Representative Bruce Braley e-mailed supporters this morning to confirm that he is “setting up a committee to run for the U.S. Senate.” Excerpts from the e-mail are after the jump.

I’ve also enclosed below the latest news on Karl Rove’s effort to prevent unelectable Republican candidates from winning U.S. Senate primaries. Iowa talk radio host Steve Deace wants conservatives to try to “beat Karl Rove at his own game.”

Representative Tom Latham (IA-03) told journalists in Washington yesterday that he is thinking about running for the U.S. Senate in 2014. He declined to specify when he will announce his plans, but he said he will “make my own decision” rather than be influenced by Representative Steve King (IA-04). Deirdre Walsh reported for CNN,

Pressed if he thinks a Senate bid by King could hurt the GOP’s chances of taking the seat – something other national Republicans have expressed concerns over – Latham told reporters outside the House floor that King is “a very viable member of Congress.”

If Latham wants the Senate seat, he would be advised to announce sooner rather than later. A few days ago, King told conservative talk radio host Larry O’Connor that he is “fifty-fifty” on running for the Senate seat. Click through to listen to King’s comments. In weighing his decision, he is considering “whether the energy is out there” to support his bid and “whether we can raise the money” for a statewide race. I still expect King to stay in IA-04, where he’s safe for the next decade, but he may be tempted to take on the Republican establishment.

The least likely scenario in my mind is Latham and King running against each other in a GOP primary. If one of them announces a Senate campaign, the other will stay out. A new Wenzel Strategies poll of “likely Republican primary voters” in Iowa found that King would be the early leader in a Senate primary, with Latham in second place and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds third. Public Policy Polling surveyed Iowa Republicans over the weekend and found King leading among moderates as well as among respondents who described themselves as “very conservative.”

UPDATE: I missed this story at the Rothenberg Political Report last night. Latham’s changing the name of his campaign committee from “Latham for Congress” to “Iowans for Latham.”

SECOND UPDATE: Michael Devine, a talk radio host for KVFD AM 1400 in Fort Dodge, posted on Facebook today, “Congressman Steve King told us this morning the chances are ‘better than 50 percent’ he will run for the Senate.”

THIRD UPDATE: Excerpts from Public Policy Polling’s latest Iowa poll findings are after the jump.

All signs point to Representative Bruce Braley running for Iowa’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2014, so I thought I’d put up a new thread to discuss scenarios in the first Congressional district.

Former Iowa House Speaker Pat Murphy plans to run in the Democratic primary for IA-01. I don’t think he’s as strong a candidate as either Senate President Pam Jochum or State Senator Liz Mathis would be, and it is long past time for Democrats to nominate a woman in an open seat that leans Democratic. The latest numbers from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office show that IA-01 contains 167,987 active registered Democrats, 140,227 Republicans, and 196,078 no-party voters.

On the Republican side, I am seeking comment about a possible Congressional bid from both Ben Lange and Rod Blum. Both ran against Braley in 2012; Blum narrowly lost the primary. Iowa Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix ran for IA-01 when it was last an open seat in 2006, but he has ruled out running for Congress next year as he tries to take back the Senate majority for the GOP. CORRECTION: Dix lives in Butler County, which used to be in IA-01 but is now in IA-04 under Iowa’s new map.

Any comments about the IA-01 campaign are welcome in this thread. A race between Blum and either Jochum or Murphy would be an all-Dubuque affair.

After a dismal performance by his political vehicles in 2012, the man once known as “Bush’s brain” is working to stop unelectable Republican candidates from winning GOP primaries in 2014. Jeff Zeleny reports in today’s New York Times that Karl Rove’s super-PAC American Crossroads is creating the “Conservative Victory Project.” One of Rove’s associates confirmed that stopping Representative Steve King from becoming the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Iowa will be a priority.

Details and toplines from the first poll on the open IA-Sen race are below.

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread. To get a conversation started, I posted a bunch of links about campaign finance after the jump, focusing on news related to Iowa’s 2014 contests for U.S. senator and governor.

At the end I included an old but “new to me” story about Ron Paul’s habit of double-billing travel expenses. What will his admirers in the Liberty movement say?

Representative Bruce Braley braved some pretty bad winter weather this morning to meet with Iowa House and Senate Democrats at the state capitol. I haven’t seen any details about his remarks, which were closed to the public and media. No doubt he is trying to gain early backing for a U.S. Senate candidacy. State Senator Steve Sodders posted on Facebook and twitter today, “Great morning speech today by Congressman Braley…I’m a supporter.” Sodders represents Iowa Senate district 36, which is part of the first Congressional district where Braley just won a fourth term in the U.S. House.

I’ll update this post later if any news leaks about the substance of Braley’s meetings today. My money’s on no serious Democratic primary opposition once he launches his Senate run. He told reporters that U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic Senate Campaign Committee Chair Michael Bennett have encouraged him to run for the seat Senator Tom Harkin is vacating.

Iowa politics watchers continue to chew over the possibilities for the open U.S. Senate race next year. To no one’s surprise, Governor Terry Branstad ruled out a Senate bid this morning, saying he’s never been interested in leaving Iowa to serve for six years in Washington, DC. Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds told journalists that she is focused on the Branstad administration’s agenda for Iowa but keeping her “options open” on the Senate race. Many other Republicans are thinking about it too, and only Representative Tom Latham has the potential to clear the field.

On the Democratic side, speculation continues to center around Representative Bruce Braley, who confirmed yesterday that he is considering running for Tom Harkin’s seat. If Braley takes on the Senate race, many Democrats expect State Senator Liz Mathis to run in the first Congressional district. She is well-known among Iowans in the Cedar Rapids television market, thanks to her previous career in news broadcasting. Senate President Pam Jochum of Dubuque said today that the IA-01 race is “something to think about.” Jochum indicated that to run and serve in Congress, she would need support for her developmentally disabled adult daughter, who lives with her.

Any comments related to the reshuffle in Iowa politics are welcome in this thread. UPDATE: Also no surprise: Democratic State Senator Matt McCoy of Des Moines would consider running in IA-03 if Latham goes for the Senate seat.

SECOND UPDATE: Iowa Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix ruled out running for either the U.S. Senate or IA-01 in 2014. Dix left the Iowa House in 2006 to run for the open seat in IA-01, but finished second in the GOP primary. Further updates are after the jump.

Terrible news for Iowa Democrats: Senator Tom Harkin told Tom Beaumont of the Associated Press that he will retire rather than seek re-election in 2014. Not only will there be an open seat at the top of the ticket, the Iowa Democratic Party won’t be able to count on Harkin’s millions to fund a decent coordinated GOTV campaign in a midterm election year. Even if Democrats manage to win that statewide race while Governor Terry Branstad’s also on the ballot, we will lose an Iowan in charge of a powerful Senate committee. Incoming Iowa Democratic Party Chair Tyler Olson has a difficult road ahead.

Representative Bruce Braley is likely to run for Harkin’s seat, and unless either Tom or Christie Vilsack is interested, the primary would probably be uncontested. The silver lining here is a chance to elect a woman to Congress in IA-01. Iowa Senate President Pam Jochum would be my first choice, but there are many capable Democratic women in those 20 counties.

An excerpt from Braley’s appearance on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” this weekend is after the jump. I’ll post further updates there. UPDATE: Much more is below, including the statement from Harkin’s office.

The National Republican Congressional Committee released a memo today outlining a strategy to “stay on offense” during the 2014 electoral cycle. No Iowa district is among the top seven NRCC targets, but the districts currently represented by Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02) are on the long list of 45 seats Republicans see a chance to pick up.

Today’s Sunday Des Moines Register features a long story by Jennifer Jacobs about Representative Bruce Braley considering a run for governor in 2014.  

Members of Congress are in Washington today trying to make last-minute deals to avoid supposedly dire consequences on January 1. So far it appears likely that some kind of one-year extension of current farm policies will pass in order to avoid a huge price spike for milk and problems for agricultural producers. UPDATE: A nine-month farm bill extension was added to the fiscal cliff bill.

Lots of plans are floating around to deal with the so-called “fiscal cliff”: Bush income tax cuts (last extended for two years in December 2010) are set to expire, along with lower payroll tax and estate tax rates. Meanwhile, various budget cuts are due to go into effect in January, including a “sequester” of federal spending on defense and other programs but also lower Medicare payments to doctors. At this point, I would be surprised if we don’t go over the cliff, and I agree with Senator Tom Harkin that no deal is better than a bad deal.

I will update this post throughout the day and evening with news on Congressional voting. After the jump I’ve enclosed some links on the latest proposals floating around the Capitol. Tremendous hypocrisy is on display. If deficit hawks believed their own propaganda, they would embrace higher taxes and lower spending to solve this supposedly dire threat to the U.S. economy. UPDATE: More news is below.

All signs point toward U.S. Senator Tom Harkin seeking a sixth term in 2014. He loves his policy work and even passed up a chance to chair the Senate Appropriations Committee in order to continue as head of the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. In a December 27 e-mail blast from his campaign committee, Harkin indicated that he will “never stop” fighting for the middle class, even though certain “special interests” would love to send him “into early retirement.” Citizens for Harkin finance director Jeremy Gold sent out another fundraising e-mail on December 29, including phrases like “We don’t know for sure who will challenge Tom” and “Republicans are already lining up to challenge Tom.”

I don’t know about Republicans “lining up” to run against Harkin. Early handicappers inside the beltway consider this race a “likely Democrat” hold, and I agree for reasons Bleeding Heartland discussed here. Iowa’s ambitious Secretary of State Matt Schultz already took himself out of contention as a challenger to Harkin in 2014. I would be shocked if either U.S. Representative Tom Latham (IA-03 in the new Congress) or Steve King (IA-04) gave up a safe House seat to be a long-shot in a statewide race. Public Policy Polling found Harkin leading both Latham and King in an October 2011 survey. A poll by the same firm last month found Harkin leading a generic Republican opponent by 48 percent to 40 percent.

Any speculation about Harkin’s re-election campaign is welcome in this thread.

U.S. Senator Tom Harkin has launched a petition drive urging President Barack Obama “to stand strong and protect the middle class in the fiscal ‘cliff’ negotiations.”

Public Policy Polling’s last Iowa survey before the general election suggests that both Governor Terry Branstad and Senator Tom Harkin are favored looking ahead to possible re-election campaigns in 2014.  

Republican Mitt Romney leads President Barack Obama in Public Policy Polling’s latest survey of likely voters in Iowa by 49 percent to 48 percent. For Romney, that’s a big improvement since PPP polled Iowa in late September and a much better finding than yesterday’s poll from NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist.

PPP’s new poll also suggests Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins might not be retained. More details are below.

UPDATE: On October 21, PPP released a different Iowa poll conducted during the same period, which showed Obama leading Romney by 49 percent to 48 percent. I’ve added excerpts from that polling memo at the end of this post.

Many Iowa Democrats have been expecting Senator Tom Harkin to retire when his current term expires in 2014. However, the chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions indicated yesterday that he plans to run for re-election at least one more time.

This summer, the Libertarian Party in Iowa embarked on a “10 percent strategy,” hoping to win 2 percent of the vote for governor in order to secure major-party status in 2012. Iowa lacks a tradition of strong third-party voting like our neighbor to the north, and the unofficial results indicate that no alternative to Terry Branstad and Chet Culver cleared the 2 percent threshold in the governor’s race. Iowa Party candidate Jonathan Narcisse came closer to that mark than Libertarian Eric Cooper.

Although no third party is set up to have a larger statewide impact in 2012, minor party candidates received an unusually high share of the vote in some areas. In a few races, the votes for third-party candidates exceeded the difference between the Democrat and the Republican.

Time for a new thread on the statewide election results. I haven’t dug into the county-level returns in the governor’s race yet, but Chet Culver didn’t even carry Polk County, which he won with a 21,000 vote margin in 2006. Culver did carry Johnson County, but by a much smaller margin than in 2006. What happened in your area, Bleeding Heartland readers?

UPDATE: Culver carried only eight counties: Black Hawk (Waterloo/Cedar Falls area), Linn (Cedar Rapids), Johnson (Iowa City), Dubuque, Des Moines (Burlington area), Lee (Ft. Madison/Keokuk), Story (Ames), and Jefferson (Fairfield). Culver almost carried Floyd County, where Republicans easily won House district 14. I guess Charles City loves I-JOBS! LATE UPDATE: The unofficial results indicate that Culver did carry Floyd County (barely), by fewer than 100 votes.

Branstad carried Wapello County (Ottumwa) for the first time. In his 1994 landslide victory, Bonnie Campbell carried only four counties: Story, Johnson, Des Moines and Wapello.

The down-ticket Democrats had a lot of ground to make up with Chuck Grassley winning the U.S. Senate race 64 percent to 33 percent and Terry Branstad winning 53 percent to 43 percent. Secretary of State Michael Mauro outperformed Culver, which he wasn’t able to do in 2006, but still fell short against Matt Schultz. It’s a shame to see such a competent public official lose in a wave election. Iowa will continue to benefit from his work to make voting more accessible and secure, with paper ballots. I expect the new legislature to act on Schultz’s top priority, photo ID requirements, and I wonder if they will also revoke same-day voter registration.

Iowa Republicans didn’t miss many targets, but I think they overlooked an opportunity by not investing in the state treasurer’s race. Michael Fitzgerald won his eighth term by an unusually narrow (for him) margin: just under 53 percent to 47 percent. A few hundred thousand dollars thrown toward Dave Jamison’s campaign could have won that race. Jamison didn’t have the resources to improve his name identification or make his case against Fitzgerald. Last year some conservative blogger, it may have been Krusty, said Christian Fong should have challenged Fitzgerald instead of running for governor as a 32-year-old. With his background in finance, his connections to major Republican fundraisers, and his roots in both eastern and western Iowa, Fong might have outperformed Jamison.

Tom Miller winning more than 55 percent of the vote was such a relief. The Republicans threw everything they had at him, and he ran a non-existent campaign until the final month, but he still defeated Brenna Findley convincingly. Miller even carried Woodbury County, where Republicans romped. Now he can get back to work on state attorneys’ coordinated investigation of foreclosure practices:

Mr. Miller’s status as a point man in the multistate investigation has been seen by many observers as a sign that the states will push for a sweeping settlement requiring lenders to implement mortgage modifications allowing homeowners to stay in their houses.

Mr. Miller, who has monitored mortgage-industry practices for years, had already begun discussions with some lenders, including Bank of America. In one meeting last week at Mr. Miller’s office, he and officials from other states told Bank of America executives and outside lawyers that state attorneys general would like additional aid to be offered to borrowers, such as further principal reductions on certain delinquent loans where people owe much more than what their homes are worth, according to people familiar with the meeting.

Doubt Findley would have been interested in seeking concessions from corporations to people underwater on their mortgages.

Environmentalists lost a few supporters in the Iowa Senate last night, but today many advocates are cheering the passage of the Iowa Water and Land Legacy trust fund amendment. I wouldn’t count on that fund being filled anytime soon, and I don’t support a regressive sales tax increase. However, it’s good to know that if Branstad follows through on plans to shift from income taxes to consumption taxes, he won’t be able to avoid allocating more money to soil and water conservation. The big margin of victory for this amendment (62.7 percent yes, 37.3 percent no) was also a blow to the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation’s prestige. Farm Bureau never opposed this amendment the two times state legislators passed it nearly unanimously, and a Farm Bureau representative was on the group that helped shape the amendment wording. For some reason, Farm Bureau decided late in the game to made a play to stop this amendment. In doing so, they disappointed some sympathetic legislators and enraged conservatives who backed a constitutional convention. The Farm Bureau’s messaging urged a no vote on the constitutional convention question as well as the soil and water trust fund.

Please share your thoughts about any of last night’s election results in your town, county or beyond. Iowa City voters upheld the 21-only bar ordinance, by the way.

Feel free to comment on races from outside Iowa that caught your eye. A few U.S. Senate seats haven’t been called, but the chamber seems likely to have 53 Democrats and 47 Republicans. Republicans will pick up between 60 and 70 House seats, meaning they will hold 240 to 250 seats in the new chamber (218 are needed for a majority). Republicans are on track to hold about 30 governorships, although several states have yet to be decided. Republicans swept Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, assuring that they can replicate their successful gerrymanders of those states. Florida approved ballot measures that were designed to limit gerrymandering, but opponents may challenge those rules in court. Florida will still have a Republican governor and legislature, but if the ballot measures stand Democrats may make gains at the state level and in Congressional districts.

Democrats did better in some states (Connecticut, California, West Virginia) than in most others, but a common thread was Republican gains among independents, working-class whites and suburban voters. For instance, Joe Sestak fell just short in the Pennsylvania Senate race, losing to Pat Toomey 51 percent to 49 percent. He did as well in Philadelphia as Bob Casey did four years ago, but couldn’t match Casey’s performance in other parts of the state.

The Republican campaign for president will start winding up any day now, so get ready for more Iowa visitors. On that note, one person who has been touted as a presidential prospect, Mike Pence, may be laying the groundwork to run for governor of Indiana instead.

If the Des Moines Register’s new Iowa poll is accurate, Senator Chuck Grassley will cruise to re-election by a similar margin to his last four victories. However, Roxanne Conlin hasn’t thrown in the towel. She spent the final weekend campaigning around the state with Governor Chet Culver and other Democrats. Her schedule is packed for Monday too. Grassley hasn’t held many public events in the past week, but you can hardly turn on a television in Iowa without seeing one of his commercials.

As usual, most Iowa newspapers have endorsed Grassley for re-election, including the Des Moines Register, Cedar Rapids Gazette, Mason City Globe-Gazette, Sioux City Journal, Dubuque Telegraph-Herald and Quad-City Times. Rare exceptions include the Iowa City Press-Citizen (“Conlin can become the senator that Grassley should be by now”) and the Burlington Hawk-Eye (“Roxanne Conlin has not earned this endorsement so much as Grassley has turned his back on it”).

Bleeding Heartland discussed the Senate candidates’ only debate here. It looked like a tie to me, which is as good as a win for the candidate who’s ahead. Closing tv ads and campaign themes for Grassley and Conlin are after the jump.

The latest Iowa poll for the Des Moines Register finds Republicans leading the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races and Iowa’s Supreme Court justices likely to be ousted. Selzer and Co sampled 805 likely Iowa voters between October 26 and 29.

Terry Branstad leads Governor Chet Culver 50 percent to 38 percent. That’s down from a 19-point lead in the Register’s September poll, but still a comfortable advantage. Culver’s campaign released an internal poll last week showing a much tighter race, with Branstad ahead 46-40. I had assumed Republican internal polling also showed Culver gaining, because the Cook Political Report just shifted its rating on the Iowa’s governor’s race from safe Republican to leaning Republican. I don’t think they would make that rating change if private polling showed Branstad at 50 percent with a double-digit lead.

Kathie Obradovich blogged tonight that Culver leads by 9 percent among respondents who had already voted, even though he trails by 12 percent among the whole sample. The Register’s other piece on the new poll refers to “the electorate’s conservative profile” but gives no details about the partisan breakdown of the sample. I will update this post if more details emerge about the poll’s demographics.

Selzer and Co found Senator Chuck Grassley leading Roxanne Conlin 61 percent to 30 percent, virtually the same margin as in the Register’s September Iowa poll.

The news for Iowa Supreme Court justices wasn’t much better:

A third of likely Iowa voters say they will vote to retain Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Justices David Baker and Michael Streit. Thirty-seven percent say they will vote to remove all three. Ten percent plan to retain some. The rest either don’t plan to vote on judicial retention or haven’t made up their minds.

I thought it was foolish for the anti-retention groups to feature Representative Steve King in their radio commercials, but if voters throw out the judges, King will be able to take some credit.

Obradovich didn’t give poll numbers for the Congressional races but noted, “Mariannette Miller-Meeks appears to have the best chance of any of the GOP challengers to unseat an incumbent Democrat.” That would be quite an achievement, since Iowa’s second district has the strongest Democratic lean. However, Miller-Meeks has been campaigning hard, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s latest commercial against her is atrocious. It wouldn’t surprise me if that ad drives more voters toward Miller-Meeks than toward incumbent Dave Loebsack.

Iowa Democrats need to get out the vote and hope the Register’s poll contains faulty assumptions about who will turn out on Tuesday.

UPDATE: One positive sign for Loebsack is the large lead Democrats have in early voting in the IA-02 counties (pdf file).

SECOND UPDATE: The best news in the poll: Tom Miller 45, Brenna Findley 34.

Findley, a 34-year-old Dexter lawyer and tea party favorite, has spent more on advertising than Miller, who was first elected in 1978. However, Miller leads Findley among independent voters by 20 percentage points and nets a larger share of support from Democrats than Findley receives from Republicans.

Senator Chuck Grassley and Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin are debating at 7 pm tonight on WHO Radio in Des Moines. Iowa Public Television will broadcast the debate statewide at 9 pm.

I’ll update this post later with my thoughts about the debate. Meanwhile, I encourage Bleeding Heartland readers to weigh in on the debate or the Senate race in general.

LATE UPDATE: I forgot to post my notes on the debate, but they are now after the jump. The short version is, I think both candidates did fairly well and gave their supporters reasons to stick with them. Conlin kept Grassley on the defensive, but he seemed to have answers to most of her criticisms. Since she is behind in the race and needs to win over undecided voters and Grassley leaners, a tie in the debate is for all practical purposes a win for Grassley. I suspect being able to refer to notes during this debate helped him greatly improve on his performance during the candidates’ joint appearance on Iowa Public Television last month.

If you missed the debate, Kay Henderson’s write-up is worth a read.

With so many Democratic incumbents around the country endangered this year, U.S. Senate candidate Roxanne Conlin hasn’t received much campaign assistance from Democratic organizations outside Iowa or their allies. That changed this week when the advocacy groups Democracy for America and Progressive Campaign Change Committee started running a 60-second television commercial targeting Republican Senator Chuck Grassley.

Unfortunately, the ad fails to make a persuasive case against sending Grassley back to Washington.

Follow me after the jump to watch the new commercial, along with more Grassley and Conlin campaign ads.

Senator Chuck Grassley and Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin both launched new television commercials today, their first in a couple of weeks.

Videos and transcripts are after the jump.

From time to time I enjoy pondering counterfactual history questions like “Should the Republicans have nominated Romney in 2008?” or “Could Clinton or Edwards have beaten Obama in Iowa?”

Since establishment Republicans suffered shocking losses last month in the Delaware and Alaska U.S. Senate primaries, another question has been on my mind. Could a primary challenger have taken out or seriously threatened Senator Chuck Grassley in Iowa?

The National Rifle Association released its complete list of Iowa endorsements late last week. Though the announcement didn’t receive as much media coverage as the group’s backing for Democratic Governor Chet Culver, announced a few days earlier, I found some of the choices interesting. Like the Iowa Corn Growers Association, the NRA has a policy of endorsing incumbents who have supported the group’s agenda, regardless of party. (In contrast, the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation endorsed almost exclusively Republicans this year, passing over many Democrats in the state legislature who have supported that group’s agenda.)

The NRA Iowa endorsements and candidate ratings candidates are here. Some highlights are after the jump.

Senator Chuck Grassley has a solid lead over Democrat Roxanne Conlin in the latest Iowa poll for the Des Moines Register. Among 550 likely voters Selzer and Co surveyed between September 19 and 22, 61 percent said they would vote for Grassley and just 30 percent for Conlin if the election were held today.  

More details from the poll, along with Grassley’s latest television commercials and other news from the race, can be found after the jump.

UPDATE: Scroll to the bottom for videos and transcripts of two new ads Grassley’s campaign released on September 27.

SEPTEMBER 28 UPDATE: The latest Iowa Senate poll by Republican pollster Rasmussen sees Grassley well ahead of Conlin, but by a 55 percent to 37 percent margin.

Back when George W. Bush was president, Republicans assailed any vote against any military funding bill as not supporting our troops on the battlefield. But the Republican caucus was united yesterday as the Senate voted 56-43 to block debate on this year’s Defense Authorization Act. The bill included a compromise likely to lead to lifting the ban on gays openly serving in the military. Even Republican Susan Collins of Maine, who says she’s for repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, stuck with her caucus over complaints about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s restrictions on amendments during debate over the bill. One amendment Reid had planned to allow would have added the DREAM Act to the defense authorization bill. The DREAM Act “would allow undocumented students brought to America as children to earn a path to citizenship through completion of higher education or military service.”

Only two Democrats sided with Republicans to block debate on this bill: Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. (Reid switched his vote to “no” at the last minute for procedural reasons, so he would be able to bring it up again later this year.) Lincoln’s excuse was the same as Collins’: she claimed to be for the DREAM Act and the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell compromise, but was angered by limits on amendments during the debate. Senate procedure is more important to these people than civil rights. At least Lincoln’s going to lose her re-election campaign anyway.

Although President Barack Obama has said he’s for repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, there’s no indication he or other White House officials lifted a finger to influence yesterday’s vote in the Senate. Nor did the president accuse those who blocked debate of undercutting soldiers at war, the way George Bush surely would have done in similar circumstances.

In Iowa, critics of Senator Chuck Grassley reacted quickly to his vote blocking debate on the defense bill. A statement from One Iowa accused him of compromising military readiness:

“Senator Grassley should stop playing politics with our national security,” said One Iowa Executive Director Carolyn Jenison. “Gay and lesbian servicemembers provide additional expertise and skills the military needs. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell compromises the integrity of our armed sources and puts gay servicemembers at risk.”

Although Democratic Senate candidate Roxanne Conlin has long advocated civil equality for gays and lesbians, her campaign strangely sidestepped the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell angle in its statement yesterday:

“This is just one more inexcusable vote from Iowa’s senior Senator,” said Paulee Lipsman, spokesperson for the United States Senate campaign of Roxanne Conlin.  “His action denies a pay raise for the very men and women who are risking their lives for their country in the Middle East.  These families should not have to be on food stamps while a member of their family is off fighting in Afghanistan. Grassley’s vote denies better health care for those who are wounded.  It denies better equipment for those in combat.”

“Over the past two years, Senator Grassley has followed the advice of Senator Jim DeMint that Republicans block everything proposed by the Obama administration.  This partisanship is why Washington is broken.”

Key provisions of the bill include:

·         Authorize an across the board 1.4% pay raise for the military.

·         Improve the quality of life of the men and women of the all-volunteer force (active duty, National Guard and Reserves) and their families through fair pay, policies and benefits, including first rate health care, and address the needs of the wounded, ill, and injured service members and their families.

·         Provide our servicemen and women with the resources, training, technology, equipment (especially force protection) and authorities they need to succeed in combat and stability operations.

·         Enhance the capability of the Armed Forces to conduct counterinsurgency operations and apply the lessons of Iraq to Afghanistan, as appropriate.

I don’t think Grassley was proud of this vote. His Senate office put out several press releases yesterday, but nothing on the Defense Authorization Act.

Share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

UPDATE: During her September 22 meeting with the Sioux City Journal editorial board, Conlin called for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to be overturned:

Closeted gays ably serve in the military today, she said, but cited that 13,000 have left service at a time when the military needs positions filled by well-prepared Americans.

“We are granting waivers to convicted felons and we are throwing out people, experienced West Point graduates. It makes no sense,” Conlin said.

She continued: “It is not as though, right now, gay people are not serving. They are, they’re there, they’re fighting for us, they are dying for us. The only question is – can they do it without living a lie? The answer to that, in the United States of America, has to be ‘yes.’ “

One of the simplest ways to boost electricity production from renewable sources, rather than fossil fuels, would be to adopt a federal renewable electricity standard (RES). About 30 states, including Iowa, already have some form of RES, requiring utilities to produce a certain percentage of electricity from renewable sources. The demise of broad climate change legislation in the U.S. Senate in favor of a pathetically watered-down energy bill appeared to end hopes for the RES in this Congress. However, three Republicans and six Democrats today announced a new bill that, in their view, could gain support from enough senators to break a filibuster:

The RES, from lead co-sponsors Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), hews closely to the standard passed in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee last year. Beginning in 2012, utilities will be required to draw 3 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. The percentage scales up to 15 percent by 2021, where it would remain through 2039.

Wind, solar, ocean, geothermal, biomass, new hydropower, and gas drawn from landfills would all qualify as renewable under the standard. States will also be allowed to meet a little more than a quarter of the requirement by improving efficiency at power plants. The definition is expanded somewhat from the version included in a larger energy package that Bingaman’s committee approved in June 2009.

The Bingaman/Brownback proposal is a weaker RES than what the U.S. needs to reduce fossil fuel pollution, but passing it would be better than doing nothing. Kate Sheppard reports that the new bill has six Democratic supporters and three Republicans: Brownback, John Ensign of Nevada, and Susan Collins of Maine.

Senator Chuck Grassley has supported RES legislation in the past, but the Politico’s Josh Voorhees reported today,

Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, who could be in play, also has yet to sign on to the effort. He told reporters last week that while he is a long-time supporter of an RES, he’s unwilling to join Democrats in voting for one unless a healthy number of his GOP colleagues do as well. “I’m not going to be a part of one or two Republicans, get 60 votes, so they can have a partisan victory,” he said in the Capitol.

For the moment let’s forget about the environmental benefits of generating more renewable electricity, and the health benefits of reducing our reliance on coal combustion. Iowa’s economy could benefit tremendously from federal law that requires utilities to invest more in renewables. Not only is Iowa the number two state for wind energy production, we have a growing number of people manufacturing equipment for wind turbines. Iowa also has good potential for solar power.

Grassley would turn his back on a bill that’s good for his constituents and the country as a whole, because he doesn’t want to be among a small group handing Senate Democrats “a partisan victory.”

Small-minded stuff for the senator whose campaign slogan is “Grassley works…for us.”

Iowans can contact Grassley’s offices in Washington (phone 202-224-3744, fax 202-224-6020) or in Des Moines (phone 515-288-1145, fax 515-288-5097) to urge him to co-sponsor the Bingaman/Brownback bill.

Democratic Senate candidate Roxanne Conlin supports a federal RES and other policies to increase renewable energy production.

UPDATE: Grassley confirmed on September 23 that he is co-sponsoring this bill. Good for him.

Democrat Roxanne Conlin launched her first television commercial in the U.S. Senate general election campaign yesterday, highlighting Chuck Grassley’s vote for the Wall Street bailout in 2008 and tax breaks for companies that move manufacturing overseas.

The ad, transcript and other thoughts about the Senate race are after the jump.

UPDATE: I’ve added the Conlin campaign’s response to one of Grassley’s new tv ads too.

Less than a week after his first general election television ads went on the air across Iowa, Senator Chuck Grassley launched two new commercials today.

The first ad is the most brazen image make-over I’ve seen in a while, casting Grassley as a brave warrior against drug companies. The other commercial touts the way Grassley uses new media to keep in touch with constituents.

Videos, transcripts, and more are after the jump.

UPDATE: I’ve also added the Conlin campaign’s response to one of these ads.

After watching this weekend’s “Iowa Press” program on Iowa Public Television, I’m not surprised Senator Chuck Grassley has been ducking debates with Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin. You can view the 30-minute program or read the full transcript here. Conlin had Grassley on the defensive several times during the program, not only for refusing to debate her, but also for helping to create the federal deficit he now rails against:

This whole idea of tax cuts for the wealthy being the key to economic vibrancy is just plain wrong, we tried that, that’s what got us where we are.  We’ve got to solve the deficit problem that Senator Grassley, Senator Grassley as chair of the finance committee created a lot of the problem with the deficit, two tax cuts for the very wealthy. […]

Two tax cuts mostly benefiting the very wealthy passed by Senator Grassley, chair of the committee, not a dime paid for.  Two wars fought on the credit card.  Medicare Part D which includes that crazy provision that we can’t negotiate prices with the drug companies.  Those were under Senator Grassley’s finance committee and resulted in $1.3 trillion dollars a year of deficit.

Conlin also pointed out that Grassley used to support the individual health insurance mandate he now claims is unconstitutional. When he accused her of supporting amnesty for undocumented immigrants, she pointed out, “There’s only one person in this room who has voted for amnesty and that is Senator Grassley, not just once but twice.  In 1982 he introduced a bill for amnesty.”

Grassley tried to link Conlin to Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He also claimed she supports regulations and tax increases that would kill jobs. As for his refusal to debate Conlin, he said he frequently takes questions on the issues from Iowa reporters and from members of the public.

I mostly agree with Kathie Obradovich, who wrote, “Conlin scored the deepest cuts on Grassley and got only scratches in return.”

Grassley’s most successful gambits against Conlin were on job creation. He accused her of supporting what he called job-destroying legislation such as cap and trade, ending the Bush tax cuts for people over $250,000 in income and shutting down offshore oil drilling.

But he lost his momentum when Conlin countered that Grassley, as Finance Committee chairman, contributed to the deficit by supporting the Bush tax cuts without an offsetting spending cut and spending for two wars. He scoffed that she must not know that the Finance Committee doesn’t appropriate money.

“Aren’t you a senator?” Conlin shot back. “Didn’t you vote?”

An unclear question led to an odd statement from Grassley. Asked whether President George. W. Bush was wrong on Iraq, Conlin said he was wrong to start the war. Grassley, however, responded: “I think the fact the president (Obama) declared victory two weeks ago and brought the troops home is evidence that it was not wrong.” It left me wondering how the war’s end could justify the beginning.

The 30-minute limit wasn’t kind to Grassley. It takes him longer than Conlin to make his points and he seemed to get frustrated when a reporter tried to cut him off. He came off as angry, while Conlin looked composed. Iowa Public Television offered to make the show an hour long, but Grassley declined. That was a mistake.

Grassley didn’t look at Conlin during the television program, nor did he mention her name. After the taping, Radio Iowa’s Kay Henderson asked him about that:

I was one of the reporters in the studio for the taping of today’s “Iowa Press” show, and during the news conference with Grassley I asked:  “Senator, I know Dean, Mike and I are very compelling figures, but you never once looked at Roxanne Conlin during the entirety of the show.  What were you signalling with that body language?”

“Nothing,” Grassley said in reply.

Lynn Campbell of IowaPolitics.com then asked another question.  “Senator, how confident are you about your reelection this November and how would you describe the challenge from Ms. Conlin versus the other five elections you’ve faced?”

Grassley said this to Campbell:  “I’ll have you repeat the question.”

Then Grassley directed his comments back to me:  “I wish you had told me because I would have been very happy to look at her.  She’s a very nice looking woman.  She’s very intelligent.  I have nothing against looking at her, but I thought I ought to concentrate on the people who were asking the questions because from your body language I learned a lot.”

The assembly of reporters laughed.

Grassley makes some really odd comments sometimes.

In other news this weekend, the “big game” between Iowa and Iowa State turned into a blowout. Congratulations to Hawkeyes and condolences to Cyclones in the Bleeding Heartland community.

This is an open thread. What’s on your mind?

Senator Chuck Grassley launched two new campaign advertisements on Tuesday, his first television commercials since a 30-second spot that aired shortly before the June primary. Like that first ad, both new commercials say nothing about conservative policy stands or opposing President Obama’s agenda. They don’t even mention his party affiliation. Instead, they depict the senator as a hard worker who has stayed connected to Iowa and works for all of his constituents.

Videos and more analysis are after the jump.

The Iowa Corn Growers Assocation’s political action committee announced its support for 66 Iowa candidates today. Unlike the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, which endorsed 64 Republicans and just three Democrats, the Corn Growers’ PAC is supporting 33 candidates from each party.

For the governor’s race, the corn growers took the unusual step of endorsing both Governor Chet Culver and his Republican opponent, Terry Branstad. Nearly all of the other endorsed candidates are incumbents: Republican Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey, Senator Chuck Grassley, and all five U.S. House incumbents: Democrats Bruce Braley, Leonard Boswell and Dave Loebsack, and Republicans Tom Latham and Steve King. Boswell’s campaign was quick to hail the endorsement in a press release, with Boswell promising to use his position on the House Agriculture Committee to be a strong voice for farmers and ethanol producers. Boswell’s first campaign advertisement this year focused on Republican challenger Brad Zaun’s pledge to do “nothing” to help Iowa’s biofuels industry.

The Corn Growers’ PAC endorsed 17 candidates for Iowa Senate, 10 Democrats and 7 Republicans. In races expected to be competitive, the corn growers are backing Democrats Rich Olive in district 5, Staci Appel in district 37, both candidates in district 9 (incumbent Democrat Bill Heckroth and Republican Bill Dix), and both candidates in district 45 (incumbent Democrat Becky Schmitz and Republican Sandy Greiner). Dix and Greiner have served in the Iowa legislature before.

All 40 Iowa House candidates endorsed by the corn growers are incumbents. Republicans have a slight edge with 22 endorsed candidates, but many of the 18 Democrats on the list hold seats the GOP is targeting: McKinley Bailey (district 9), John Beard (district 16), Andrew Wenthe (district 18), Bob Kressig (district 19), Ray Zirkelbach (district 31), Donovan Olson (district 48), Eric Palmer (district 75), Nathan Reichert (district 80) and Michael Reasoner (district 95). The Corn Growers’ PAC did not make an endorsement in any of the open-seat Iowa House races.

The Iowa Corn Growers Association press release containing the full list of endorsed candidates is after the jump.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that the Iowa Farmers Union gave Culver its “Friend of the Farmer award last week.  According to the Marshalltown Times-Republican, “Gregg Heide, vice president of the IFU, said Culver’s backing of the Iowa Power Fund, renewable energy and biofuels were the main reasons he was being honored.”

It’s been months since we’ve had new public nonpartisan polling of Iowa general election matchups, but three Republican polls have come out in the last ten days. None of them hold good news for Iowa Democrats.

After the jump I summarize results from statewide polls done by Rasmussen Reports and Voter/Consumer Research for The Iowa Republican blog, as well as a Victory Enterprises poll of Iowa’s third Congressional district race.

Democracy for America, the organization Howard Dean created after his unsuccessful presidential bid in 2004, has officially endorsed Democrat Roxanne Conlin in her campaign against U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley. Blog for Iowa’s Trish Nelson posted the e-mail blast DFA sent to its supporters. Excerpt:

We need to restore a civil political dialogue in Iowa and Roxanne Conlin is exactly what Iowa needs after 30 years of Chuck Grassley. She’s a fighter who will stand up for Iowans, like she did as Assistant Attorney General and U.S. Attorney. When an Iowa teacher was fired for being pregnant, she took that woman’s case all the way to the state Supreme Court – and won.

Roxanne will go the extra mile and it’s that work ethic that is going to earn her the votes to win in November. Now, we need to provide her with the resources to fight back against one of the Senate’s most entrenched Republicans.

Democracy for America has more than a million members, and as of Tuesday morning, the organization had already raised more than $14,000 for Conlin’s campaign. She can use the help, because Grassley has a big cash on hand advantage.

While looking around the DFA site I noticed a lot of support for Francis Thicke’s campaign for secretary of agriculture among DFA’s Iowa members. That network could become an important source of volunteer energy for the Thicke and Conlin campaigns.

Candidates for federal offices were required to submit Federal Election Commission reports on campaign fundraising and expenditures by July 15. Those reports covered money raised and spent between May 20 and June 30. “Pre-primary” reports, which were due in late May, covered the period from April 1 through May 19.

The second quarter numbers are particularly important for challengers, who need to show that they will have the resources to wage serious district-wide or statewide campaigns. Although candidates continue to raise money during the third quarter, they typically have less time for fundraising as they spend more time campaigning. Mike Glover of the Associated Press noted, “The cash-on-hand numbers are closely watched by strategists because candidates traditionally use the summer months to build up a cash reserve that they begin spending on television advertisements around Labor Day.”

Follow me after the jump for the second quarter numbers.  

The Senate passed the final version of new financial regulations yesterday. Senator Chuck Grassley voted against the cloture motion to allow the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 to come to the floor, and later voted against the bill itself, as did all Senate Republicans except for Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine. Senator Tom Harkin voted to overcome the Republican filibuster attempt and for the bill itself, as did all other Senate Democrats except Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.

Grassley had joined Snowe, Collins and Brown in voting for the Senate’s original financial reform bill in May. After the jump I’ve posted Grassley’s official statement explaining his reasons for opposing the bill that emerged from the House/Senate conference committee.

Statements from Harkin and Grassley’s Democratic opponent, Roxanne Conlin, are also posted below.

Alison Vekshin of Bloomberg News and Annie Lowrey of the Washington Independent briefly summarized the bill’s provisions; click here for the full text. On balance, passing this bill is better than doing nothing, but too many important reforms were excluded from the package or watered down in conference. I also agree with former Clinton cabinet official Robert Reich, who argued here that the bill is too narrow in scope:

The White House and Democratic leaders could have described the overarching goal as overhauling economic institutions that bestow outsize rewards on a relative few while imposing extraordinary costs and risks on almost everyone else. Instead, they have defined the goal narrowly: reducing risks to the financial system caused by particular practices on Wall Street. The solution has thereby shriveled to a set of technical fixes for how the Street should conduct its business.

Share any thoughts about financial reform in this thread. Conlin appears likely to bring this up repeatedly in her campaign against Grassley. One of her campaign’s statements released yesterday noted that so far in this election cycle, “Grassley has taken close to $900,000 in campaign contributions from Wall Street bankers and their PACs.”

UPDATE: House Democrat Barney Frank was one of the key architects of this bill. He discusses some of its high and low points here.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, who is retiring this year, shared some of his parting thoughts with The Fiscal Times:

But I leave more discontented when I came here because of the terrible things that have been done to this economy by political leaders who allowed Wall Street to turn Wall Street banks into gambling casinos which damned near destroyed the economy.

I think the more important thing was what was my biggest failure. I think our biggest failure collectively has been our failure to stop the ripoff of the middle class by the economic elite of this country, and this is not just something that happened because of the forces of the market.

Lots of people have asked me this spring when EMILY’s List is going to get behind Roxanne Conlin’s campaign for U.S. Senate. Now we have our answer:

For Immediate Release

June 25, 2010

EMILY’s List Endorses Roxanne Conlin for United States Senate

WASHINGTON, D.C. – EMILY’s List, the nation’s largest financial resource for women candidates, today announced its endorsement of Roxanne Conlin in her campaign for the Unites States Senate.

“EMILY’s List is thrilled to announce our support for Roxanne Conlin in her campaign to be Iowa ‘s next United States Senator. Roxanne has proven time and again that she is a strong and determined advocate for the people of Iowa ,” said Stephanie Schriock , president of EMILY’s List. “This year, more than ever, is it crucial that we elect smart, effective and capable leaders to take on powerful special interests and those who put corporations over American families. Roxanne Conlin has been fighting for families her entire career. She is not afraid to take on big challenges and stand up for Iowans in the court room or on the Senate floor. EMILY’s List is proud to endorse Roxanne Conlin for the United States Senate.”

“Chuck Grassley has served in Congress for over three decades. Three decades of taking more money from PACs than he has from people.  Iowans don’t need a career politician concerned with his next election,” Schriock continued. “Roxanne is a former United States attorney, Democratic nominee for governor, the first woman president of the American Association for Justice, and a grandmother who is concerned about the next generation, who is poised to move this seat to the Democratic column in November.”

A lifelong champion for women’s rights, Conlin founded and was the first chair of the Iowa Women’s Political Caucus, the president of NOW’s Legal Defense and Education Fund and, while serving as Iowa ‘s assistant attorney general, she wrote the first law of its kind protecting rape victims. Conlin later served as United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, where she worked with law enforcement, led major drug busts and cracked down on violent crime.

EMILY’s List is the nation’s largest resource for women candidates. In the 2007-2008 cycle, EMILY’s List raised more than $43 million to support its mission of recruiting and supporting women candidates, helping them build strong campaigns, and mobilizing women voters to turn out and vote. Since its founding in 1985, EMILY’s List has worked to elect 80 pro-choice Democratic women to the U.S. House, 15 to the U.S. Senate, nine governors, and hundreds of women to the state legislatures, state constitutional offices, and other key local offices.

For more information on EMILY’s List, please visit www.emilyslist.org.

This endorsement is bound to further raise Conlin’s profile on the national scene and bring in more donations from around the country.

This week the Cook Political Report moved its rating on this race from safe Republican to likely Republican. That’s where most other election forecasters, including Swing State Project, have had the race for some time.

The big event in central Iowa the last weekend in June is the Des Moines Arts Festival downtown, which runs Friday through Sunday. The festival is fantastic for art lovers, but I prefer the “other art show,” which takes place Saturday and Sunday in the Varied Industries Building at the State Fairgrounds. That show is more like a craft fair and has lots of affordable art, jewelry, woodworking and clothing. I like buying blank note cards created by Iowa painters and photographers. Both art shows have craft activities for kids.

Follow me after the jump for the rest of the calendar for the coming week. As always, post a comment or send me an e-mail if you know of an event I’ve left out. Iowa Democrats, please let me know about your planned public events, including fundraisers, canvassing, news conferences, and open houses. Send an e-mail with event details to desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.  

Who else is watching the World Cup? I am surprised by how much my kids are enjoying the games, even though they don’t play soccer and it’s such a low-scoring sport. Des Moines business owner Tanya Keith and her husband have gone to every World Cup since 1994, and Tanya is blogging here about her family’s trip in South Africa. What I want to know is, how are her two young kids coping with the vuvuzela noise at the games? It sounds deafening even on tv.

I wasn’t around last weekend to write up the Iowa Democratic Party’s state convention in Des Moines. Radio Iowa’s blog covered most of the highlights here. Sue Dvorsky of Iowa City is the new IDP chair, replacing Michael Kiernan, who needs to have surgery on a tumor near his salivary gland. Iowa Democrats nominated Jon Murphy as our candidate against State Auditor David Vaudt. Read more about Murphy at Radio Iowa or at Iowa Independent. I am so glad we’re not giving Vaudt a pass.  

Convention delegates also voted to change party rules so that the gubernatorial nominee can choose the lieutenant governor candidate. The move was intended to undermine Barb Kalbach’s efforts to replace Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge on the Democratic ticket, and will make it impossible for an activist to do something similar in the future.

John Deeth has been pretty harsh on Kalbach, suggesting it’s a waste of time for her to run against Judge when her own Republican state representative and senator don’t have Democratic opponents. I see things differently. Kalbach said in announcing her candidacy, “I am taking this opportunity to represent the progressive, grassroots base of the Democratic Party who feels the issues that they have put forward have been ignored at the state level.” Kalbach wouldn’t have run if the Culver administration and Democratic legislative leaders had done anything to limit factory farm pollution during the past four years. She wouldn’t have run if the governor had done anything to advance the cause of local control (agricultural zoning), which he claimed to support during the 2006 campaign. Kalbach wouldn’t be able to draw attention to those failures as a candidate for the Iowa House or Senate in a conservative district. By the way, Culver would have an army of grassroots volunteers now if he had listened less to Patty Judge. He would also have a great campaign issue to use against Terry Branstad, on whose watch factory farm pollution became a much bigger problem in our state.

Moving to Iowa’s U.S. Senate race, while I was away a group called Americans United for Change started running this television commercial against Senator Chuck Grassley. The ad mentions campaign contributions Grassley has received from oil interests and draws a line between the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and Grassley’s vote for a “resolution of disapproval” that would have limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a poor ad, because as Grassley’s office noted, that particular vote had little to do with big oil or offshore drilling (click here for more background). In voting for the Murkowski amendment, Grassley was carrying water for big coal, utilities that rely on fossil fuels, corporate agriculture interests and major industrial polluters.

Grassley has done plenty throughout his career to represent corporate interests rather than the public interest. There’s no excuse for such a sloppy attack ad.

The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder interviewed Grassley’s opponent Roxanne Conlin yesterday, and the Cedar Rapids Gazette tried to make a big deal out of her misspeaking on when Grassley won his first election. Rasmussen’s latest Iowa poll of 500 likely voters on June 14 found Grassley ahead of Conlin by 54 percent to 37 percent. The previous Rasmussen survey, taken in late April, had Grassley leading Conlin 53-40. I would like to see other polling of this race. The Washington Post published a feature on Scott Rasmussen this week, including some criticism of his methods.

This thread is for anything on your mind this weekend. Also feel free to post any links to good reads. I am working my way through this article by a self-described Tea Party consultant.