November 2015

After months of several candidates’ rises and falls, the final picture of caucus night is starting to come into focus. A top tier of four candidates has emerged, composed of Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Marco Rubio, with Carson the shakiest of the bunch. It’s unclear whether any of the remaining hopefuls can…

Good morning readers! Starting Line is back after a couple days off for the Thanksgiving holiday and to attend to newly-arrived Baby Starting Line. We’re now looking at the final two month sprint heading to the Iowa Caucus on February 1st. In these next two months, Starting Line will be getting back to some basics…

Guest Post from Every Child Matters Children are twenty-three percent of our population yet one hundred percent of our future. Decisions made today are critical to their success later in life. As voters, we should take our responsibility seriously to assure our next President would support the opportunity for all kids to achieve the American…

Most people’s idea of a fun 21st birthday celebration probably doesn’t entail working from sunrise to midnight and getting serenaded by your guitar-playing boss in front of all your co-workers and friends. But if you’re an Iowa Caucus field organizer, that’s actually a perk of the job, with a former governor running for president leading…

Hillary Clinton scored a major victory this past week by gaining the endorsement of SEIU, the healthcare workers union that represents over 2 million workers. That bumped the total membership of unions backing her candidacy to nearly 11 million. With the endorsements of 14 labor unions so far, including the heavyweights of AFSCME, the NEA…

Young Iowans around the state were “feeling the Bern” Thursday night at mock caucuses held jointly by Democratic and Republican county parties and the Secretary of State’s office. Sanders took over half of the delegates in the Democrats’ contest, while O’Malley posted a strong second place. Clinton failed to reach viability in several counties. The…

Guest Post Bench Building Problem Democrats. The party of the young and idealistic. The party that looks toward the future and not the past. The party with policies to help the struggling 20 and 30-something’s get a job, buy a house, and start a family. The party which builds its campaign structure from the vigor…

And then there were 14. Or 13, depending on how you’re counting. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal ended his campaign for the Republican nomination on Tuesday, saying it was clear that 2016 simply was “not his time.” Jindal had seen some upward movement recently in Iowa, but it was much too little, too late to think…

Congressman Steve King’s endorsement of Ted Cruz for the Iowa Caucus yesterday morning didn’t come as too shocking a surprise. With Cruz gaining the most traction of any of the Tea Party/evangelical Republicans, Iowa’s conservative leaders have gravitated toward backing the Texas Senator in hopes of uniting that wing of the party for caucus night.…

The reverberations of the horrific terrorist attack in Paris continue to spread across the world and, predictably, quickly washed upon the shores of the U.S. presidential race. If the first few days worth of reactions are any indication, the Republican presidential campaign is about to get a lot more mean-spirited. Republican leaders nearly immediately aimed…