Eric Branstad: Cruz oil stains ethanol

Eric Branstad, leader of a fierce grassroots organization backing renewable-energy sources like ethanol, said last Thursday that Ted Cruz is far and away the most hostile presidential candidate — of either [...]

Rubio talks ag trade, abortion

Republican White House aspirant Marco Rubio spots big openings for Iowa grain and livestock farmers in an emerging Pacific nations trade deal. What’s more, the U.S. Senator from Florida told Political Mercury in a [...]

Rubio: Humiliate ISIS on YouTube

Marco Rubio isn’t a patient politician. And a sense of urgency is what the nation — the world scene at this place and time — demands, the Republican presidential candidate told [...]

Mrs. Clinton, can’t we cry for New York and shout at Wall Street?

Wall Street judges us every day. Minute to minute, in fact. No tears. No mercy. But if we are to believe Hillary Clinton, the denizens of the New York financial [...]

Jindal: America’s a melting pot, not salad bowl

The youngest major-party candidate seeking the presidency passed something of a campaign endurance test Saturday in speaking for 90 minutes — much of it a question-and-answer session — with about three [...]

Rubio ‘callous’ on immigration

Marco Rubio wants to change the very immigration system that allowed his family to migrate to the United States from Cuba. And the Republican presidential candidate’s call in the CNBC debate [...]

Senate hopeful Hogg looks to challenge man he calls ‘living legend’

One of Rob Hogg’s campaign pitches could be called a reverse Bruce Braley. Hogg, a veteran Iowa legislator seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, speaks of his would-be general-election [...]

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A white boy from rural Iowa finds out he’s hated — and that’s good

The comedian Louis C.K. has this insightful bit about time machines. They’d be great for white men, because pretty much any number we hit on the dial — 1855 or 1950 [...]

ISU president: I ‘underestimated’ racism on campus

“You’re Mexican!” “Go back to Univision!” “You probably don’t pay taxes!” A 27-year-old Latina Iowa State University graduate student said these were just some of the taunts that greeted her and [...]