What straw poll? A lesson for the Tea Party in Republican Iowa

GOP 2012 presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney has decided to pass on the Iowa straw poll this summer, a warm-up event for the election-year Iowa caucuses, which increasingly have become a sort of warm-up event for the real primary campaigns. Romney’s decision is making headlines as a risky move but the fact is non-incumbent winners of the GOP Iowa caucus don’t win the GOP national nomination in any kind of consistent way. And the record of caucus winners is even less a predictor for success in the general election. As Romney knows and as the New York Times suggested Saturday, Iowa is now way too Christian right and Midwest parochial to serve as a barometer for Republican America.

Lunchtime links: Catholic students not OK with Church gay bashing

In Minnesota, some smart Catholic school kids at Benilde-St. Margaret’s took issue with the anti-gay propaganda sent out by their archdiocese. They picked the propaganda apart in a school website editorial, which they posted alongside a personal essay…

Bennet gets boost from Buck in courting key moderate voters

Polling now puts the U.S. Senate race in Colorado pitting Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet against GOP Weld County DA Ken Buck as a dead heat, with the momentum swinging toward Bennet. Rasmussen, which has put Buck ahead for months,…

Angle includes Buck in her dream team of candidates that has GOP ‘in a box’

In an audio-taped private meeting with Tea Party rival Scott Ashjian, Nevada GOP candidate for U.S. Senate and initial Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle tried to get Ashjian to back out of the race so she could win over…

Buck drops off Romanoff birthday wishes, picks off supporters

GOP U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck dropped by former Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff’s birthday party campaign-debt fundraiser Thursday. Buck gave Romanoff a “Buck for Colorado” bumper sticker and he gave Romanoff’s fans a laugh and a thorn…

Dems launch ‘nuts and flakes’ GOP Tea Party video featuring Buck

At Politico, Mike Allen calls a Democratic National Committee video sent out today part of the “nuts and flakes” strategy the party is mounting to warn off voters off of the Republican Party’s tea party candidates this fall.

The…

Organized online, jobless Americans eye midterm elections

Sometime this spring, Republicans turned against unemployment. In Nevada, Sharron Angle (R), the candidate facing incumbent Sen. Harry Reid (D), told local reporters, “You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job.” (Untrue.) Angle also called the unemployed “spoiled.”

Angle would cut unemployment benefits to motivate jobless

Tea party favorite Sharron Angle, the Nevada GOP’s candidate for Senate, is arguing that the government should cut unemployment benefits to get the jobless back to work. Angle, whose outsider conservative candidacy has been compared to Weld County D.A.…

Primary night tid bits: Lots of ladies win, birther Taitz loses

Ladies won across the country in primary voting last night, including embattled Democratic Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln, the big bucks candidates in California, Meg Whitman for governor and Carly Fiorina for Senate, South Carolina GOP gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley and…