Toejam and Earle

Team Romney picked up a social conservative activist to do Iowa outreach. He will fill a role that Chuck Hurley is doing for Sam Brownback and Marlys Popma is doing for John McCain.

Joe Earle directed the Iowa Christian Alliance's outreach efforts and was Coalitions Director for BC04. Romney has put together a strong Iowa organization and this was one role he had yet to fill making this an important add for him. Earle clearly has relationships in the soco community that will be valuable to Romney, in the same way Popma and Hurley have been valuable to McCain and Brownback respectively.

Earle will not be a fulltime employee as he is currently pursuing a masters of divinity at Faith Baptist Seminary in Ankeny.

New York Post- Judi Giuliani's Secret Husband Revealed

The New York Post has all the details:

"March 22, 2007 -- Rudy Giuliani's wife Judith revealed a shocker yesterday - the thrice-married Republican White House hopeful isn't her second husband, he's her third.

'Something I will share with you is that, since I haven't done (many) interviews .. Rudy and I have both been married three times,' Mrs. Giuliani told The Post in a sit-down interview yesterday, the first time she has disclosed the bombshell personal information.

Even long-time Giuliani supporters had thought he was her second husband, not her third.

'We both married young. And then we were both married again. And it took us until this stage in life to realize and find the person that we eventually wanted to grow old with.'"

We at the Cooler would like to read your thoughts on this so please leave a comment. Is the sixth-time the charm (three marriages a piece)?

AP Interview: Romney Limits Backing Of Salt Lake City Mayor

We at the Cooler think this article is a must read. Of course, a sample is below:

"COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) _ Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has cooled his friendship with Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson now that the liberal Democrat has called for President Bush's impeachment.

In an interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Romney sought to minimize his relationship with Anderson, once a prominent example of bipartisan camaraderie. The two worked closely together when Romney ran the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

'He was a mayor that worked well with me during the Olympics, and I supported his work as a mayor,' said Romney, who spoke before an event in heavily Republican western Iowa, where he planned to meet privately with key activists. 'I do not endorse or support his views on President Bush or almost any other issue, particularly that's unrelated to being a mayor.'

Anderson was so impressed with Romney's work on turning around the problem-plagued Olympics that he backed the Republican in a television commercial during Romney's 2002 campaign for Massachusetts governor.

'People often say I'm a Massachusetts-type Democrat. To me, that's a compliment,' Anderson said in the spot, which ran in heavily Democratic Massachusetts. Anderson then urged viewers to 'take it from this liberal Democrat: If you want an amazing leader, vote for Mitt Romney.'''

The Fix- Brownback's Iowa Strategy

The Cooler’s favorite CCA, Sam Brownback is getting covered in the Washington Post's The Fix. A small sample is below:

"Much has been written about the attention that former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) has lavished on Iowa since the 2004 election. That media coverage, however, has overshadowed the fact that Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) has worked quietly in recent years to make the Hawkeye State a second home -- in hopes of catapulting himself into contention next year with a stronger-than-expected finish in the state's Jan. 14 GOP presidential caucuses."

Coming soon to a theater near you...

Here’s some scheduling information for GOPers coming to Iowa.

Mitt Romney- March 22nd
Council Bluffs - Mid America Center- 12:15
Onawa B&B Roundup- 2PM

Mike Huckabee- March 24th
7:30 a.m., Speaks to residents at the Treynor City Community Building at 11 West Main St., Treynor
Noon, Meeting with local Republicans at Lucianos, 1019 Fourth Ave., Sioux City2:30 p.m., Visit with Plymouth County Republicans at the Wells Blue Bunny Visitors Center, 16 Fifth Ave., NW, Le Mars
6 p.m., Soup supper with GOP activists at the Sioux Golf & Country Club at 1112 6th Ave., Alton

Line Change!

Alright Coolerites it has been a while since we’ve changed the Cooler Line so let’s get right to it.

Mitt Romney- Mitt has been in the lead or had a share of the lead since the inception of the Cooler Line and there’s been good reason for it. He was the first candidate to put together a ground game in Iowa, he spent a lot of money helping Iowa GOPers in 2006, and he’s secured key endorsements like Doug Gross and Chris Rants. The capable Gentry Collins is leading his Iowa organization. Recently he’s been a little quieter on the ground, but he’s added Stew Iverson, and gone up on TV in the Hawkeye state. With all the good things going on for Mitt, the problem is that his poll numbers and public perception have taken a bit of a hit. The media’s narrative of Mitt as a flip-flopper has saturated and it is mentioned in most news-stories about him. Also if you are going to advertise on TV you have to move in the polls. But for Mitt it’s not the horserace numbers that are concerning but the favorability ratings. While Giuliani and McCain have overwhelmingly favorable perceptions, Mitt’s is about 50/50. All in all, Mitt still looks very strong in Iowa, but not as strong as he did a couple weeks ago. He goes from 3-1 to 7-2.

John McCain- The straight talker has now been to Iowa twice, holding 7 townhall meetings across the state. McCain’s positive’s in Iowa are clear. He has put in place all of the major pieces in President Bush’s Iowa organization. He has shown he’s going to be committed to playing here, with 2 trips (both of which he skipped Senate votes for) and a big Iowa staff. He also has drawn large crowds across the state and shown that he won’t be afraid to meet with Iowa conservatives, listen to their questions and tell them what he thinks. McCain’s poll numbers in the state also look better than they have elsewhere. The problem for McCain is that there is still a vocal contingent of conservatives who don’t trust him because of his maverick reputation, and the spector of Rudy’s gaudy poll numbers put a shadow on his trip. Team McCain also is still running neck and neck with Romney in the endorsement battle, but they haven’t been able to separate. All these factors bring McCain down a half-step from 3-1 to 7-2

Rudy Giuliani- When we started writing this line-change our intent was to put Rudy in a 3 way tie with Romney and McCain. But the more we discussed around Cooler HQ we just couldn’t pull the trigger. Rudy hasn’t been in Iowa since November. He has to our knowledge only 2-3 staffers in the state. The Nussle endorsement was huge, but outside of that we’re forced to wonder, "where’s the beef." Rudy’s poll numbers are sky high. For that reason alone it’s impossible to place him any lower than we have. That said Rudy must prove that those poll numbers will stay high after he faces more scrutiny for his positions. He also has to prove to us at the Cooler that he is committed to putting together a winning Iowa organization. In the end though, polls don’t lie. Rudy goes from 5-1 to 4-1.

OK that was a lot longer than we thought it was going to be so here are the other candidates in brief.

Brownback and Huckabee stay pat for now.

Tommy Thompson is the one 2nd tier candidate who has shown he’s going to take Iowa very very seriously. As a result he moves from 35-1 to 28-1

Jim Gilmore isn’t acting like a candidate anymore. He moves down to 90-1.

George Pataki is out of the race as far as we’re concerned so we’re moving him OFF the Cooler line.

Chuck Hagel’s non announcement/announcement was just goofy. He moves up to 85-1 just because he seems a little more serious than Gilmore.

Weekend Recap

A busy weekend for the GOP candidates here in Iowa. So let’s get to it.

Mitt Romney added former Iowa state senate majority leader Stew Iverson to his campaign organization. Iverson joins House Speaker Christopher Rants and former gubernatorial candidate Doug Gross in the top tier of Romney’s Iowa organization. Iverson was the last vestige of the disassembled George Pataki organization. Team Romney released Iverson on Thursday during John McCain’s 3 day visit to the state. John McCain brought the straight talk express out of the garage and took it across Iowa late last week. McCain campaigned in Alton (Sioux County), Des Moines, Ames, Mason City, and Cedar Falls. The biggest success McCain had during the trip was in drawing large crowds. News outlets reported overflowing rooms at all 4 townhall stops. McCain also distinguished himself by spending long periods of time fielding questions from all-comers. Tom Beaumont has the story on how some of the questions from our fellow Iowans were, well, a little odd. McCain also got in trouble over the weekend for using the term “tar baby,” when answering a question about men’s rights in divorce proceedings from one of Dr. Mark Klein’s friends. You can see video of McCain’s trip here. Tommy Thompson also was in town this weekend. He campaigned in Eastern Iowa, here’s a report on his stop at the Brown Bottle in Cedar Falls.