On Tuesday, March 20th, 2007, Senator John Edwards will visit the Biomass Energy Conversion Center (BECON) in Nevada, Iowa.  Edwards will tour the plant and outline his plan to halt global warming and create a new energy economy in our nation.  Following his remarks, Edwards will hold a media availability with reporters.

As of 10:30 EST, Vilsack looks to quit the race.

This opens up a lot of possibilitites for people in state, and I wonder who is going to take his spot as the man with the Iowa Connections.

I’ve been getting a lot of email from Obama that makes me think he’s got a lot of former Kerryites on staff, which is either good or bad, depending on how you look at it.

I heard a true statesman speak last night.  Someone who holds onto the ideals our country is founded on, someone I can believe in.  Joe Wilson delivered an amazing lecture that reinforced my belief in my country.  Here is my summary, and I have included a link to the audio below.

Click Here to download the full audio

Wilson began by speaking about Iraq, about the fact that when he had previously been in Iowa to speak, he spent most of his time explaining why it was a bad move to go into Iraq.  He talked about two soldiers that recently died in Iraq and asked the question: What is the mission?  What is the specific task our soldiers are doing in Iraq? 

When narrowing down the choice for the Democratic presidential nominee, we should also ask ourselves which candidate provides the strongest “Top of the Ticket.”

Who provides the best top of the ticket candidacy when considering these targeted U.S. Senate races, or these DCCC Frontline members, or these targeted Iowa Senate races?

Can we win Senate seats in South Dakota with Barack Obama on the ticket?  Can Dems pick up a seat in Mississippi or Louisiana with Hillary at the top?  What about Maine with John Edwards?  Can the Dems expand their majorities with Vilsack or Dodd or Biden?  Who is the best person to protect and promote a Democratic majority?

Or is the whole notion of a “top of the ticket advantage” just a bunch of hogwash?

http://snipehunter-politics.blogspot.com

Here is the opening statement by floor manager and Senate President Jack Kibbie (D-Emmettsburg) on SR 15, which had 28 of 30 Democrats as co-sponsors (Rob Hogg and Steve Warnstadt didn’t sign on):

You can read the full text of his statement below the fold.

I admit, I didn’t track the debate or listen to it (one of the problems with being a college student is that you have a lot of stuff to do), but on a voice vote, the resolution passed the Iowa Senate.  With a voice vote, there isn’t a total count of supporters or those in the opposition, but it would have passed anyway with at least 28 Yea votes thanks to the Democratic sponsors.  Iowa’s Senate is now the third legislative body in the country to pass an anti-escalation resolution.

Who needs political pundits when you have Vegas bookies?

On Sportsbook.com (click “Exotics”), the Vegas odds-makers give us the “live line” on who will become President of the United States.  As of today, here’s the breakdown:

Hillary Clinton, 1-1

Al Gore, 3-1

John McCain, 3-1

Barack Obama, 6-1

John Edwards, 8-1

George Allen Jr, 10-1

Rudy Giuliani, 10-1

Sam Brownback  10-1

Mitt Romney, 10-1

Bill Richardson, 12-1

Mark Warner, 15-1

Mike Huckabee  20-1

Evan Bayh, 20-1

Wesley Clark, 20-1

Chuck Hagel, 22-1

Colin Powell, 25-1

Joe Biden, 30-1

Condoleezza Rice, 30-1

Newt Gingrich, 40-1

Tom Vilsack, 40-1

Russ Feingold, 40-1

Rick Santorum, 50-1

Tom Tancredo, 50-1

Chris Dodd, 50-1

Mike Gravel, 50-1

Tom Ridge, 50-1

Tom Daschle, 50-1

Bill Owens, 50-1

Bob Kerrey, 50-1

John Kerry, 50-1

George Pataki, 50-1

Gary Locke, 70-1

Dick Gephardt, 75-1

Dick Cheney, 75-1

Howard Dean, 75-1

Alberto Gonzales, 75-1

Bob Ehrlich, 75-1

Charles Schumer, 75-1

Harold Ford Jr, 75-1

Jack Kemp, 75-1

Jeb Bush, 100-1

Bill Frist, 100-1

Jay Rockefeller, 100-1

Ralph Nader, 100-1

Paul Bremmer, 150-1

Joe Lieberman, 150-1

Bob Graham, 150-1

Michael Bloomberg, 150-1

Tommy Franks, 200-1

Jesse Jackson, 200-1

George W Bush, 200-1

Dennis Kucinich, 200-1

Arnold Schwarzenegger, 250-1

Bill Clinton, 300-1

Paul Wolfowitz, 750-1

Alan Keyes, 750-1

Elizabeth Dole, 750-1

Clint Eastwood, 750-1

Ted Kennedy, 750-1

Bill O’Reilly, 750-1

Laura Bush, 1000-1

James Carville, 1000-1

Jesse Ventura, 1000-1

Al Sharpton, 1000-1

John Ashcroft, 1500-1

Donald Rumsfeld, 2000-1

Pat Robertson, 2000-1

Bill Maher, 2500-1

Donald Trump, 2500-1

Michael Moore, 7500-1

I’d throw a dollar at Laura Bush, with those odds.

http://snipehunter-politics.blogspot.com/

The previous discussion about caucus pledge cards got me thinking.  Hillary’s camp made a big mistake last week.

Hillary’s first mistake, besides the whole National Anthem part, was not aggressively soliciting pledge cards from the audience.  I think I may have seen a sign-up sheet on a table, but that’s not going to do it.

Now, sure, it’s early.  And maybe the audience was more “undecided” than “committed.”  But the fact is Team Hillary didn’t push people to sign up, at least in my opinion.

There were 3,000 folks there, the vast majority of which were caucus-going Iowa Democrats.  And they were there to see Hillary.  It seems like a wasted opportunity to let all those future volunteers/precinct captains slip by, especially when Hillary lacks activist structure in Iowa.

At a Vilsack event I attended, the folks were pretty aggressive about getting attendees to fill out the cards.

It will be interesting to see if Team Obama has the materials and the capacity (staff + volunteers) to capture pledge cards from the crowds in Cedar Rapids, Waterloo and Ames, which I hear will be huge.

Also, FYI, the Ames event has been moved to the Hilton Coliseum.

The next installment of my “Meet the Legislature” series introduces everyone to Representative Andrew Wenthe.  Andrew is another member of our outstanding class of legislators under 30 years of age.

Andrew has been tapped by the Des Moines Register to blog about his experiences at the Capitol during the session.  You can find his blog here.

For a guy who is running for President of the United States, former Governor Tom Vilsack sure is picking up a lot of new jobs.

According to the Des Moines Register, he is joining MidAmerican Energy as a consultant.

I don’t think it gets any more clearer than this from Iowa’s former Governor Tom Vilsack:

“It’s time for Congress to step up, and cut off funding for the status quo. I think it is time for us to end this war. I think it is very clear from the intelligence reports and from the American public … that this is a civil war and our kids are in the middle of it.

It is time for Congress to step up. They have constitutional and a moral responsibility to cut the funding and say to the President in very clear terms: we are listening to the American people …”

He makes it clear that Congress needs to send a message to President Bush, echoing the thoughts and opinions of the American people, and end this war.  And he says it in a persuasive way.

Sen. John Edwards says that silence is betrayal when it comes to Iraq and he is absolutely right.  Today he said a non-binding resolution against the President’s plan was essentially worthless.  Sens. Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold agreed.  I think that judging from Gov. Vilsack’s statements, he is in the same boat.

Kevin Thurman, Vilsack’s Deputy Internet Director for his campaign, posted just a few minutes ago over on Daily Kos highlighting Vilsack’s interview with Norah O’Donnell where he made the comments above.  As Kevin wrote:

“We can’t wait for things to happen two years from now when we win in 2008. It’s time to match our values with action. Time to match our hope with vision.”

Some candidates are taking the time to seriously lead on Iraq as an issue in this race.  Others are just backpedaling from earlier comments or simply treading water.  Vilsack and Edwards have taken strong and clear positions.  Dodd could even be categorized in the same boat.

Vilsack also has taken the lead in rejecting the idea of capping the amount of troops in Iraq, simply based on the logic of his position.  It clearly doesn’t make sense to support ending the war in Iraq and opposing escalation, while at the same time saying, “Well, if you’re going to keep up the war anyway, you can only X amount of soldiers.”  Instead, he’s advocating a position of actually fighting to end the war and bring troops home.

Vilsack’s right, and Democrats should unite behind the same message and in similar form: “It is time for us to end this war!”

For anyone who has traveled east-bound on Hwy. 20 near Tama, it’s hard to miss.  There’s a barn with a giant sign on it.  It’s been up for months.

What does it say?  Hint: it doesn’t have anything to do with farming.

“STOP HILLARY”

While the Republican side has been quick to hire quality talent in the state, it seems like the Democrats, at least relatively, have been slower to the punch.

There’s a lot to fill: field, political, advance, press, scheduling and finance to name a few.  In your mind, thinking about the talent remaining in Iowa, who are the Top 5 staffers Dem presidentials should be thinking about?

Also, who were the best pickups for staff so far?

IowaPolitics.com has the press release from the Clinton campaign.

The Clinton presidential campaign announced today that veteran Iowa operative JoDee Winterhof will run its state operation. Winterhof, a fourth-generation Iowan, served as Sen. Tom Harkin’s chief-of-staff from 1999-2003, and worked on his presidential and senatorial campaigns…

In addition to her work for Senator Harkin and other campaigns in Iowa, Winterhof served as the first Political Director of America Coming Together (ACT) during the 2004 election cycle, executing the largest progressive voter mobilization in history. She will take a leave as a principal at Grassroots Solutions, a firm that specializes in grassroots advocacy, political field consulting, training, and targeting.

Before that, Winterhof was the National Project Director for The White House Project, a non-partisan public education campaign working to see women at the highest levels of leadership in the country and served in the political operation of EMILY’s List.  Additionally, she served as a political appointee in the Clinton-Gore administration at the National Women’s Business Council.

Charlotte Eby in the Quad City Times breaks the big story on some new hires for the Obama campaign in Iowa:

Paul Tewes will serve as Obama’s director in Iowa, where the caucuses kick off the presidential nominating contest. Tewes, a Minnesota native, ran Democrat Al Gore’s Iowa caucus campaign in 2000.

Iowa native Emily Parcell has been tapped to serve as the political director. She worked on Sen. Tom Harkin’s re-election campaign in 2002, and U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt’s 2004 caucus campaign.

And so, the hiring for the big three (Edwards, Obama and Clinton) finally begins.

Strategic Vision, a Republican polling firm, has released their first polling on the Iowa Caucuses.  Here are the results:

John Edwards 25%

Barack Obama 17%

Tom Vilsack 16%

Hillary Clinton 15%

Joe Biden 4%

John Kerry 3%

Wesley Clark 2%

Bill Richardson 1%

Chris Dodd 1%

Dennis Kucinich 1%

Undecided 15%

It is remarkably similar to the Zogby poll just released a few days ago, which you can find here.

What is your perspective on the race in Iowa from the ground?  And don’t forget to take the caucus poll on the right.

I’m curious for your thoughts.  As you know, I blog over at Political Forecast, treating it as my home blog.  But I also want to make Bleeding Heartland be the best political and community blog in Iowa.  My question for you then is whether or not I should haul over my posts from Political Forecast over here, or should I write other unique stuff here and kind of go back and forth?  Or should I theme my writing here?

Let me know your thoughts and ideas.  Thanks.

While Democrats picked up two new seats to claim a majority of Iowa’s Congressional delegation, the overall congressional vote was tilted in the Republican’s favor – they won 520,798 votes (50.6%) to our 490,476 (47.7%).  This margin represents less than the margin in just Congressional District 5, but that margin is slated to move on over into at least one of our competitive districts in six years.

A similar result can be seen in Indiana, where Democrats lost the statewide congressional vote while picking up three seats to bring them to a majority.  The only other state with as dramatic results as Iowa and Indiana is New Hampshire, but considering they won their only two Congressional seats, they obviously managed an overall majority as well.  It might just be the fact that Democrats were doing so poorly before the election that the races they weren’t able to compete in – CD 4 and 5 here and 4, 5, and 6 in Indiana – overwhelmed the results of what were targeted, competitive races on both sides.  We’ll get a better idea in 2008, when Republicans are the ones trying to pick off our seats.

It’s about time Iowa had a true community-based blog – one where commenting is not the beginning and end of reader interaction.  On Bleeding Heartland everyone is able to write their own diary, meaning more and better content and a more diverse representation of views from around the state.  The commenting system is also a big improvement over anything else available.  So create an account, write a diary, and let us know what is going on in your corner of the state.