can read the Des Moines Register's coverage here. I liked Mike Huckabee's comment in the Register:

Huckabee, campaigning Wednesday in Cedar Falls, said he would have liked Brownback's endorsement, but “we're getting a lot of Brownback's supporters. If I had a choice between him and his supporters, I'll take his supporters.”

Don at Cyclone Conservatives says he knows former Brownback supporters who have switched to Huckabee or Fred Thompson. The person I know who interned at the Brownback campaign plans to volunteer for McCain. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. 

Meanwhile, Bob Vander Plaats, who's chairing the Huckabee operation in Iowa, says they are not worried about missing out on the endorsements of Brownback or evangelical Pat Robertson, who recently backed Rudy Giuliani.

So, what happened in your city or town today?

In my corner of the world one of the winning candidates for city council spent $38 on his re-election bid. He saved yard signs from the last campaign:

http://www.desmoines…

The Windsor Heights race was a poor man’s competition of who could spend the least amount. Peterson won at $38. “I saved all my stuff from last time and reused it.” Next was Markley at $65, who forewent the yard signs and stuck to fliers and door knocking. Carlson came in third at $330, and Butz – coincidentally – came out the winner, barely squeezing by the campaign disclosure threshold of $750. She filed papers Monday. They were not on the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board Web site Tuesday.

The other incumbent running decided not to do yard signs. Looks like that was a mistake–the two candidates with the most yard signs won by a pretty healthy margin. 

As I've written a couple of posts below, I don't expect Rudy Giuliani to be the GOP nominee. However, I've noticed lately that several Democrats in the race have been going out of their way to take on Rudy.

Joe Biden scored at last week's debate with his joke that every sentence uttered by Rudy has a noun, a verb and 9/11, and his comment that Rudy is the most unqualified person to run for president since George W. Bush. His campaign has been milking these moments in fund-raising e-mails featuring highlights from the debate and outrageous comments made by Rudy. For instance:

As I wrote earlier, we expected another attack from Giuliani's campaign on Friday and they didn't disappoint. On a morning radio show, Rudy Giuliani made the unbelievable claim that Joe Biden has no foreign policy experience.

 

 

Make a contribution to help Joe keep Rudy on the run.

 

Host: You would say Senator Biden doesn't have foreign policy experience?

 

Giuliani: Has he ever been in the State Department? Has he ever been an executive? It's one thing…it's one thing to speak about what you want or even pass laws about it. It's another thing to actually do it. Foreign policy experience to me means being an ambassador, being in the state department. Being a law endorsement official. Dealing with foreign countries.

By now, we've come to expect this kind of blatant nonsense from Giuliani. But even we couldn't believe that just a few hours later, when asked about his comments, he would just outright deny saying it.

 

Giuliani: I didn't, I didn't mention foreign policy. I said Joe Biden fit into the category of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards. And they were all questioned about this at the debate, and he wasn't. Here's, here's here's the situation. They have–in a very strange way–they have never run a city, never run a state, never run a business. They've never run anything.

 

The radio station put out a press release of his first statement. There were video cameras present when he made the second statement. Yet that didn't keep him from just outright denying what he said. CNN captured the flip-flop on “The Situation Room” — you can watch the video here.

Barack Obama has also been mixing it up with Rudy, after Giuliani called Obama's strategy toward Iran naive and irresponsible. Over at Daily Kos, Adam B wrote a diary on the hard-hitting response from a spokesman for the Obama campaign:

http://www.dailykos….

While Rudy Giuliani may embrace Hillary Clinton's policy of not talking and saber rattling towards Iran, Barack Obama knows that policy is not working.  It's time for tough and direct diplomacy with Iran, not lectures from a Mayor who skipped out on the Iraq Study Group to give paid speeches, and who was naive and irresponsible enough to recommend someone with ties to convicted felons for Secretary of Homeland Security.

Kudos to the Obama campaign for calling attention to Rudy's failure to attend meetings of the Iraq Study Group. That issue alone should be enough to sink Giuliani's campaign.

Finally, I can't resist posting this statement Edwards campaign manager David Bonior made a few months back. It calls attention to Rudy's grotesque use of 9/11 imagery to promote himself, even though his administration could have done a lot more to prepare New York City's first responders for a possible attack:

http://www.johnedwar…

John Edwards for President National Campaign Manager Congressman David Bonior released the following statement in response to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's comments that he was at ground zero in New York City “as often, if not more” than rescue workers. 

 

“Evidently, Rudy Giuliani has taken a break from reality. It is outrageous for Giuliani to suggest, in any way, shape or form, that he did more at ground zero or spent more time there than the brave first responders who worked tirelessly around the clock for many months during the rescue and recovery operation. It seems that Giuliani is determined to take every opportunity to exploit the memory of 9/11 for political gain, rather than honor the incredible sacrifices of our first responders. Enough is enough.

 

“Mayor Giuliani should start answering the serious questions of why firefighters and other first responders didn't have proper equipment and support. The 9/11 Commission and National Institute of Standards & Technology reports have documented the failures of the broken radio communications system, a splintered chain of command and an unprepared Office of Emergency Management under his watch as mayor. These are the questions he needs to answer.”

Is anyone seriously going to tell me that Rudy will be the Republican presidential nominee? This guy has way too much baggage.

There's been quite a bit of press this week about attacking other candidates and negative campaigning, including a number of comments on my statements at the debate calling on the other candidates to lay off the personal attacks on Senator Clinton.

But I was surprised that what many people “took away” from my statements was that I must support Senator Clinton's positions because I thought some of the attacks were out of line.

So, let me set the record straight.

I deeply disagree with Senator Clinton on many issues, just as I do with the other candidates.  For starters, Senator Clinton thinks we can fix No Child Left Behind; I believe we need to scrap it.  I believe we must create a New Energy Revolution whereas Senator Clinton's positions are simply not bold enough on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and moving to alternative energy sources.

Senator Clinton seems to believe there are nations out there too “bad” for us to talk to — I disagree and believe we should talk to both our enemies and our friends.

Senator Clinton voted for the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment that authorized aggressive action against factions in Iran.  I think that is a huge mistake and find it shocking that she hasn't yet learned the most important lesson any American could learn about George Bush: he can't be trusted.  This vote may end up being a vote for a war in Iran. 

Most importantly, I disagree with Senator Clinton's belief that we cannot end the war now and get our troops out.  I do not understand why she, and others who claim to be against the war, continue to vote for additional funding so the war can continue and still don't stand up to Bush on getting our troops out so we can begin reconciliation.  I don't believe we are helpless against Bush and the Republicans.  I believe Congress was elected to end this war, that they have the power to act, and yet don't.

I profoundly disagree with Senator Clinton that it is unreasonable to commit to getting troops out of Iraq by 2013.

But these are disagreements on policy – not on personality.  Personal attacks are an easy way out when candidates aren't able to make real contrasts with opponents on real policy positions.

Frankly, I don't need to resort to personal attacks because I have so many disagreements with the other candidates – including Hillary Clinton — on the issues.

Don't get me wrong – I believe in highlighting differences when I see them, and exposing misinformation when I hear it, and I've never been one to shy away from a fight.  But I also believe to my core that we need to bring this country together, not split ourselves even further apart.  And before we all start to accept ubiquitous personal attacks, even against fellow Democrats, as simply the state of modern politics, we should strongly consider where attacks like these are coming from.

None of the attacks I've heard lately deal with the issue at the heart of this campaign, and the issue that will win or lose us the White House: ending the war in Iraq.  When closely examined, Senator Obama's position is not much different from Senator Clinton's on key points.  They may disagree on exactly how many troops to leave behind, and the mission, but they both would leave troops in Iraq for years after taking office.  And Senator Edwards talks about removing combat troops but what about the tens of thousands non-combat troops?

And who can forget that at the MSNBC Dartmouth Debate each and every one of them refused to commit to getting the troops out of Iraq by 2013 – SIX YEARS FROM NOW.

That position is just unacceptable.

We need to get our troops out now.  We need to stop the war with Iran before it starts.  And we need to have a debate where we focus on the real issues, and the real differences between candidates on important policy positions — not just on who is attacking whom for what.

If we as a party don't focus on the issues that really matter, and instead waste our time calling each other names, we are opening ourselves up to real Republican attacks next fall.  We should keep talking contrasts on issues and differences on world view, but let's save labels like “dishonest” for those who really deserve them.

You can find out more about where I stand on Iraq at www.GetOurTroopsOut.com and at www.richardsonforpresident.com.

Speaking in Oskaloosa today, Hillary Clinton wanted to make sure Iowans knew that she is “tough enough” to handle whatever people throw at her in the presidential campaign:

http://www.desmoines…

“With 60 days left until the caucus, things are going to get a little hotter, because obviously the campaign is going to get heated up and speeded up,” Clinton said.

“I remember very well what Harry Truman once said . . . ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.’ Well, I feel real comfortable in the kitchen, so the heat is going to get hotter and hotter.”

Meanwhile, Clinton's surrogates and supporters keep whining about the “politics of pile-on.” This is from a fundraising e-mail the campaign sent out shortly after last Tuesday's debate:

If you saw the debate Tuesday night, or if you've seen the  news coverage since, then you know that this campaign has entered a  new phase.

On that stage in Philadelphia, we saw six against  one. Candidates who had pledged the politics of hope practiced the  politics of pile on instead. Her opponents tried a whole host of  attacks on Hillary.

She is one strong woman. She came  through it well. But Hillary's going to need your help.

Her  opponents, trying to boost their falling poll numbers, started  attacking Hillary weeks ago on the stump. Now they're doing it in  the debates. And soon they'll begin a barrage of negative TV ads and  mailings in the early primary and caucus states.

But Hillary  knows that voters want real change — not more negative attacks. And  with just 60 days left before the Iowa caucuses, now is the time to  show her that you are right there with her.

Of course, the Clinton campaign, which has repeatedly promoted Hillary as tough enough to withstand the Republican attack machine, has been planning all alone to whine and complain as soon as opponents challenged her on the issues:

http://news.yahoo.co…

Clinton's advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss internal matters, said there is a clear and long-planned strategy to fend off attacks by accusing her male rivals of gathering against her.

The idea is to change the subject while making Clinton a sympathetic figure, especially among female voters who often feel outnumbered and bullied on the job.

As one adviser put it, Clinton is not the first presidential candidate to play the “woe-is-me card” but she's the first major female presidential candidate to do it.

The victim is a familiar role for Clinton.

Over at Salon, Tim Grieve has already called bullshit on the Clinton campaign's spin, noting that her campaign continually feeds negative material about other candidates to reporters, all the while pretending to be disappointed that the others are supposedly rejecting “the politics of hope.”

http://www.salon.com…

I also recommend Sirius's diary, “Note to Clinton: The Issues Are Fair Game”:

http://www.mydd.com/…

Kate Michelman, former head of the National Abortion Rights Action League, had a great take on this as well:

http://www.openleft….

When unchallenged, in a comfortable, controlled situation, Senator Clinton embraces her political elevation into the “boys club.” She is quick to assure listeners she is plenty tough enough, that she's battled tested, ready to play be the same rules as the boys.

But when she's challenged, when legitimate questions are asked, questions she should be prepared to answer and discuss, she is just as quick to raise the white flag and look for a change in the rules. She then calls questioning, 'attacking;' she calls debate among her peers, 'piling on.'

It's a political strategy, no doubt focus grouped and poll tested: make it look unseemly that this group of men would question her and hold her accountable for her record.

It's trying to have it both ways; walk the fence, something Senator Clinton's good at. At one minute the strong woman ready to lead, the next, she's the woman under attack, disingenuously playing the victim card as a means of trying to avoid giving honest, direct answers to legitimate questions.

As a woman who's been in the public eye and experienced scrutiny, as a woman who knows how hard it can be for women to earn their seat at the leadership table, how hard women have to work just to get the same opportunities, this distresses me.

It is not presidential.

Any serious candidate for president should have to answer tough questions and defend their record.

If Hillary Clinton is tough enough to withstand the Republican attack machine, she should stop sending out her minions to whine about “piling on” and start giving direct answers to direct questions. 

Republican caucus-goers and primary voters know very little about Rudy Giuliani's record as mayor, other than what they say on tv on 9/11.

However, that fact will change in the coming months, and what people learn about Rudy is unlikely to impress them. Click this link if you dare to learn more about Rudy's longtime connections with Bernie Kerik:

http://www.nytimes.c…

It's a long article, but here is one excerpt:

In December 2004, President Bush nominated Mr. Kerik, a former New York police commissioner, to head the federal Department of Homeland Security. Seven days later, Mr. Kerik withdrew as a nominee.

A cascade of questions followed about his judgment as a public official, not least that he had inappropriately lobbied city officials on behalf of Interstate Industrial, a construction firm suspected of links to organized crime. Mr. Giuliani defended Mr. Kerik, a friend and business partner, whom he had recommended to the Bush administration. But he also tried to shield himself from accusations that he had ignored Mr. Kerik’s failings.

“I was not informed of it,” Mr. Giuliani said then, when asked if he had been warned about Mr. Kerik’s relationship with Interstate before appointing him to the police post in 2000.

Mr. Giuliani amended that statement last year in testimony to a state grand jury. He acknowledged that the city investigations commissioner, Edward J. Kuriansky, had told him that he had been briefed at least once. The former mayor said, though, that neither he nor any of his aides could recall being briefed about Mr. Kerik’s involvement with the company.

But a review of Mr. Kuriansky’s diaries, and investigators’ notes from a 2004 interview with him, now indicate that such a session indeed took place. What is more, Mr. Kuriansky also recalled briefing one of Mr. Giuliani’s closest aides, Dennison Young Jr., about Mr. Kerik’s entanglements with the company just days before the police appointment, according to the diaries he compiled at the time and his later recollection to the investigators.

The additional evidence raises questions not only about the precision of Mr. Giuliani’s recollection, but also about how a man who proclaims his ability to pick leaders came to overlook a jumble of disturbing information about Mr. Kerik, even as he pushed him for two crucial government positions.

[…]

In Mr. Kerik’s case, by the time Mr. Giuliani recommended him for the federal job, his administration knew that Mr. Kerik had acted on behalf of Interstate Industrial. It also knew that he had drawn criticism for a range of other incidents, from sending detectives to search for his lover’s cellphone to using officers to research his autobiography.

Mr. Kerik, who declined to speak about his troubles, now faces possible indictment on a range of federal felony charges, including perhaps tax evasion and bribery, stemming in part from his acceptance of $165,000 in renovations to his Bronx apartment paid for by Interstate. In June 2006, he pleaded guilty in the Bronx to state misdemeanor charges relating to the same renovations.

At some point this has to become an issue in the GOP primaries.

The Edwards campaign went up on the air in Iowa yesterday with this ad: 

My favorite portion: “It is time for our party, the Democratic Party, to show a little backbone, to have a little guts, to stand up for working men and women. If we are not their voice, they will never have a voice.”

I couldn't agree more.

Also this week, Edwards sent out a 12-page mailer to Iowa Democrats. If you live in Iowa, you may have received it already. If not, you can find the jpegs here:

http://www.politico….

If you don't care about the photos and just want to read the text, I wrote that up here:

http://www.mydd.com/…

The mailer lays out Edwards' biography, but also talks more specifically about issues than the tv ad does. I assume that in the next four to six weeks, Edwards will release tv ads that talk briefly about his stands on the key issues. 

A few posts down I mentioned the rumors that Sam Brownback will endorse Rudy Giuliani, which I think would be foolish.

Yesterday I saw someone we know who worked in the Brownback HQ over the summer. She said that most of his Iowa staff have moved over to John McCain's office. 

Is activity picking up in the McCain campaign in Iowa? It would be interesting to see if he makes a late play for a second or third-place finish here.

Last night's Democratic Debate in Philadelphia provided the most dialogue. Along with the YouTube Debate, this one was the best debate so far this election.

Here are my thoughts on the winners and losers of the debate…

Winners
Chris Dodd – He seemed the most presidential and stressed his leadership and experience. He successfully drew distinctions with Clinton and questioned her electability without sounding like he was on the attack. He mentioned the need for public financing of campaigns.

John Edwards – He pressed Clinton all night on her double talk on numerous issues and stayed on message. He made strong points against the culture of Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests and tied that to Clinton's campaign. He had a great line about Hillary's vote on Iran…

So.. to put pressure on the Bush Administration is … to vote yes on a resolution that [looked as if it] was written by the neocons? Has anyone read this thing?

originally posted at Daily Kos

Reading articles about John Edwards, I have noticed the perception that his domestic policy ideas are mainly good for poor people, while other candidates are focusing more on middle-class issues.

David Mizner wrote an excellent diary last Tuesday: “What Edwards is About.” (If you missed it, click here or here–it sparked a lively discussion.) David points out that Edwards has done the most by far to call attention to growing social and economic inequality in the United States. I encourage everyone to check out his plans to reduce poverty in this country and globally.

While I agree that Edwards is the candidate who would accomplish the most for the least fortunate, I want to call your attention to his proposals that would benefit middle-class Americans. 

More after the jump. 

I taped the debate and haven't watched yet.

What do you think? Consensus at MyDD seems to be that it wasn't Hillary's best night by a longshot.

As you can read in sirius's diary on the right (the Edwards Evening News), John Edwards has now campaigned in all 99 counties in Iowa. Last cycle Howard Dean did that during the spring, summer and fall, but Edwards didn't get to his 99th county until December 2003.

In general, Democratic presidential candidates have spent far more time in Iowa this year than Republicans, as the Register pointed out several days ago in this interesting piece:

http://www.desmoines…

Some highlights from the piece:

John Edwards and Barack Obama each has more staff in Iowa than all of the Republican caucus campaigns combined, with Hillary Clinton close behind.

Even the Democratic field's lesser-known candidates have built caucus organizations several times the size of some of the best-known Republicans' operations, according to a review of several criteria by The Des Moines Register.

Since that article came out, I heard that Hillary plans to double her paid staff in Iowa, so that she will have more than 200 paid staff. The Register reported that Hillary has 117 paid staff in Iowa, Obama has 145 paid staff here, and Edwards has 130. 

As for days spent in Iowa, surprisingly Joe Biden has the most, followed by Obama and Edwards, with Dodd, Clinton and Richardson not far behind. 

We've long known that Sam Brownback was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but his possible endorsement of Rudy Giuliani would be one of the dumbest things I can imagine him doing.

Haven't seen anything on this yet at Cyclone Conservatives or The Real Sporer blog, but the gang at TPM has been all over the story:

Brownback said a few days ago that he has become “much more comfortable” with Rudy after getting assurances from Giuliani that he would appoint only “strict constructionist” judges:

http://tpmelectionce…

Brownback's former political director in Iowa says Sam may endorse Rudy as the candidate with the best chance to beat Hillary:

http://tpmelectionce…

The Family Research Council is very upset and says conservatives will desert the GOP if Rudy is the nominee:

http://tpmelectionce…

Endorsing Giuliani would be a really dumb move by Brownback. He campaigned as the guy with consistently pro-life views, and had support from many social conservatives, especially Catholics. To turn around and back Rudy is a slap in the face to them.

Presumably Brownback is angling for a position in Rudy's cabinet, or even the VP slot, by toying with an early endorsement. But let's get real. Are GOP primary voters going to nominate Rudy after seeing the ads his rivals will run against him? I know Fox News is in the tank for Rudy (he and Roger Ailes go way back), but they won't be able to save him from the ads showing Rudy calling himself the “liberal” mayor of New York, ads showing Rudy in drag, ads showing Rudy talk about being pro-choice and supporting state funding for abortion.

Not to mention the fact that Bernard Kerik is about to go on trial on federal charges–this is the guy Rudy pushed Bush to appoint as Homeland Security secretary. Great judgment there!

And who will be the first of Rudy's opponents to run this ad? When Rudy was appointed to the Iraq Study Group (also known as the Baker-Hamilton commission), he never bothered to show up for a single meeting. He was too busy giving $100,000 speeches to cash in on his 9/11 celebrity.

Romney, McCain and Thompson are not just going to hand this nomination to Rudy. They will fight him for it. 

And even if Rudy could get the nomination, I think he is far from the GOP's best candidate against Hillary. As I have written, Mike Huckabee is the one we need to be worried about–especially if Hillary is our nominee.

There are two obvious plays for Brownback. The safest one is not to endorse at all. The risky one would be to endorse Huckabee. He's a longshot who lacks money and faces the wrath of the Club for Growth. But at least endorsing him would show some principle and would upset social conservatives less than endorsing Rudy.

We'll see what Brownback is made of. 

Chase Martyn has the story:

http://www.iowaindep…

The leadership of the Iowa Democratic Party will recommend scheduling the caucuses for January 3, the same night as the Republican caucuses.

On the one hand, this reduces the potential for mischief as Republicans will not be able to switch parties en masse in order to influence the outcome on our side.

On the other hand, logistically this will be a nightmare. It will be hard to do last-minute voter contacts, and parking will be in short supply at sites likely to be used by both parties on caucus night (such as schools). How many people want to walk several blocks on a cold, dark night to caucus?

Turnout is likely to be lower as the holiday season burns people out and makes GOTV difficult. 

Chase writes:

• No colleges or universities will have ended their winter breaks by this date.  Conventional wisdom is that this will make Sen. Barack Obama's campaign to organize students difficult, but the payoffs of a good student organization will be larger if students are spread out across multiple cities rather than concentrated in a few big precincts.
• This is only three days into the New Year.  Some Iowans will be out of town for the week, and many others will be just returning to town.
• This date is less than two weeks after Christmas.  The final two weeks of the caucus season are often filled with wall-to-wall television ads, some of which are negative.  How Iowans will react to attack ads on Christmas is unknown.  Candidates also typically leave a few days around the holidays to stop bothering caucus-goers with phone calls and public appearances, but that may not be possible with this schedule.
• Moving up the caucus date may benefit Sen. John Edwards, who will not have to stretch his money in Iowa for an additional two weeks.

I could make a case for any of the major contenders benefiting from this date. Hillary could benefit if more men than women stay home to watch the college football championship game on January 3.

I read today that Obama's people believe they will benefit from the fact that Iowa is a “net exporter” of college students. Many native Iowans who attend schools in other states will still be home with their parents on January 3 and will be able to help Obama reach the viability threshold in a larger number of precincts. That is an interesting theory.

I would think that Edwards would benefit from a date that would weed out all but the most politically engaged Iowans. If you are a general-election voter who normally skips primaries, I really think you're not going to caucus for the first time in your life on January 3. People just want to stay in after the holiday season.

Also, if Edwards wins Iowa, he will have a few more days of media attention and time to parlay that into gains in New Hampshire. 

The big question in my mind is this: given that phone-banking and door-knocking during the holiday season is likely to irritate people, will this early date neutralize the organizational advantages that the major campaigns have? All of those field offices and the army of volunteers will pretty much have their hands tied during the last ten days of December, with no time to contact many people after New Year's.

Will the candidates with stronger organizations benefit more from the GOTV they were able to do in November and early December? Or will they have less opportunity to use their organizations to turn out the leaners they need?

What do you think?