Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition

Dinner Guests: 2011, meet 2012. Monday night, Iowa hosts its biggest gathering yet for 2012 possible presidential candidates. Five possibles headline the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition event at Point of Grace in Waukee. Five "formers", actually: Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Godfathers' Pizza CEO Herman Cain and former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer. It's not quite like when the Democrats brought out big names like Clinton, Obama and Edwards, at least not yet. But it should get a good bit of national attention.

Who's the best known? Gingrich, I would guess. This can be his first larger-scale event in Iowa to try to win over social conservatives who may not be too keen on his marital issues of the past...three wives. Pawlenty and Santorum have seemed to be the most serious about Iowa so far. Both have hired Iowa staff. Herman "the Hermanator" Cain's campaign sent me my first full travel schedule. So he seems interested. The Pottawattamie County Republican Chairman called me to tell me how popular Cain is in western Iowa. And then there's Roemer. I really didn't remember much about him before these past few weeks.

I did find an interesting piece of video on YouTube. Roemer campaigned with 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain in Waterloo. He said he came to Iowa a lot when he was a congressman. And one line seemed to offer a bit of a prediction.




We'll see who "the man" really is, I suppose, Monday night.

Gay Republicans

Gay Republicans: Romney, Pawlenty, Santorum, Huckabee, Barbour, Gingrich...is there room for a gay Republican in the presidential race, too? Fred Karger, a gay rights activist in California, wants in. The Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition has its Spring Kickoff Event coming up March 7th in Waukee. Karger is filing a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission to try to help get him an invite to the event. In these times of same-sex marriage ballot fights, do Republicans want a prominent gay person in their race? Should they? What do you think?

By the way, I checked with Steve Scheffler, the head of the coalition. He said the guest list for next month includes: Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (who headlined the event last year), Texas Congressman Ron Paul, Godfather's Pizza former president Herman Cain and former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer. Scheffler expects 500-700 people, up from around 450 last year. He adds 99% of the attendees are likely caucus voters. He said he might be hearing today that another possible presidential candidate could be rsvp-ing for the event. But he declined to say who that is. At this point, though, none of the assumed "big names"...Romney, Huckabee, Palin, Gingrich, are slated to attend.