Iowa Republicans will hear from Sarah Palin at the party's annual Ronald Reagan Dinner in September.
"The Iowa GOP is pleased that Gov. Palin is traveling to Iowa to join the battle to return principled, conservative leadership to Iowa," Matt Strawn, the party chairman, said in a statement. "Our economic and personal freedoms are under attack in Washington, DC and Des Moines. I know Iowa Republicans will be energized and motivated by Gov. Palin to stand up and fight for these principles all the way to Election Day and beyond."
There are at least two competitive House races and the gubernatorial contest happening in Iowa this cycle. The dinner, dubbed "A Salute to Freedom," will take place Sept. 17.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) said Wednesday he will not run for president in 2012, according to the Kentucky-Indiana Courier Journal.
He said he is not interested in the position and noted he has neither fundraised nor spent much time outside of Indiana as evidence of his choice.
The Christian Science Monitorreported in February that he said he was open to a run at that time, and the Courier-Journalnoted on Aug. 15 that he had said the same earlier this month.
Daniels served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2003 under former President George W. Bush. Noted as a rising Republican leader and his popularity as governor, he has been the subject of wide speculation regarding 2012.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a potential dark horse 2012 presidential candidate, said Tuesday he does not yet know when he will decide whether or not to enter the race.
Speaking to a reporter after an event with Arkansas Senate candidate Rep. John Boozman (R), Thune was asked about his presidential ambitions.
"Well, right now, my focus is the mid-term elections and trying to get quality people like John Boozman elected," he said. "I think the best thing that we can do right now, the best thing that anybody — anybody including [those] who might have aspirations beyond the 2010 elections — needs to be very focused on doing everything that we can to restore some checks and balances in Washington ... And then there will be a time for consideration of things beyond that."
Pressed about his timetable, Thune said "Well, I just haven't — I don't have a timetable. My timetable right now is [turning to Boozman seated next to him] — is it November 2?"
With no clear front-runner in the race and the presidential election far away, a number of national political figures have emerged as potential nominees.
Thune earned headlines in 2004 when he defeated former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). Even though he is up for reelection this year, Thune does not face a Democratic challenger.
He also received a boost from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) this week, who named Thune as a potential candidate he likes as "someone out of the blue" in 2012.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) only named one person when asked who he thinks might be the next Republican presidential nominee: Sen. John Thune (S.D.).
At a town-hall event in Kentucky Tuesday, McConnell said that the race is wide open and predicted that the presidential primary will be "very competitive," but said that Thune could be a dark horse nominee.
“Who knows?" McConnell said, according to theWilliamson Daily News. "For someone out of the blue, I like John Thune from South Dakota, but its [sic] wide open. It will be very competitive."
With no clear front-runner in the race and the presidential election far away, a number of national political figures have emerged as potential nominees.
McConnell's comments were not an official endorsement of Thune, but they could boost the first-term senator, who has quietly built up a national presence over the past six years.
Thune earned headlines in 2004 when he defeated former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). Even though he is up for reelection this year, Thune does not face a Democratic challenger.
McConnell suggested he has no interest in running himself.
"I know I have the job I want, even though I would like to have a majority," he said.
Former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney (R) is set for a midterm campaign swing for fellow Republicans that will take him to at least 25 states before Election Day.
According to the Boston Globe, Romney is kicking off the heavy campaign scheduleTuesday night by headlining a fundraiser for the New Hampshire state Republican Party.
The increase in Romney's activity will also include a change in style, according to the Globe's Sasha Issenberg:
But the most dramatic re invention may be a stylistic one: Romney is seeking to come across as more easygoing and accessible than the formally dressed, perfectly coiffed, carefully rehearsed candidate of the last campaign.
“Mitt is doing a better job at low-keying it,’’ said Steve Duprey, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party who supported McCain in 2008 and was a vocal Romney critic at the time. “He would be wise to stay with it right through a presidential primary.’’
New Hampshire is the place Romney’s advisers and allies say they see Mitt at rest: a wearer of jeans and driver of a black 2003 Chevy Silverado pickup truck. Some of them are hoping that Romney’s laid-back summer lifestyle will survive Labor Day and endure onto the campaign trail, helping to erase the impression many voters have had of a wealthy candidate almost animatronically focused on winning.
“That’s the Mitt Romney that I know and really enjoy — not the guy they say is too perfect, too stiff,’’ said Ron Kaufman, a longtime Romney adviser who visited him this summer. “The public image of a lot of these folks in office are often 100 degrees out of whack with reality.’’
Among the 2012 presidential hopefuls on the Republican side, Romney has been among the most active thus far in 2010. His political action committee has donated to more than 100 GOP candidates, and he has focused fundraising efforts on down-ballot candidates in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
In a departure from previous primary days this cycle, it's former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) who has the most on the line in Tuesday's Republican primaries in Florida.
Huckabee has endorsed in three competitive GOP primaries — he's backing Attorney General Bill McCollum in the primary for governor, Daniel Webster in the race for Rep. Alan Grayson's (D) seat and Karen Diebel in the primary to face Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D).
In the governor's race, three potential 2012 hopefuls are behind McCollum — Huckabee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The primary between McCollum and Rick Scott was in a dead heat heading into Tuesday.
But Huckabee is the only one who came to the state to rally for McCollum the weekend before the primary. He is also the only one who has waded into the most competitive congressional primaries in the state. Huckabee headlined a rally for congressional candidate Daniel Webster over the weekend.
For the former governor, the endorsements in competitive congressional primaries mark a change in his political activity from earlier in the season.
Along with a handful of endorsements in Florida, Huckabee offered last-minute backing to former Rep. Nathan Deal (R) in Georgia's gubernatorial runoff — Deal won — and released a new slate of endorsements in Iowa, the first state to hold a 2012 caucus.
Elsewhere in Florida, the Republican primary for attorney general pits two potential GOP presidential contenders in 2012 against one another.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is backing former state Rep. Holly Benson, while former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is behind Pam Bondi. Both Gingrich and Palin recorded robocalls for their endorsed candidates.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis (D) doesn't think much of a potential 2012 presidential bid from his fellow former Bay State Gov. Mitt Romney (R).
Dukakis, the Democratic nominee for president in 1988, called Romney "the biggest disappointment I think I’ve ever seen" in an interview Monday with the State House News Service in Massachusetts.
Asked about the prospect of a Romney presidency, Dukakis said it would be "disastrous."
Dukakis, unvarnished, spoke warmly of Romney’s father George, who governed Michigan in the 1960s, noting that George Romney’s use of a fuel-efficient car inspired him to court his wife, Kitty, in a “little yellow Rambler convertible.”
“I thought we were going to get a junior version of George Romney with Mitt,” he said, adding, “There’s no core to this guy ... I think he’d be a disastrous president.”
Mitt Romney’s spokesman fired back in an email to the News Service. “Mike Dukakis sounds like a very angry and bitter old man,” he said. “I think it’s sad.”
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) will go toe-to-toe with George W. Bush — for book sales.
The release of Jindal's book, titled Real Hope, Real Change: New Conservative Solutions to Rescue America, has been pushed back to November. The delay, which a spokesman said resulted from the BP oil spill and its aftermath, means Jindal's book will be released at the same time as Bush's memoir, Decision Points.
Bush's book, and the coinciding interviews that are already scheduled, will draw national attention and Jindal might lose more than just royalties as a result. He could miss an opportunity to burnish his credentials as a national figure. The governor is widely considered to be a potential presidential candidate, although he recently said he plans to run for reelection in 2011.
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