Iowa

Managing Editor's Note (Jan. 15, 2015; 5:15 p.m. Eastern): I've republished this to the front page today given the news that Sen. Ernst will be give the official Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union Address next Wednesday. If Chris Matthews doesn't make repeated sneering references to hog castration on MSNBC next Wednesday night, look out your window. You'll probably see a…

After fretting on Sunday's Meet the Press that Hillary Clinton may not be liberal enough for 2016 Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, on Monday's NBC Today, correspondent Andrea Mitchell eagerly touted the Clinton campaign machine: "This time, Clinton organizers say they've learned their lesson, busing in volunteers from all over the country." A clip played of Mitchell shouting a question to the…

Her ears ringing with the "code words" of "nullification" and "states rights," Salon's Joan Walsh strongly suggested on Tuesday's Hardball that Iowa Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joni Ernst was cynically reaching out to nefarious elements of the GOP when she answered a question about nullification of federal laws in a September 2013 forum. [See my related story about the Daily Beast's biased…

As if trying to talk themselves into the idea that there might be a wave of liberal politicians inspired by Obama like he was the black JFK, NPR’s Morning Edition on Thursday tried to make national news of a Democrat running in Iowa for the Secretary of State job. “Meet Brad Anderson,” began NPR reporter Don Gonyea. “He was the spokesman for Obama's 2008 Iowa campaign. Four years later, he…

In another victory for life, the Iowa Board of Medicine voted today to ban so-called telemed abortions. Those are medical abortion procedures prescribed remotely often by the use of Internet teleconferencing software. Daniel James Devine of World magazine has the story. Here's an excerpt (emphasis mine):

NBCNews.com reported its old Seinfeld star Jason Alexander appeared as a surrogate for Barack Obama in the small town of Adel, Iowa last week and  told the crowd of “about 50"  he has a "man crush" on Obama, “who he said he has met several times.” Alexander then went to Twitter and incorrectly thanked people in "Arel" and "Neceda" for meeting him. (He was in Nevada, Iowa, as well as Adel.)…

On Thursday Jackie Calmes (pictured) and Trip Gabriel, two of the New York Times's more slanted campaign reporters, teamed up to cover Obama's campaign trip to Colorado and Romney's trip to Iowa: "Obama Assails Romney on Women’s Health Care." Covering Obama in Denver, the Times credited the president's popularity among women, while the Romney coverage from Iowa emphasized a controversy in that…

With Mitt Romney winning the Iowa caucus and on track to do well in New Hampshire, conservatives should just give up and rally behind the former Massachusetts governor, MSNBC host Alex Wagner suggested at the open of today's Now with Alex Wagner. Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele was having none of that:

It's been a mixed week for Mitt Romney's campaign. On one hand, Romney won Iowa, but on the other, he was endorsed by John McCain. Until the first actual votes were cast Tuesday night, it appeared as if some elements of the Republican Party were becoming the mirror image of a liberal mob.

At the same time that the nation's leading networks can't call Obama a "liberal" more than about once a year, NPR's religion reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty on Monday announced Rick Santorum was "very, very conservative" on the social issues, in addition to being "very pro-life." He even -- horrors! -- home-schools his seven children. "He's Catholic. He's billed himself very much as the…

New York Times campaign reporter Ashley Parker, following GOP candidate Mitt Romney around Iowa, nonetheless managed to celebrate Barack Obama’s "eloquent and inspiring rhetoric in the state four years ago" in Sunday’s “Romney Quotes His Favorite Patriotic Songs and Offers Voters an Interpretation.”

If anyone's going to destroy Newt Gingrich's presidential aspirations, Hardball's Chris Matthews would rather it be him, or at least someone else in the liberal media. Appearing on colleague Tamron Hall's NewsNation program in today's 2 p.m. Eastern hour, Matthews whined about anti-Gingrich "bombing campaign" of TV ads placed by political action committees that have helped to drive down the…

With 17 months to go until the 2012 presidential election, the party in power has signaled its intention to go negative early and often. Even before former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty formally announced his intention to run for president on the Republican ticket, the Democratic National Committee responded with a video entitled, “Why.”

The seemingly endless variety of "name that party" stunts has yet another wrinkle. In this case, Matt Drudge is currently linking to a Des Moines Register story ("Culver OKs state pay raises"; also saved here at host for future reference) about how outgoing Iowa Governor Chet Culver has decided to rush through union contracts granting thousands of state employees 3% raises (before considering…