CEDAR RAPIDS — When you’re sixth in a six-way race, it’s the sort of thing that looks like progress. After following an Elvis impersonator at the Linn County GOP Christmas party Monday night, Rick Santorum started the day Tuesday in front of The Gazette Editorial Board ...

It’s probably too late in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation precinct caucus campaign to catch up to the record spending by candidates just four years ago. Still, the campaign ad buys this week by Mitt Romney and Rick Perry will warm the year-end balance sheets of Iowa media companies. A ...

  From Adams to Zollinger, presidential hopefuls have the waterfront, or the alphabet, covered. Oh, there are a few familiar names – Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry, for example, as well as Tim Pawlenty and ...

WEST DES MOINES – Long-time Iowa Republican Lillie Anderson said Monday that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has turned her into a believer that he should be the next U.S. president. “I didn’t enter as a Gingrich fan,” confided Anderson, 76, who backed former Minnesota Gov. ...

Iowa campaign veteran Eric Woolson will handle communications for U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann's 2012 Republican presidential campaign. "Eric Woolson is well-known not only by Iowa reporters and party activists but he has also earned a reputation among the national media as someone who works hard, knows ...

UPDATE: Vanquished Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty endorsed contender Mitt Romney on Monday, calling the former Massachusetts governor the candidate who "possesses the unique qualifications to confront our severe economic predicament." Pawlenty, Minnesota's former governor, bypassed a home-state candidate in the process, Rep. Michele Bachmann. Pawlenty ...

Republican presidential hopefuls made fewer trips to Iowa ahead of the GOP Straw Poll than they did four years ago, but party activists and political scientists warn against reading too much into downsized campaign activities. Several factors come into play: the number of candidates, the presence ...

In hindsight, it was probably the wrong strategy for former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty to focus almost exclusively on ahead of the GOP Straw Poll, according to one of his advisers. Former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber, who joined the Mitt Romney campaign as an unpaid adviser ...

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 ...

AMES – The big day for Iowa Republicans and the presidential candidates who desperately want their support has arrived in Ames. The polls have opened and the GOP’s makeshift tent city is abuzz with activities as throngs of Republicans gather to hear speeches from the six ...