RAGBRAI

It's not just Governor-to-be Nussle and Congressman-to-be Lamberti getting on a bike and jumping on the RAGBRAI bandwagon. John Kerry is getting in on the fun as well.

(for out-of-staters, RAGBRAI is a state-wide bike ride sponsored by the Des Moines Register)

We at the Cooler are hoping against hope that somebody will get a picture of John Kerry spandex today!

SAL!/Update on Bayh/New Condi Link

Failed Democrat Gubernatorial candidate Sal "Mo Mo" Mohamed, will be running for President. You'll see Sal on a local street corner near you. Unless you are Joe Biden, then you might run into Sal at a Dunkin Donuts or 7-11 during your 15 day trip to Iowa.

One little problem for Sal though. Since he is a foreign born citizen, he doesn't meet the requirements of being President of the United States... But he is going on undeterred and those of us at the Cooler give him our blessing.

In fact look for a Cooler sponsored Mohamed v. Cox debate sometime soon. Both parties have been contacted by a Cooler representative.
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Earlier this week we asked about the legality of Evan Bayh sending 23 staffers to Iowa. Over at Iowa Ennui, they did some research into it and determined that everything was in fact on the up and up. IE also had some interesting analysis of Bayh's strategy and language. Click here to check it out

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Also the new link on the right sidebar for "Draft Condi Rice" takes you to a website that has more up-to-date info on the draft Condi movement.

Fun with Lists

While Caucus Cooler is the only place you can find the signature "Cooler Line", a number of other national publications have power rankings they use to assess the Presidential campaign.

The Hotline's Monthly White House 2008 race rankings, show McCain as a "solid frontrunner" followed by Romney, Allen, Giuliani and Huckabee. On the Democrat side, HRC is followed by Edwards, Warner, Bayh, and Horseface.

The Fix takes a look at the "Next Five" in the Presidential race. Chris' top five is made up of Allen, Gingrich, Huckabee, McCain and Romney (No Order) and the same four Dems with a substituion of Horseface for Al Gore.

His second 5 are interesting though. He rips Pataki for many of the same reasons we brought up earlier this week. As the rest of us start to see Giuliani as a real candidate, Cilizza is still unconvinced. On the Democrat side we are entertained by the fact that Vilsack doesn't crack the top 10. He better latch onto HRC really tight if he even wants to sniff 1600 Pennsylvania.

Race42008.com has Giuliani appearing at #2. Interesting though, he also has Newt in his top 5 (we at the Cooler just don't see how he gets the job done) and Pataki at a distant TEN. Wow that's discouraging for Team Muscatine.

Political Derby has Allen coming in at #2, the highest we've seen him, and Mike Pence of Indiana in at #9. (Steven Tyler has 2 words for the Pence fans: Dream On).

A look at the other lists show the greatest disparity between the Cooler Line and national lists lying with the Governor of New York. We think Pataki is in great shape in Iowa, has probably the best team in place at the moment, has been very well received during his visits and has the advantage of being a Governor.

See we told you lists were fun.

Exit, Stage Right

For the benefit of our out-of-state readers, we thought we thought we should post on Dr. Chuck Allison dropping out of the Secretary of State's race. This is the big news around Iowa Republican circles this morning. Allison defeated Bob Dopf in the Primary, Dopf campaign was run by Frist staffer Marcus Branstad.

Allison said in a statement "After much thought and prayer I have decided not to continue my campaign for Secretary of State." etc. etc. etc. The real reasons for Allison's departure are unknown, but speculation obviously centers around health or personal issues.

Earning his way

Senator Bill Frist, M.D. is coming to Iowa this weekend to campaign and raise money for a number of Iowa Republicans. On Friday, Frist will be in Spencer campaigning with Jim Nussle, and later fundraise for Linda Upmeyer. Saturday, Frist will head to Eastern Iowa to aid Matt Reisetter and Mike Whalen's campaigns.

Reisetter is one of the R's top 2 pick-up opportunities in the Iowa House, but the real fun will come at the campaign event for Mike Whalen.

As we reported here first, Mike Whalen's recently dispatched opponent Brian Kennedy is leading up Frist's Iowa efforts. Thanks to a few readers writing to the tipjar and some conversation around the Cooler, we have heard that Kennedy's old campaign manager Carol Earnhardt will be VOLPACing as well. Carol is a long-time Republican activist from Davenport, who in addition to running Kennedy's campaign, was the Political Director for Doug Gross Gubernatorial bid, LMF Director, amongst many many other efforts. And a few tipjar writers mentioned that there is no love lost between Carol and Mike. So it should be a lot of fun in Eastern Iowa this weekend!

Frist also has Governor Branstad's younger son Marcus on board, So it's a four stop weekend and the new Frist teams' first go. We'll be keeping an ear out over the weekend.

Let's try and keep it relatively clean today boys and girls.

Should I stay or should I...

Governor Mitt Romney is being rather coy about his intentions regarding the Chairman's Dinner in Cedar Rapids on Saturday. We've reported here multiple times that Romney is slated to speak at that event. But according to a Boston paper, he's not so sure.

We hear at the Cooler have talked to a couple of Republican sources this morning who expect him to be in attendance and we have a very hard time believing that the Governor will bail on Chairman Hoffman and the Republican Party of Iowa. But if he does attend, he'll certainly get some gruff back home.

Where oh where will the Governor be on Saturday night?

We're putting our money on Cedar Rapids.

All America Question

Senator Evan Bayh is sending TWENTY THREE staff members to Iowa to help the Democrat cause in November. They widdled it down from 100 with what must have been a rigorous selection process. These feet on the ground will give the D's a significant manpower edge at least in the short term.


But here's the Cooler Question of the Day

How is this at all legal?

As a federal candidate Senator Bayh's All America PAC is limited in what he can donate to the party, to federal candidates and to state leg candidates . Unless he is giving 1 staff person to each campaign and paying them slave wages from here until election day, we don't see how this could work. We're sure that the Bayh legal unit has worked this out, we are just curious how they did it.

So Chris, Gordon, somebody, please shed some light on this for us. Maybe we're missing something very obvious.

You can read the whole report on the side-bar of this article about Travelin Tommy

Update Candidate PACs are allowed to coordinate which gives Bayh the ability pay staff and lend them to campaigns.

Shows you what we know.

People Will Come Ray

We're trying to work on a calendar link that makes these visits easier to track. For now you'll have to bear with us. Quick updates:

• Pataki will be doing RPI events in Clear Lake on the 12th and Okaboji on the 13th (Morgan and Shull events those days still unconfirmed).
• Gingrich fundraising for Lamberti on the 11th and then heading to the State Fair.
• Brownback event for Lamberti pushed back to Fall.

Huff on Cox/Romney's Ample Staff

The Cooler intern has been going to County Central Committee meetings for the past few weeks to get a pulse on whats going on outside the 235/35/80 beltway. What he/she found was that 2 Presidential campaigns have a presence at said central committees. Gov. Mitt Romney has been sending his ample staff to help elect Republicans (which is less than suprising since they need something to do), but more interesting was the presence of Steve Huff on behalf of Cox for President. Huff hails from Delaware County, the home county of soon-to-be Governor Jim Nussle. Huff is known best for his failed Primary attempt against Arlington Mayor Ron Longmuir for an Iowa Senate seat in 2002. Not exactly a feather for your cap. Longmuir went on to be dispatched easily by Democrat Brian Schoenjahn.

With this pickup Cox might move to 98-1 on the Cooler Line, you'll have to wait and see.

With the Hotline linking us regarding the Romney part of the post, we thought we should expand for the out of state visitors.

Romney's has a couple of different field staff in Iowa and they have been seen around the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th districts at Central Committee meetings. The best we can tell is that they don't speak on behalf of Mitt at the meetings formally, they mention what Commonwealth PAC has been doing to help Republicans. They aren't shy about discussing the Governor before and after the meetings though.

"Use all your well-learned politics"

We could have gone with "Have some sympathy, have some taste" or "Ain't too proud to beg" or "Give me Shelter".. You get the picture.

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee pardons Keith Richards. Works for us.

Be back later with some serious news from the campaign trail!