If you want to enter and take the challenge and submit your bracket picks – simply respond to this email with your name and email address and you will be sent an invitation in a few days to join the 2010 Latham Tourney Challenge group to fill out your basketball tournament bracket.

The competition is tough – the winner of 2009’s Challenge – Susan Engen from Algona, Iowa – rocked the competition with an accuracey of 99.9% correct picks on her bracket entry!

The winner of the overall challenge group will not only own bragging rights for a year – they will also win a Flip Camcorder – the popular one-touch recording fit-in-your-pocket camcorder that lets you shoot video on the go. No tapes, memory cards or chargers – this camcorder lets you shoot and then easily share your video via email, on the web, on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and AOL.

To begin making your picks click here.

You’ll be asked to enter the group’s password (Our Group password is: Our liberties we prize) before you can join.

You can make your picks any time before tournament begins.

Polk, Black Hawk, Dubuque, Linn, and Cedar Counties will be visited by two candidates. Bob Vander Plaats is the only candidate who doesn’t have to share the stage in a county, which will happen when he visits the Muscatine County convention. In addition to attending five county conventions, Branstad also found time to attend a fundraiser for State Representative Jeff Kaufmann.

Below is the map of where the candidates will be.

Branstad:
Linn County – 9 a.m.
Black Hawk County – 11 a.m.
Dubuque County – 1:30 p.m.
Scott County – 3:30 p.m.
Kaufmann Fundraiser – 5:15 p.m.
Cedar County – 6:30 p.m.

Vander Plaats:
Polk County – 9:00 a.m.
Muscatine County – 11:00 a.m.
Dubuque County – 1:00 p.m.
Scott County – 2:30 p.m.

Roberts:
Polk County
Black Hawk County
Linn County
Scott County
Cedar County

TIR will be at the Polk County Convention in hopes of becoming a delegate…

The goal when creating the site was to provide a state-wide conservative news outlet in Iowa and provide people with the transparency in government that they need and deserve. While there is always room for improvement, I’m proud of what the site has been able to accomplish in its first year. I’m also excited in what the future holds for TIR and Iowa Republicans in 2010 and beyond.

I can’t think of a more exciting time to be a Republican activist, and I want to thank all of you for joining into the discussion at TheIowaRepublican.com.

Thanks,

Craig

At the end of her speech, she told the audience about how her father usually gives her a call before she makes a big speech. This time he didn’t call, he just came along. The place went nuts.

Following the news of the dead raccoon, PETA attacked the congressman. Here are the accounts of all the events.

Note to all raccoons out there: Don’t try to crawl your way into Rep. Steve King’s house. He’ll mess you up.

The Iowa Republican set the Twittersphere all aflutter last week after he posted this message: “Mid day, mid blizzard, 15 degrees, Crazy Raccoon chewing and clawing his way into my house. Desert Eagle 1, Crazy Raccoon zero.”

And because a story that involves a potentially crazed critter, a Congressman and a high-powered semiautomatic pistol can’t quite be summed up in 140 characters, HOH chatted with King on Friday to get the full story behind the now-infamous shooting.

King told HOH that the saga began when his wife, Marilyn, first saw the raccoon — which King described as younger and midsized — trying to crawl its way into the couple’s Iowa home. King was concerned the animal might be rabid, he said, because he had never seen a raccoon so close to the house in the winter.

But the raccoon disappeared until Feb. 9, when King, sitting in his family room on a conference call, spotted it again trying to weasel its way into the house. And he immediately sprung into action.

King grabbed the Desert Eagle — “It’s the one I had handy,” he told HOH — and went after the raccoon, which fled. But King caught up, fired and killed the creature.

“We can’t have an animal that might be sick, might be rabid, out there,” King said, adding that his granddaughters often play in the area where he spotted the raccoon. “That’s just what has to happen when you live out here in the country.”

But King insists he isn’t an animal hater, pointing out that his family often spots animals such as deer, squirrels and rabbits frolicking on their property. “We appreciate the wildlife,” King said.

But “I can’t have a crazy ’coon,” he added.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has weighed in on Rep. Steve King (R) killing a raccoon that tried to crawl its way into his Iowa home — and not surprisingly, the animal welfare group isn’t too pleased.

PETA spokesman Jaime Zalac tells HOH that King should pick on someone his own size, “not a small animal seeking warmth in a blizzard.”

“It doesn’t give you comfort in your representatives when a member of Congress finds it amusing to boast of shooting a desperately cold animal who is 100 times smaller than he is and whose only misstep was trying to get into a large, warm house,” Zalac said in a written statement. “I hope he’s not on any committees that make decisions regarding cruel and unusual punishment. Decent people would call animal control for help, not get on Twitter to boast about having a really, really big gun.”

King tweeted on Feb. 9 that he killed the raccoon with a Desert Eagle pistol when he spotted it crawling into his house. In an interview last week, King told HOH that he felt he needed to kill the critter because he believed it was rabid and could potentially hurt his family.

And King insisted he appreciates wildlife, noting he often sees deer, rabbits, squirrels and other animals on his property.

Former governor Mitt Romney was attacked by a passenger on an Air Canada flight Monday morning.

The former 2008 Republican presidential hopeful had been in Vancouver since Friday for the Winter Olympics. He was attacked as he was leaving Vancouver with his wife, Ann, according to Romney’s spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom.

Romney, 62, reportedly asked the passenger sitting in front of his wife to raise his seat during takeoff after the passenger had reclined his seat. The man allegedly became violent and took a swing at the former 2008 presidential hopeful.

A Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail, first reported the story, saying that Romney was “physically threatened” by a passenger.
“Gov. Romney did not retaliate, but instead allowed the airline crew to respond to the incident,” Fehrnstrom said in a statement to the Globe.

Romney was not injured. The pilot returned to the gate, and the suspect was removed from the plane by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The same plane took off a short time later and later landed safely in Los Angeles.

Romney was the head of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and was an honored guest at the 2010 games.

Participating in tonight’s forum is the Republican candidate from 2008, Dr. Stephen Richards. Richards nearly knocked off a long-time conservative in his race in 2008. Richards lost to Democratic State Representative Dolores Mertz by just 42 votes.

His primary opponent is Tom Shaw, the Chief of Police in Laurens. Shaw initially planned to run as an independent in the general election, but instead, will seek the Republican nomination this June. Shaw said that his decision to run as a Republican was inspired by the courageous actions of State Rep. Kent Sorenson and the Iowa Family Policy Center. Shaw noted in his announcement that both Sorenson and IFPC stood up to the morally compromised Republican Party leaders. Shaw has been endorsed by GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats and the Pocahontas County Republican Party.

If Republicans in the State House are to take back the majority, they will likely need to win this seat next fall. The district does have a Democratic voter registration edge, but Republicans have run well in the area before.

I am honored to have been chosen to moderate the forum tonight. I’m looking forward to hearing where both Dr. Richards and Mr. Shaw stand on the issues. Check back to read the analysis of tonight’s forum.

TEXT ‘TIR’ to 72466

You’ll win with breaking news alerts on the issues Iowa Republicans care about, and you’ll be entered in a contest to win 4 Free Tickets to the University of Iowa v. Northwestern wrestling match in Iowa City on Friday, Feb. 12th.

The winner will be notified Wednesday at noon.

From 4 to 6 p.m. tonight, I will be debating Steve Deace, Bryan English (IFPC), and State Representative Dwayne Alons on WHO Radio.

Here are the questions that we will be debating.

1) Is voting for a constitutional convention a risky or prudent way to pass a marriage amendment?

2) Is Bob Vander Plaats’ executive order proposal an unnecessary step in passing a marriage amendment and does it set the precedent for future governors to have too much power?

3) Did the Iowa Family PAC make a strategic blunder by betting the marriage issue completely on the gubernatorial campaign of Bob Vander Plaats?

It should be a fascinating two hours of radio. If you can’t listen to the radio, you can listen on-line by clicking here. Then click the ‘Listen Live’ button on the right side of the page.

Please feel free to post you reaction in the comment section. Tomorrow’s top story will address these topics as well.