Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
It was a mistake for his presidential campaign to skip Iowa, and it likely cost him his party’s nomination, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said in a recent interview with New York Magazine.
In an article that focuses on whether he should make a run for governor of New York, Giuliani, who finished a distant sixth in the January 2008 caucuses, told the magazine it was his advisers that developed the campaign strategy of skipping Iowa to focus on later, larger primaries.
And then there was his cockamamy campaign strategy, in which he sat out the Iowa caucuses, skipping a contest that riveted the world for a month, and competed halfheartedly in New Hampshire and South Carolina. By the time he made his infamous last stand in Florida, hoping that weeks of appearances at NASCAR tracks and Little Havana parades could make up for the ground he’d lost, it was too late.
Today, Rudy Inc. offers myriad excuses for the debacle. Giuliani says fundraising in the crowded field was harder than he expected: “I wish I had figured out that we weren’t going to raise $100 million.” Giuliani also wishes he hadn’t skipped Iowa, a decision he attributes to advisers. “My instincts originally were, if you lose, you gotta go down fighting. You can’t allow yourself to lose a primary. I think I should’ve fought Iowa harder. That was the beginning of becoming irrelevant.”
After Iowa, Giuliani went on to finish fourth in the New Hampshire primary and third in the Florida primary before bowing out and endorsing eventual Republican nominee John McCain.
Giuliani’s message could be a lesson for presidential aspirants in 2012, as pundits from around the nation have begun questioning the wisdom of competing in Iowa.
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