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Why Iowa’s 2011 Legislative Session Matters to Conservatives: The Conservative Reader Interview with Senator Jack Whitver (Part 1 of 2)

Night of the Rising Stars: The Good, The Strange, and The Future

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If you did not know freshmen Kentucky Senator Rand Paul prior, and you attended Saturday night’s Iowa Republican Party event “Night of the Rising Stars” . . . then you certainly know him now.

I will get to Senator Paul, the evenings keynote speaker, momentarily but first let us briefly deal with the atmosphere and the purpose of the night’s event—recognizing the up and comers in the Iowa Republican Party. The crowd of 300-400 took to their seats in the warm, ornate theatre of the Hoyt Sherman Place largely to celebrate the impressive and hard won gains by Iowa Republicans in the last election cycle. The program included very short remarks from Senate Leader Paul McKinley, House Majority Leader Linda Upmeyer, Secretary of State Matt Schultz, Party Chairman Matt Strawn, and Governor Terry Branstad. Following Governor Branstad, Senator Chuck Grassley was brought up to introduce Senator Paul. I will spare you of the particulars, as the real story lay in the last two speakers, but will apprise you of a few things of note that did happen during the body of the program.

Believe it or not a quasi-disco atmosphere was attempted to be created, which was odd due to the advanced mean age of those in attendance. Thanks to a mirror ball hung from the ceiling, each speaker took to the stage under a shower of colored lights as the venue’s sound system blasted a song of their choosing. The “Rising Stars,” though some were in attendance, were mainly celebrated through videos which showed clips of them at the Statehouse telling the camera what they do for a living and why they chose to run for office. The crowd largely sat silent for the videos, with the exception of small outbursts of cheering at the appearances of Kim Pearson, Kent Sorenson, and Jack Whitver.

Thirty-one year old Secretary of State Matt Schultz provided the evenings first shot of energy with a robust presentation that included a fiery defense of his signature issue, requiring a photo ID be shown before voting. Party Chair Matt Strawn followed, in a warm and charismatic style, with a few words about [...]

Pataki Sends Solid Conservative Message (Promoted From TCR: Iowa)

Pataki Sends Solid Conservative Message (Promoted From TCR: Iowa)

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patakiI attended the event this evening and while George did not make any comments that sounded like “Hey, I want to be your next President”, this was definitely seemed like a pre-exploratory event. He had some great comments about the current state of affairs, and took questions which I also think he answered well. Some in New York (see comments on this post) have speculated about him running for other posts in that state, others have suggested he could be a possible contender for President in 2012. Even if he does not run for anything, he certainly provides a strong sense of some of the things the GOP needs to do to take back the People’s Government. There were about 90 people at the event tonight, including a number of Republican/Conservative activists that I've gotten to know, former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, Joseph Heuertz (and other leaders) of the Drake College Republicans, John Bloom, Polk County Republican Chair (along with probably a dozen members of the Polk County Republican Central Committee, one of the sponsors of the event), Steve Rathje, David Van Ahn, Kim Schmett, Ed Failor Jr. (Iowans for Tax Relief), Craig Robinson (The Iowa Republican) and [...]
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