In a new Rasmussen survey of likely voters, it looks like 2012 Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is locked in a tight race with President Barack Obama, according to the Ron Paul 2012 campaign. The poll shows Paul at 38 percent versus the president’s 39 percent ...

  Diane Crookham-Johnson chooses her words carefully when asked about the likelihood former New York Gov. George Pataki may get into the 2012 Republican presidential race. She’s talked with Pataki, but is hesitant to say whether he will announce his entry into the race when he visits ...

  UPDATED: Two weeks after the Iowa GOP Straw Poll, Iowa will return to political center stage if only for a picnic. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the new leader among Iowa Republicans, according to a poll release Aug. 23, will join two other contenders for the 2012 ...

Is Chuck Grassley going Tea Party? In recent comments -- at the Iowa GOP Straw Poll and the next day at the Black Hawk County Lincoln Day Dinner – Iowa’s senior senator praised the Tea Party, but stopped short of dumping tea bags in the pond ...

CEDAR RAPIDS – Reaction to President Barack Obama’s two-day visit to Iowa and his calls for an end to partisan gridlock in Washington is split, predictably, along party lines. “I just took it that it was a campaign tour through here,” said U.S. Rep. Steve King, ...

DECORAH – Bottom line, as bad as things are, President Obama said at an outdoor town hall meeting at rural Decorah, “we’re moving in the right direction.” Obama, who is on a three-day Midwest bus tour, defended the choices he’s made in accepting less than he ...

DECORAH – They came to see their president – regardless of what they think of his job performance. “They leader of the free world is in my town, so I thought I should see him,” said Jason Trout, who operates an Internet marketing business in Decorah. ...

DES MOINES – Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s entry into the 2012 Republican presidential race on the heels of Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s Ames straw poll win had activists wondering Monday if there will be enough tea (party) for two in Iowa. Perry and Bachmann are expected ...

AMES – Waterloo native Michelle Bachmann fired a resounding opening volley in the race for the Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nomination Saturday by besting her competitors in the much-watched Iowa GOP straw poll. “You’ve done it, Iowa,” a beaming Bachmann told her cheering supporters outside Hilton ...

  Don’t look for Fergus Cullen at the Iowa GOP Straw Poll. The former New Hampshire Republican Party chairman would be persona non grata if he showed up, so he has no plans to be anywhere near Ames. Not even to handle tin foil hat concessions. Cullen is the ...