Iowa Republican Party chairman Matt Strawn announced this morning that he is stepping down, effective Friday, February 10, 2012.  “It’s a shame,” one Republican legislator involved in a presidential campaign that wasn’t Rick Santorum’s told me about an hour ago. Other legislators expressed similar sentiments and talked of Strawn’s success as a fundraiser for the party. 

Strawn was elected chairman in January of 2009.  Here’s a blog post with the background.

Last week Iowa’s Republican governor said during his weekly statehouse news conference that Strawn had done a “reasonable job” as party chairman, a less than ringing public endorsement.  Speculation now starts as to who Branstad wants to take over, and whether the RPI’s state central committee would even ratify Branstad’s choice. (You may recall that Branstad’s preferred candidate for a state senate race in the Marion area this fall was not the choice of local Republicans.) 

Other candidates for the job of state party chairman last time around were Andy Cable of Eldora (Hardin County GOP chair), Danny Carroll of Grinnell (a former state legislator who is now the statehouse lobbyist for The Family Leader), Matt Randall of Ames (former RPI treasurer), Paul Pate (former Iowa Secretary of State, former Cedar Rapids mayor), Christopher Reed (former candidate for US Senate & US congress), Gopal Krishna (he was the treasurer of the Iowa GOP in 2009) and Des Moines attorney Ted Sporer (Polk County GOP chairman back in 2009). Sporer and Krshna were running as a chair/co-chair ticket in ’09. Here’s a blog post about the January, 2009 public forum featuring all but two of those candidates.

Below are today’s official statements from a variety of notables about Strawn’s exit.

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President Obama just began speaking in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  ”It is wonderful to be back here in Iowa,” he said.”I know there’s been a lot of excitement here over the past couple of months. It  kind of made me nostalgic,” Obama said. The crowd laughed. “I used to have a lot of fun here in Iowa. I remember a great backyard barbecue out in Marion way back in 2007. Good burgers. I did not have as much gray hair back then, but you know when I think about all the days I spent in Iowa, so much of my presidency, so much about what I care about, so much about what I think about every day has to do with the conversations that I had with you in people’s backyards, VFW halls, you know, those conversations I carry with me. All across this state in all 99 counties, and I was in, I think, just about every county, we talked about for years how the middle class was having a tougher time.  Hard work had stopped paying off for too many people.”

Obama then began talking about the themes he stressed during his “State of the Union” speech last night and after a few minutes he mentioned Conveyor Manufacturing and Engineering, the company that’s playing host to him today.

“We have a huge opportunity to help companies like this,” Obama said.

The Iowa House started the 2012 session at 10 o’clock; the Senate followed a few minutes later.  Listen to the opening day speeches from legislative leaders below:

• AUDIO of 10-minute speech from House Speaker Kraig Paulsen (R-Hiawatha)
• AUDIO of 10-minute speech from House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer (R-Clear Lake)
• AUDIO of 2-minue speech from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (D-Des Moines)
• AUDIO of 11-minute speech from Senate President Jack Kibbie (D-Emmetsburg)
• AUDIO of 5-minute speech from Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal (D-Council Bluffs)
• AUDIO of 9-minute speech from Senate Minority Leader Jerry Behn (R-Boone)

What, you ask, is that photo you see to the right? It’s a picture of the door knob that just got replaced at my house and the key I broke off in that lock at approximately 4:15 a.m. on January 4, 2012. 

I arrived home at the early hour on Wednesday morning after wrapping up Radio Iowa’s coverage of the 2012 Iowa Caucuses, held on Tuesday, January 3, 2012.  I drove in my garage, took the keys out of the ignition and made my way to the door that leads from my garage into the house.  As you can tell from the photo, I snapped the key off in the lock.  By 4:19 a.m. I had engaged the services of a locksmith.

Luckily, after I got back in the car and turned the engine on to stay warm, it occured to me to raise the garage door and back out to wait for said locksmith in the driveway, thereby avoiding any stories about the reporter who committed suicide the morning after the Caucuses.

I must have fallen asleep (I know, hard to imagine). The poor locksmith who apparently had tried to delicately tap on the window of my car had to knock rather loudly to wake me at 4:45.  His analysis of the situation was such that the half of the key you don’t see above — the half that’s embedded inside the door knob still – could not be removed. 

At this point, you’re probably asking yourself: “Why didn’t Kay use the spare key and go in through the front door?”  Well, that spare key was tucked away in the Master Lock by the front door to allow contractors who’ve been working on my bathroom since December 13 to come and go during the day. The combination of that Master Lock is a secret to me. I have spare keys in the key jars of neighbors, too, but who wants to get a knock on the door at 4:16 a.m.?  Who would answer the door at that hour?

My locksmith was able to gain entry to my house by completely dismantling the doorknob, but he had no replacement knobs in his kit.  I was able to sleep for approximately 25 minutes, then, before my first “hit” of the morning on a Radio Iowa station.  Then it was on to Michele Bachmann’s announcement, where a reporter colleague, upon hearing my key tale and getting the in-person look at the half-key that was still attached to my key ring, quipped: “Wow, you must have had a little bit too much caffeine last night.”

Just moments ago on this Thursday afternoon, then, my trusty locksmith has returned to Casa Henderson and installed the new doorknob he bought for me.  The doorknob is a gift from him to me and there was no charge for the return trip, so if you ever need the services of a locksmith in Des Moines, Iowa, you are to call 24 HR LOCKOUTS at 515.282.3699.