Category: Fear and Loathing in Iowa

Liberal Head-Explosion Warning VIDEO: Michele Bachmann Testifies for Jesus

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SIOUX CITY, Iowa
Friday at the rain-soaked Midwest Spirit Christian Music Festival in West Des Moines, I recorded this eight-minute video, but didn’t upload it immediately because the WiFi connection was so crappy at my hotel in Des Moines. But now I’m on a good WiFi link and it’s Sunday, so it seems appropriate to post this video that is guaranteed to make liberals run screaming from the room:

People who weren’t raised in the evangelical culture are necessarily unfamiliar with the phenomenon of testimony, wherein the speaker recounts how it was that he or she came to faith in Jesus Christ, a narrative usually accompanied by declarations of what awesome — indeed, miraculous — signs and wonders have attested the power and love of the Savior.

What’s strange is that liberals find this type of narrative perfectly acceptable when what is being testified to is some appropriately secular conversion: “Why I became a lesbian feminist” or “When I learned the undenjiable scientific truth of global warming” or “How I discovered that my Republican parents are closet Nazis.” It is only the conversion narrative of Bible-believing Christians that liberals find obnoxiously repellant. And the idea that a Bible-believing Christian might think themselves called to high public office . . .

Well, liberals just can’t handle that — at least when the self-identified Christian is a pro-life conservative Republican. It was OK for John F. Kennedy to be Catholic, it was OK for Jimmy Carter to be a Baptist, and it was OK for Barack Obama to be whatever it is you want to call devotees of what Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaches. But let a conservative Republican speak in public about his or her Christian faith, and liberals immediately start screaming about “theocracy.”

It’s like Ann Coulter says in Godless: Liberalism is a religion and abortion is its sacrament. Any Republican testifying to the gospel truth of Jesus Christ obviously isn’t a member of the Church of Liberalism, and so Michele Bachmann’s unapologetic expression of her faith is anathema to the liberal brain.

Of course, as Coulter elsewhere observed: If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans

‘The Lunatic Derby’

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SIOUX CITY, Iowa
“Bikers Welcome,” says the marquee in front of the Ramada Inn where I’m staying here. Certainly it would be interesting to have three or four dozen Hell’s Angels come roaring into town, terrorizing the locals, but I didn’t see any Harleys in the parking lot, so we’ll probably be spared that entertainment despite the gesture of hospitality from Ramada Inn management.

There’s a Walgreen’s pharmacy and a Perkins restaurant within walking distance of the motel, so I went to grab a newspaper and breakfast this morning. (A Sunday copy of the Sioux City Journal was $2 and breakfast was $13.02, so hit the tip jar.) Breakfast was two eggs over medium, corned beef hash, wheat toast, large orange juice and coffee.

The Sioux City Journal was kind of a disappointment: No news at all of the GOP primary campaign. Why? Perhaps this reflects the attitude expressed by a guy I talked to while waiting in line at Walgreen’s. When he learned I was a reporter in town to cover the campaign, he said: “The Ames straw poll? I call it, The Lunatic Derby.” Then he made some snotty remark about Michele Bachmann believing in UFOs.

A liberal, obviously. His disdain of the Ames Straw Poll is evidently shared by the local newspaper’s editors, whose lead editorial today begins:

In just six days, the political world – including some 700 members of the media — will descend on Ames, Iowa, for the officially insignificant but terribly critical Iowa Straw Poll. Someone will win, someone will lose, but they won’t necessarily be the actual winner or loser.

Sneering at the GOP campaign in an editorial is probably much easier than, y’know, assigning some reporters to cover it.

But what do I know about running a newspaper? Or politics, for that matter.

Anyway, the whole point of the Sioux City Journal‘s Sunday editorial is — I’m not making this up — John Thune for president.

Seriously. Continue reading ‘The Lunatic Derby’ →

The Santorum Family’s Iowa ‘Vacation’

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SIOUX CITY, Iowa
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum brought his entire family — his wife, Karen, and seven kids ages 3 to 20 — to Iowa for his three-week tour leading up to the Aug. 13 Ames Straw Poll. After yesterday’s “barn party” in Roland, I caught Santorum for a minute just before he left, running late for his next event:

Clark Griswold, eat your heart out!

You can check out the rest of Santorum’s Iowa schedule here.

Rick Santorum’s Iowa Barn Party

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ROLAND, Iowa
Rick Santorum just finished doing a “barn party” here at the home of Scott and Susan Hurd. While I have no firm estimate of how many eligible voters were in attendance, I can state officially that the number of kids was ginormous. Lots of big home-schooling families showed up — families with seven, eight, nine kids. Santorum is traveling with his own family of seven kids, so the super-size families certainly seem simpatico with the former Pennsylvania senator.

Also in attendance was local Republican Rep. Steve King, who introduced Santorum. The candidate spoke for nearly a half-hour and then took questions. I’ve got video, audio and notes, but that will take time to process, and I’m blogging this from a McDonald’s beside the I-35 exit and just want to get up a quick post with a few photos. Santorum noted that he has visited some 51 different cities in Iowa, with more than 100 stops. He spoke about the need to repeal ObamaCare and – in response to a question about foreign policy – gave a splendid account of Obama’s failures, going into some detail about Honduras. (How many candidates have you heard talk about Honduras? How many of people even know how Obama screwed over Honduras?) He was quite impressive, and I very much agree with Santorum’s complaint that the media has unfairly ignored his candidacy.

Santorum and his wife Karen talk with supporters. You can see Rep. King in the background.

Santorum talks on the phone with Lisa Graas, his No. 1 Twitter supporter, who was positively ecstatic about the chance to talk to her hero — on my cell phone.

Karen Santorum with her two oldest daughters, Sarah and Elizabeth. Right after I took this photo, Santorum’s press aide told me that the family are “off limits” to the media. But, of course, I’m just a friend of Lisa Graas, right? It’s not fair to treat me as “media.”

OK, so that’s it for now. I’ll have more later, but I’ve got to hit the road to Sioux City tonight. And you’ve got to hit the tip jar.

‘Streets’ and ‘Avenues’ in Rural Iowa

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ROLAND, Iowa
Rick Santorum’s schedule lists the address for his event this afternoon as 3275 400th Street. The Google Map directions to this location directed me to turn left onto 570th Avenue – which is a dirt road that runs between two cornfields. And after going a mile and a half, then I was directed to turn right onto 100th Street which is – you guessed it, didn’t you? – another dirt road between two cornfields. Here is a photo of the intersection:

Now, you may ask yourself: Why do Iowans endow their dirt roads with such seemingly grandiose names? My theory: The alternative would be to name the roads for people. But they’ve got more dirt roads than they’ve got people to name them after. And “Cornfield Road” wouldn’t be particularly distinctive, would it?

UPDATE: Linked by Don Surber and Simply Timothy — thanks — and you can see some photos of Rick Santorum’s barn party event here.

I Got Iowa, They Got the Virgin Islands

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DES MOINES — While I was rattling the tip-jar to pay for my Iowa trip, Democrats were spending your tax dollars on tropical vacations:

A nonprofit backed by U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.) spent more than $2 million in federal funds to provide environmental education to Philadelphia high school students — including trips to a resort in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
For three years, the Caribbean-American Mission for Research, Education, and Action ran an exchange program for students at Overbrook High School and two island high schools.
The Philadelphia students and their adult chaperones stayed at the Marriott Frenchman’s Reef beachfront resort, on what the hotel website calls a “luminous white sand beach framed with the majestic turquoise waters of the Caribbean.”
Fattah’s longtime friend James P. Baker Jr. was paid as much as $142,000 annually to run the organization, far more than usual for charities of that size. One federal audit said students on one trip spent “less than half” their time learning about the environment.

Thanks to Mike in Ardmore for the tip. When President Herman Cain appoints me to my prestigious tropical island diplomatic gig, I’ll institute an “environmental education” program for bloggers.

On the Scene in Iowa

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DES MOINES, Iowa — Friday, I visited the Iowa HQs of the Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain presidential campaigns, and then attended a Christian music festival in West Des Moines where Bachmann spoke.

Bachmann poses for a photo with a boy and his frog.

Bachmann poses for a photo with a family. The man in the background with the white beards is part of her security detail.

Bachmann shakes hands with a young admirer.

It was pouring rain most of the day at the Midwest Spirit Christian Music Festival, and these teenagers were covered in mud. On purpose.

Front door of Herman Cain’s Iowa campaign headquarters in Urbandale.

Michele Bachmann’s Iowa campaign HQ is right across the street from Cain HQ. Her bus was preparing to depart for an event in Dexter.

While Bachmann was on her bus tour, four other GOP hopefuls — Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Thad McCotter — were speaking last night at a local Republican dinner in Tiffin:

Reflecting the stakes of the straw poll, Santorum told the Friday night dinner crowd of about 400 activists the event would narrow the field and he urged them to give his struggling campaign a boost. He accused the media of ignoring him because he would be the strongest GOP candidate.

Let’s hope that Santorum’s rivals have the necessary sense of irony to appreciate that claim.

My next byline will be filed from somewhere on the road. My plan at this point — and plans may change en route — is to spend tonight in Sioux City, 200 miles west of here. Herman Cain’s bus tour begins Monday in Sioux City, and his advance team is arriving there tonight.

Let’s try the Santorum method: The media is ignoring me, so hit the freaking tip jar.




UPDATE: Changing schedule, making a detour: I just found out Santorum will be at a 4 p.m. event in Roland, Iowa. That’s not really not much of a detour on my way to Sioux City, so I’ll be there. My Twitter buddy Lisa Graas is a huge Santorum fan, and I don’t want to be accused of being part of the media that are ignoring Santorum on purpose.

Fear and Loathing at the Quality Inn

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DES MOINES, Iowa
Just got off the phone with Dale Peterson, who’s meeting with agriculture groups — including the Iowa Turkey Federation — on behalf of the Herman Cain campaign today. Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out the logistics for the rest of my trip.

Right now, I’m staying at the Quality Inn downtown, which is a nice enough place — free breakfast every morning in the restaurant — except that it’s across the highway from Mercy Hospital, and this means that many of the guests are relatives of patients being tended there. Yesterday, while I was waiting for the elevator, there was a lady talking on her cell phone, crying about her father who just had a heart attack and is in ICU at Mercy.

Speaking of people on life-support (this is what we journalists call a “transition”) the TV just showed this Tim Pawlenty ad again:

TV in Iowa is crammed full of these ads, as well as ads for Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann. I’ve posted all three at Right Wing News so you can watch them back-to-back, which is how they’re running during local cable breaks here on Fox News. Like the weeping relatives of ICU patients, these non-stop ads are bumming me out, so I’m going need to get back on the road.

Yesterday, Herman Cain made news during his appearance at the Greater Des Moines Partnership, as Karen Obradavich of the Register reports:

Herman Cain seemed to raise the bar Thursday for his performance in the Iowa Republican straw poll, saying he needs a top-three finish in the Aug. 13 event.
However, the presidential candidate added later that failure to reach that wouldn’t drive him out of the race.
“I don’t believe I have to win the straw poll, but I do believe I need to finish in the top three,” Cain said during a forum sponsored by the Greater Des Moines Partnership.
But when asked what would happen if he didn’t place third or better, he said, “We’re not going to stop. That’s just the desired place where we would like to finish, that’s in the top three. If we finish fourth or fifth, we’re going to evaluate that to determine what the implications are. So it’s not the end of the road, it’s just going to be a harder analysis that we would do to decide if we go forward.”

The stakes for Cain in the straw poll aren’t nearly as high as they are for Pawlenty, as I explain in my Spectator column:

While it is notoriously difficult to predict the outcome of that vote, a third-place finish for Cain at Ames would likely put him ahead of Pawlenty. At least one longtime Iowa GOP operative has said that, given how much Pawlenty has already invested in this state, his campaign’s viability would be in jeopardy if he didn’t place at least second at Ames. If Pawlenty actually were to place fourth — behind Cain, who wasn’t even considered a “first-tier” candidate three months ago — that likely would be seen as a humiliation for the former Minnesota governor. But that’s a huge “if,” and few Iowa observers expect Cain to place better than fifth at Ames.

Those of you who remember my lost $10 bet with Da Tech Guy last week understand why I don’t usually do predictions. But if Cain finishes ahead of Pawlenty at Ames . . . dude. Here are some photos from Cain’s visit yesterday:

The press corps at Cain’s appearance in Des Moines, including Craig Robinson of The Iowa Republican and Meghan Malloy of the Iowa Independent.

Cain talks to a local reporter at the Smokey Row Coffee shop in Oskaloosa.

I’ve got lots more photos and videos, but the slow WiFi connection makes it difficult to upload them in any kind of efficient fashion. And I’ve still got to figure out how and when I’m getting to Sioux City for the start of Herman Cain’s bus tour Monday. His advance team is supposed to arrive in Sioux City tomorrow night, but I need to catch up with Bachmann on the campaign trail.

My phone just rang with a tip from a source who says his Texas sources tell him that Rick Perry is going to unofficially announce this weekend that he’s going to make an official announcement next week. So the Phantom Menace looms even larger now and, even worse: I just ran out of cigarettes.

So I’m hitting the road and will report back later.