Sam Brownback

URBANDALE, Iowa—Buoyed by a spate of favorable opinion polls and a palpable buzz around his candidacy, Senator John McCain returned to Iowa last night and brought three other senators along for the ride.

Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Sam Brownback of Kansas—who endorsed Mr. McCain after abandoning his own run for the presidency—and John Thune of South Dakota joined the Arizona senator for an event at his state headquarters in this Des Moines suburb.

Mr. McCain has been spending much of his time in New Hampshire, where he has a realistic chance of winning the Republican primary on Tuesday. His decision to squeeze in a visit to Iowa less than 24 hours before caucusing was due to begin suggested he believes he is making inroads in a state he had once given up on.  read more »

With 2008 not looking so good for the party nominee, it’s worth asking which of the many Republican candidates might live to run again in 2012.  read more »

At the tail end of this afternoon’s Republican presidential debate, CNBC’s Maria “The Money Honey” Bartiromo asked Fred Thompson how his first appearance on-stage with the rest of the G.O.P. field had gone.

“I’ve enjoyed watching these fellas,” he finally managed, after stumbling for something sufficiently light-hearted to sat, “But I gotta admit: it was starting to get a little boring without me.”

Actually, Fred, it was much, much worse with you.  read more »

The debate in New Hampshire provided still more signs that the man to watch may actually be Mike Huckabee.  read more »

Mitt Romney is proving true the old adage about public speaking—that what you say matters less than how you say it.

The former Massachusetts Governor was at it again on the morning of Sunday, Aug. 5, when, hours after a new Washington Post poll confirmed his front-running position in Iowa, the nine Republican presidential candidates met for a nationally-televised forum in Des Moines—their final gathering before next Saturday’s straw poll in Ames, which Mr. Romney is expected to win with ease.  read more »

Thank God for the Ames Republican Presidential Straw Poll.

It’s probably not the healthiest expression of democracy – the right to vote costs 25 bucks, with campaigns typically gobbling up chunks of tickets and handing them out to participants who might not be anywhere near Iowa come next January’s caucuses – but it sure gets the job done. After the last competitive straw poll, in the summer of 1999, three candidates were forced from the race, reducing an unruly G.O.P. field to a more manageable size.  read more »

Via the miracle of fiber optics, the Politicker is coming to you today from the relatively balmy state of South Carolina, the locale of this politicker's birth. The big news here today is the death of another native son, James Brown--the story takes up the entire front page of the local newspaper, The State. However, as most Politicker readers no doubt know, the Palmetto State's main distinction when it comes to national politics is that it holds the first presidential primary in the south--right after New Hampshire and right before Super Tuesday. The South Carolina primary looms particularly large in Republican politics, because for the past decade or so it has acted as an insurgency firewall. It was here that George Bush, Sr. and Bob Dole dispatched Pat Buchanan's 1990s primary challenges, and it was also here, of course, that Dubya stopped John McCain's momentum in 2000.

Consequently, the state has been seeing a lot of out-of-town politicians lately. Republican Senator Sam Brownback dropped by last week, as did former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, who is apparently--and this was news to me--thinking about running for the GOP nomination. But the most interesting talk down here concerns South Carolina's own governor, Mark Sanford. Sanford, as some of you may remember, was part of the House Republican Class of 1994. A parsimonious fellow, he slept on a cot in his office for the six years he spent in Washington; as governor, he's taken a strictly conservative line on fiscal policy, which has often put him in conflict with the Republican-controlled state legislature. His most memorable moment as governor probably occurred in 2004, when he carried a pair of piglets onto the floor of the legislature to protest the body's fondness for pork projects. It was the most colorful use of animal symbolism in South Carolina politics since the 1970s, when a local barbeque magnate and ardent segregationist campaigned for the governor by barnstorming the state on a white horse.

Anyway, last week, one of Sanford's former aides wrote a column in the Washington Times, saying that Sanford should run for president, calling him a "candidate that could truly excite the base"--meaning southern conservatives--now that George Allen's career has imploded. Sanford has not commented on his former aide's suggestion, but as The State's Sunday political column noted, "Sanford's silence on whom he plans to support in the GOP presidential primary speaks volumes." It seems like an absurdly long shot--the ever-increasing nationalization of nomination process has made the "favorite son" candidacy an anachronism, and Sanford isn't even all that popular (he only took 55 percent of the vote in his reelection campaign, against a sacrificial Democratic victim)--but, were he to run, he might shake up the strategies of Brownback and Mitt Romney and the rest of those Republicans seeking to run to John McCain's right, who will likely be looking to make a stand in South Carolina.