The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

When the Story Writes Itself

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 […]

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

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 […]

Republicans With Shotguns

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 — […]

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

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 […]

Greetings From Iowa

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 — […]

Memo From the National Affairs Desk: How’s the Weather Today in Vanuatu?

“Santorum is a social conservative, and everybody seems to have convinced themselves that social conservatives are a dead weight impeding the Republican Party and therefore no one should ever express support for any social conservative anywhere, under any circumstance.” — Robert Stacy McCain, “Slouching Toward Cedar Rapids” “How long, O Lord, how long? Where will […]

Hatin’ on the Hawkeye State, Or: Should Iowans Burn Jim Geraghty in Effigy?

Mob violence is rare in Iowa, but National Review‘s Jim Geraghty would be well-advised to avoid any gatherings of Hawkeye State Republicans after he blasphemed against the Sacred Caucuses this morning. A special kind of prejudice causes pundits to disparage the campaign Holy Trinity of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — the crucial early states that […]

Santorum Surge: It’s Real and Spectacular

For the past three weeks I’ve been wondering: Is it just me? Am I imagining things, or does Rick Santorum have a legitimate chance of scoring an upset in the Iowa GOP caucuses? Robert Costa of National Review today unloads 2,000 words of solid reporting on the subject, a few excerpts of which I’ll highlight: […]

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