Category: Fear and Loathing in Iowa

SANTORUM SURGE: Finally, the Polls in Iowa Are Catching Up With … Me

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CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa
I’m inside a town hall meeting with Rick Santorum. About a hundred people here, and the big news today in Iowa is the CNN/Time poll showing Santorum surging into third place, with 16%, ahead of Newt Gingrich, who is now fourth with 14%, followed by Rick Perry (11%) and Michelle Bachmann (9%).

UPDATE: Erick Erickson isn’t happy:

As a pro-lifer myself, I have to throw up a bit in my mouth that Iowa conservatives are seriously considering Rick Santorum . . .

Yeah, if Perry finishes fifth in Iowa, the epitaph on the tombstone of his campaign will read: “Howdy. Thank you, Erick.”

UPDATE II (Smitty): Here is the CNN interview, Wolf Blitzer interviewing Rick Santorum, with a screencap of the poll results after:

CNN poll shows Santorum in third place in Iowa

UPDATE III: Here’s a photo of Senator Sanatorum shaking hands with Iowans before his town hall meeting here in Cedar Rapids:

Remember that the Santorum surge began Dec. 1, when there was an earthquake in Vanuatu.

UPDATE IV (Smitty): now a Memeorandum thread. What says the Blogosphere?

  • Catholic Bandita links Drudge’s touting of the “Wild Card”, Rick Santorum.
  • A Point of View has the observation, emphasis mine:

    It doesn’t matter what the main stream media thinks or says about Santorum at this point. The plain fact is that his conservative, catholic bona fides are there for all to see and are genuine. That Palin has praised him and he has signalled, through his praise of Palin, that he would support her policy and ethics may be the signal to the Palin supporters that Santorum is Palin’s proxy.

    While Sarah may fall short of a full endorsement, a bit of nudge-nudge, wink-wink could really get the tea party going, IYKWIMAITYD.

  • The Daily Caller:

    Despite lacking the money and resources enjoyed by many of his rivals, Santorum appears to be benefiting from his dogged campaigning throughout each one of Iowa’s 99 counties. The former Pennsylvania senator has also attracted endorsements from prominent evangelical leaders in the state, and is gaining traction among the social conservatives who tend to dominate the Iowa caucuses every four years.
    “Most of Santorum’s gains have come among likely caucus participants who are born-again or evangelical, and he now tops the list among that crucial voting bloc, with support from 22% of born-again compared to 18% for Paul, 16% for Romney, and 14% for Gingrich,” CNN polling director Keating Holland said in a statement.

    If money was paramount, Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman would have done better in California, no?

  • Dan Riehl still likes Perry (and what conservative does not?) but isn’t inimical to Santorum:

    Frankly, I don’t want Santorum to prevail in Iowa, as I’ve already backed Perry and think he’s the best choice, given what they are. But I’m unwilling to throw out my principles to become the media’s anti-Conservative water-boy in some misguided attempt to try and make myself look smart, as opposed to a principled conservative, which is what I mostly am – first, last and always and most importantly of all.

UPDATE V (RSM): Here are Chris Moody of Yahoo News and Shushana Walshe of ABC News, covering the (unexpectedly!) surging Santorum:

Donald Douglas at American Power has more Santorum blogging.


Greetings From the Quad City

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DAVENPORT, Iowa — Woke up late today — too late for the complimentary breakfast here at the Radisson Quad City Plaza — and thought, “Hey, no need to hurry today.” Monday I flew into Cedar Rapids and had to go halfway across the state to a Rick Santorum event, then back to Iowa City. Then yesterday I had to go rent a car and drive to Davenport for a Mitt Romney event … and today?

Well, there’s a full schedule of campaign events, and I’m probably going to go see Rick Perry in Pella at 3:30 p.m. (CT) today, then catch Rick Santorum in Cedar Rapids at 6:30 p.m.. A calculation — based on the fact that I’m now driving a sweet black Ford Mustang — says I don’t have to leave here until about 1 p.m. So I’m typing this while the USA Network is showing Juneau (I’d never seen it before) and reading the copy of the Quad City Times I picked up (for 75 cents) at the coffee shop down the street. Here’s the first paragraph of the front-page story by Ed Tibbetts:

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, keying on a speech President Barack Obama made in Davenport four years  ago this week, said Tuesday the president abandoned his campaign promises to unite the country and “demonizes our fellow Americans,” and he cast the election as one to save the vision of the country.

Fifty-one words? Too long, Ed. That paragraph should have ended with “country.” When I pay 75 cents for a newspaper, I expect that first paragraph to grab me by the throat and compel me to read the whole damn thing. Maybe your editors are to blame. I know you can write better stuff than that clunky 51-word lead, Ed.

See? That’s the kind of cranky stuff I’d be doing if I had more time on my hands. It’s probably for the best thaat I always seem to be racing back and forth across the state like maniac. And that’s why I just took off all my clothes before getting in the shower, to do Raw Naked Blogging of today’s latest Iowa-centric headlines:

EMILY’s List ranks Gingrich as
‘worst’ GOP presidential candidate
— The Hill

Republican Rivals Unleash
Broadside on Paul in Iowa
— New York Times

For Romney, stealth campaign brings
real hopes of winning Iowa
— Washington Post

Poll: Newsletters Not Hurting Paul in Iowa
— Slate

Perry changes stance to oppose all abortions
— CNN

Pro-Gingrich Super PAC: Romney is
‘2nd most dangerous man in America’
— NBC

Paul holds slim lead over Romney
in first post-Christmas Iowa poll
— The Hill

So that’s the news, but the tip-jar hitters didn’t send me to Iowa just so I could sit in a hotel room aggregating headlines while naked.

I could do naked aggregation at home. And sometimes do.

You’d never read a sentence like that in the Quad City Times, even though they charge 75 cents a copy. You can read this for free, but you should hit the tip jar anyway. This hotel room is $89 a night and I missed the free breakfast, so I’ll probably have to pick up some Mickey D’s on the way to Pella, which will cost me $3. But before I do that, first I’ve got to take a shower. And maybe before I leave I’ll do some Wet Naked Updates. That could be worth a few extra bucks, eh?

UPDATE: Wow. Nothing like a long hot shower to make me feel better. But the shower was long enough that I’ve only got a few minutes to throw up a couple of quick (wet and naked) linkbacks to our blog buddies before I get dressed and head out on the road to Pella:

Rick Santorum just launched a new statewide radio ad. Maybe I’ll get a chance to hear it while I’m driving to Pella. Hit the freaking tip jar!





When the Story Writes Itself

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DAVENPORT, Iowa
Sometimes this job is hard. And sometimes it’s easy. And there was a moment last night that made my job much easier. Watch the video:

And now here’s the lead of my column today:

“Ron Paul! Ron Paul! Ron Paul!” The chants were loud and persistent.
Mitt Romney came to town Monday and a Ron Paul rally broke out. As the Massachusetts governor left one of his relatively rare campaign appearances in Iowa, some two dozen supporters of the Texas congressman lined the sidewalk along outside the Hotel Blackhawk. Romney stepped out the door and heard the crowd expressing their enthusiasm for his GOP rival. Romney chuckled and waved before boarding the bus emblazoned with his slogan, “Believe in America.” As the bus pulled out and turned onto East Third Street, the Paul fans chanted louder and waved their signs, some occasionally yelling, “Liberty!”
In one of the multiplying oddities of the 2012 Republican presidential campaign, neither of the two candidates leading the polls in Iowa is the kind of conservative champion that has traditionally won the Hawkeye State’s first-in-the-nation caucus. Between them, however, the moderate Romney and the libertarian Paul combine more than 40 percent of the GOP vote here, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of Iowa polls. And though they are neck-and-neck in the polls, there is no doubt which of the two current front-runners here generates the most fanatical support. When Ron Paul holds an event in Iowa, no Romney boosters are standing outside in the cold December wind maniacally shouting, “Mitt! Mitt! Mitt!” . . .

Read the whole thing at The American Spectator.





Romney Campaign Infiltrated By DHS-Certified Right Winger In Black Ford Mustang Thinking Santorum Thoughts

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by Smitty

Stacy called to gloat about arriving at the car rental and getting a souped-up Ford Mustang for the price of a mid-sized rental. Spys reporting to Sissypuss the Blog Kitty reported that this was really a Romney campaign stunt, intending to rely on Stacy’s big foot on the gas to get him thrown in jail, and thus be unable to report on the details of whatever Iowa fix is in.

Bolstering the theory was a Speed Raaaaacist screed by Dan Collins, some deep fried Southern reminisce full of code words, dog whistles, and semaphores. Have a go. It’s got everything but a banjo, as far as I can tell. Little did Dan know that Stacy, while not competent yet on TweetDeck, or bluetooth headsets–though his teeth were better unmentioned–has in fact mastered the fine art of cruise control.

It seems that Stacy hasn’t been behind the wheel of a black vehicle with anything resembling an engine since his stunt driver days on the set of Smokey and the Bandit, and the thought of being crushed in Iowa for speeding like he was crushed at the roulette table in Vegas is really too much of a bother for Stacy in his dotage.

Thus, Stacy’s arrival at the Romney event in a Black Chariot of Justice may thus catch Romney’s campaign off guard. A nearly Gingrich-ian surprise, IYKWIMAITYD. At that point, the challenge becomes keeping the Rule 5 political cling-ons from piling up too thickly on the hood. Oh, who am I kidding? Stacy will end up giving Dave Weigel a lift. But that’s how it goes.

Just remember, Stacy: if you meet a young co-ed named Mary Jo, that car is not a submarine. Okay?

And yes, the Romney campaign has the vehicle bugged. When you give the gnarly old guy in the bib overalls a lift, and

he says “Knock, knock.”,

and you reply, “Who’s there?”,

and he says, “It’s the plumber. I’ve come to fix the sink,”

that is your cue that the Semi-Conscious Liberation Army, in conjunction with the Ron Paul campaign, is preparing to pull off an operation previously only seen in the pages of the Illuminatus Trilogy, but which they think they can operationalize. Remember: if the operation fails, the statute of limitations on you for that job in Peru is expired, and Jorge really could use a favor. Whether it succeeds or fails, it will help the Santorum campaign. That’s all you need to know.

Godspeed.

Update: linked at Reluctant-Rebel

The Santorum Surge: Mainstream Media Finally Beginning to See Omens in Iowa

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IOWA CITY, Iowa
If you’ll check Real Clear Politics, you’ll notice we haven’t seen any new poll numbers out of Iowa lately. With no new polls and no more debates, suddenly reporters are forced to focus on the actual on-the-ground campaign here in the Hawkeye State. And once you start paying attention to that kind of stuff, you can’t help but notice that somebody’s doing a lot better here than the poll numbers might suggest:

He has received key endorsements from well-known social conservatives in the state, and has had solid performances at each of the debates. And he’s running an old-school style campaign that Iowa voters expect in the retail-style politics of the Hawkeye State.
The man whose at the back of the polling pack — despite recent buzz giving him a late boost — is taking nothing for granted but has nothing to lose.
“My feeling is when you’re sitting last, if you can do better than that, that’s good,” he told Fox News.
Santorum said he’s got 1,000 caucus representatives in a contest with about 1,700 caucus locations. He acknowledges that means no official representative to make his case at each of the locations, but at “almost all of them, and no other campaign is going to have someone there who’s going to get up and speak on our behalf.”
Santorum, who claims organization and message will make the difference, is also banking on a divide and conquer strategy.
“There’s really three primaries going on here,” Santorum said. “Ron Paul has his own primary, the libertarian primary. And (Newt) Gingrich and (Mitt) Romney are sort of the establishment primary. And I think there are three who are vying for the conservative mantle to go up against the Gingrich-Romney duo. And I think that I’m going to be the one coming out Iowa with that mantle.
“And if we can do that, then we’re off to the races here, and conservatives around the country, just like they’re doing here in Iowa, are going to start rallying around our campaign,” he said.

Dan Collins also writes about the Santorum Surge today, and check out Curt’s headline at Flopping Aces:

Newt Implodes As Santorum Surges

Evidently, the “Newt Romney” factor is both real and spectacular. Nothing says “kiss of death” quite like the revelation that you’ve been walking the RINO walk while trying to talk the conservative talk.

The apparent collapse of Gingrich — at least insofar as it involves conservatives in Iowa — will be one of the big stories to keep watching. Multiple sources confirm the lack of organizational “ground game” for Newt here, but the key questions are, “How far will he fall?” and “Who will benefit most from Newt’s losses?”

Another sign the beneficiary might be Santorum: “Huck’s Army” founders Alex and Brett Harris today endorsed Santorum.

Today I had a long conversation with influential Iowa talk-show host Steve Deace, who remains skeptical of Santorum’s Cinderella potential. Listening to Deace’s analysis, I’d say the unreported story is this: Perhaps the real reason Steve King didn’t endorse Santorum yesterday is not only King’s longstanding friendship with Bachmann, but also that re-districting has given King some new territory that includes a lot of fired-up Ron Paul supporters. The last thing King needs is a bunch of fanatical Paulistas backing a primary challenger against him next year.

There are layers and layers of complexity to GOP politics in Iowa, and I don’t pretend to understand it at more than a superficial level. But I think the situation here is a lot more volatile than most people realize.

Santorum has not yet polled better than 10% in Iowa. If this surge is for real, and he finishes third or fourth — which could put him ahead of a big money “contender” like Gingrich or Perry — then it’s Katy-bar-the-door. And Santorum himself is entirely willing to put his fate in the hands of folks in the Hawkeye State.






Republicans With Shotguns

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You know you’re in Iowa when the big story of the day is how many pheasants the candidate killed:

Rick Santorum bagged at least four pheasants during his hunting trip Monday at Doc’s Hunt Club. Those four birds were just the “clean kills” that he was certain were the result of his own marksmanship — a conservative count, Santorum emphasized to the crowd of reporters who showed up at the hunting club in Adel, west of Des Moines.
While the former Pennsylvania senator was pleased with his outing, most of the reporters who showed up were more interested to know if Santorum had bagged even bigger game during this political season — the endorsement of his hunting companion, Iowa Rep. Steve King. But the conservative Republican congressman said he wasn’t quite ready to make that commitment.
“You know, I came here today to shoot some pheasants with my friend Rick Santorum and we’re having a great day,” King told the reporters assembled for Monday’s press conference. “So I’m going to deliberate on all of this and I’ve got a few days yet before a decision has to be made.… I’m leaving that open.” . . .

Read the whole thing at the American Spectator.

While King didn’t give Santorum his endorsement, yesterday’s hunting trip and press conference garnered the candidate a huge haul of publicity. Doc’s Hunt Club was crawling with reporters:



The bald guy in the dark coat is William Petroski of the Des Moines Register, who has been covering the Santorum campaign for weeks now. Petroski points out a useful bit of history:

An endorsement, or even a nod of approval from King, could be helpful to Santorum, who has been showing signs of gaining momentum.
In 2008, King endorsed Fred Thompson, who finished third among presidential candidates with 13.4 percent, narrowly ahead of fourth-place finisher U.S. Sen. John McCain, who went on to become the GOP presidential nominee. The first-place Iowa finisher four years ago was Mike Huckabee with Mitt Romney in second place.
University of Iowa political scientist Tim Hagle said that King’s Dec. 17, 2007, endorsement of Thompson was important to his candidacy.
“I have heard many times that the effort King put into the Thompson endorsement helped Thompson get to a third-place finish even though it was only just ahead of McCain,” Hagle said. While it is getting late in the 2012 caucus race, an endorsement of Santorum by King might help convince some that Santorum is the best bet among him, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann and Perry, he said.
Drake University political scientist Dennis Goldford said that in a tight caucus race “even a feather on a scale” could make a difference.

The fact that 13% was good enough for third place in Iowa four years ago is important to keep in mind. The expectations game is everything in Iowa. Yesterday, toward the end of the press conference, after Santorum talked about how many pheasants he shot during his hunting trip, Dan Balz of the Washington Post asked, “Senator, you said you killed four, but how many did you expect to kill?”

Ba-dum-BOOM-crash.

Anyway, here’s video of the start of the press conference, where the talk was all about hunting and 20-gauge Weatherby shotguns:


Santorum Gets 4 ‘Clean Kills’ in Pheasant Hunt With Steve King; No Endorsement

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ADEL, Iowa
Today’s hunt at Doc’s Gun Club was successful for Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who said he got four “clean kills,” and also saw his teenage son John get his first bird. Santorum also got some solid publicity for his campaign, as a horde of media turned out to cover his post-hunt press conference with Rep. Steve King.

What Santorum didn’t get was King’s much-coveted endorsement — at least not yet. The conservative GOP congressman praised Santorum but said he hasn’t yet decided whether to endorse anyone before the Jan. 3 caucuses, now just eight days away.

Influential Iowa conservative radio host Steve Deace said on Twitter: “No other way to say it, but no Steve King endorsement hurts whatever hopes Rick Santorum had of being the Cinderella story on Jan. 3.”

Yet King said he hasn’t ruled out an endorsement and would continue reflecting on it. Could he be building suspense for a future news cycle?

Well, I’ve got photos and video of today’s event, but the WiFi connection at this particular McDonald’s has bandwidth issues that prevent me uploading in any kind of timely manner so (like a Steve King endorsement) that will have to wait. There is a caucus volunteer training event tonight in Cedar Rapids and my driver Aaron Rupp says, “We gotta hurry.”

Greetings From Iowa

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Aaron Rupp is an industrial control systems engineer from Cedar Rapids who sent me an e-mail yesterday wondering if I needed a ride from the airport. By the time I took off this morning from BWI, my plan had already progressed to include a 140-mile drive to Adel — clear on the other side of Des Moines — for a 4 p.m. “media availability” with Rick Santorum. If you’re going to impose on someone, I say, go ahead and really impose.

Right now, I’m typing this in the passenger seat while Aaron is driving his brand new Honda Civic with less than 9,000 miles on the odometer. I’m sure this car could hit 110 mph, but Aaron has this whole Midwestern law-abiding thing going on, so he refuses to push it past 80. He’s a Santorum supporter. All the high-speed reckless drivers in Iowa are probably backing Ron Paul. (Libertarians consider speed limits the first step on the road to fascism. And they’re right!)

There was a brief rumor this morning that Rep. Steve King might be preparing to endorse Santorum. However, Aaron tells me, staff for both King and Santorum have denied this rumor. We shall see.

OK — we just pulled off at a McDonald’s near I-80 so I could get online, check the news and get this posted. William Petroski of the Des Moines Register has the lowdown on today’s event:

U.S. Rep. Steve King, one of Iowa’s most prominent conservative politicians, is spending this afternoon hunting pheasants near Adel with former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum – their second hunting trip in the past three months.
But King, whose endorsement is highly sought by Republican presidential candidates, told the Des Moines Register he has no plans today to make an endorsement of Santorum or anyone else.
“I have not made a decision,” King said, acknowledging that time is running short before the Jan. 3 Iowa Caucuses. “There has not been a constitutional conservative to run away from the pack.”
King, who represents a heavily Republican congressional district in western Iowa, said he was joining Santorum at Doc’s Hunt Club near Adel because he and the candidate are good friends and because it offered a chance to give Santorum’s campaign some publicity. They were joined here by former Iowa State University wrestling coach Jim Gibbons of Perry, who has endorsed Santorum; Kevin Reynolds, the husband of Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds; Dave Funk, the Polk County Republican Party co-chair, and about a dozen other shotgun-toting pheasant hunters.
Santorum, who served two U.S. Senate terms from Pennsylvania, is scheduled to meet with reporters at 4 p.m. to discuss his campaign. Santorum and King had hunted together in October in northwest Iowa, and King has also hunted with Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

That’s as much as we know at this point. Time to get back on the road.

UPDATE: Linked by Zilla of the Resistance — thanks! — and welcome, Instapundit readers!

Meanwhile, Bill Quick at Daily Pundit has the answer to the question: “What Would Hunter Thompson Do?”