Santorum in Iowa
October 1, 2009 by O.Kay Henderson · 2 Comments
Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) is in Iowa this morning. He’s speaking over the noon hour at an Iowa Right-to-Life gathering (UPDATE: I’m told about 75 people were at the IRL event), then he’ll drive to Dubuque where he’ll deliver a speech this evening at the invitation of the American Future Fund.
Santorum spoke to me very early this morning for over 20 minutes, covering a wide range of topics. Santorum’s appearance in Iowa has raised speculation that he may run for president in 2010.
“The reason I came here is because someone asked me to come. That’s the truth. I had no grand design to come and speak in Iowa, Santorum said, saying he had been invited to speak by the American Future Fund. “I said, ‘All right, you know, if we can work out a time I’ll be happy to come out and talk. I’m doing talks all over the country…I do a lot of speaking; I’ve been doing it for the last three years and so, I thought, yeah, it’s nice to go to Iowa and I come to Iowa and give a speech and people will pay a lot more attention. Well, that turned out to really be the case and it sort of surprised me because, you know, I did this interview with Politico, you know, asking if I’d do it and I said, ‘Look, you know, I’m doing it because I was asked.’
Jews ask for change in ’10 Caucus Date
September 18, 2009 by O.Kay Henderson · Leave a Comment
A coalition of Jewish groups is objecting to the date of the 2010 Iowa Caucuses (read their news release below). Here’s a bit of background: The leaders of Iowa’s two major political parties announced in July that Saturday, January 23, 2010 would be the date for the 2010 Iowa Caucuses. These off-presidential-year party meetings are not as well attended as the presidential year caucuses. But the 2010 Iowa Caucuses will be important if none of the six potential candidates running for governor win the GOP primary in June with 35 percent of the vote. In that circumstance, a GOP nominee would be selected by convention and the convention delegates are selected in a process that starts at the precinct caucuses on January 23, 2010.
UPDATE with clarification: you do not have to be present at the precinct caucus to be elected a delegate to the county convention, but if you want to be a county convention delegate, you’ve got to let the precinct caucus leader know in advance of Saturday, January 23, 2010 at 1 p.m. so your name can be put in consideration. There often are more county delegate slots than willing delegates, but it can be an issue if there’s larger-than-normal precinct caucus turnout.
Republican Party of Iowa chairman Matt Strawn said this morning (during taping of this weekend’s edition of “Iowa Press”) he would talk to Iowa Democratic Party chairman Michael Kiernan about the letter the two party leaders have received, but Strawn did not indicate a change would be made.
“The Caucuses are one area in which the parties do work together. Republicans and Democrats alike have to ensure that Iowa protects its first in the nation status and one thing that we need to make sure that we are involving as many people in the process as possible and that’s a decision that chairman Kiernan and I made together that we want to make sure that those folks who have working concerns, that have family concerns have the ability to participate in the process, so we decided in the non-presidential year that, as an experiment, we would try a caucus on a Saturday
“..I was in receipt of that letter (from the coalition of Jewish groups) yesterday, so I’m sure that chairman Kiernan and I will talk further on that issue,” Strawn said. Read more
