DES MOINES – Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s surprise near-victory in Tuesday’s caucuses by far tops Mike Huckabee’s feat in defeating former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney four years ago because his political cyclone came from nowhere in a compressed time span. “It shatters that one,” Chuck ...

Putting on the caucuses should be easy, right. Just pull out the plan from four years ago and update it, right. That’s not the case at all in Linn County where Republican “location coordinator” Eric Rosenthal threw out the 2008 plan and started over when making plans ...

Last chance: Today is likely to your last chance to see any of the Republican presidential hopefuls before the caucuses. Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney will be in the area. Gingrich starts the day at the Heartland Acres Agribition Center, Independence. At noon, he’ll ...

  CEDAR RAPIDS – Republicans aren’t the only ones having fun as Iowans get ready to caucus. Democrats will be caucusing, too. They just haven’t been making as much noise as the GOP, according to Rep. Tyler Olson, D-Cedar Rapids. An early backer of then Sen. Barack Obama ...

  CORALVILLE – Rick Santorum got a lift when a new poll showed his support jumped from 5 percent to 16 percent just a week ahead of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses. After running the most intensive campaign of anyone in the GOP field of 2012 presidential hopefuls, ...

    DAVENPORT, Iowa — Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, keying on a speech President Barack Obama made in Davenport four years ago this week, said Tuesday the president abandoned his campaign promises to unite the country and “demonizes our fellow Americans,” and he cast the election ...

Caucus emotions: It’s probably safe to say that Ron Paul relies less on emotional appeals than other Republican presidential hopefuls when he makes his pitch for support in the Iowa precinct caucuses. However, if emotions rule caucus night, the Texas congressman could come up a winner. That’s ...

You think you’re busy: The presidential hopefuls like to tell us the Iowa precinct caucus campaign is not a sprint, but a marathon, Call it what you will, the 2012ers, or at least some of them, have traded their walking shows for running spikes. With 18 ...

  CEDAR RAPIDS — Despite the recent surge by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the Iowa precinct caucuses are wide open and could produce more than one winner, Sen. Chuck Grassley predicted. The Iowa Republican, who has chosen not to endorse any of the 2012 GOP presidential ...

  SIOUX CITY — All seven major Republican presidential candidates have confirmed they will participate in the Dec. 15 GOP debate in Sioux City. According to sources close to the debate not authorized to talk with the media, all of the candidates — including former Utah Gov.  ...