Lowa Poll Goes to Bachmann; Paul Is 2nd

Out of 16,892 votes cast, Congresswoman Bachmann won 4,823 votes, or 29 percent. Coming in a close second was Rep. Ron Paul of Texas with 4,671 votes, or 28 percent. Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota came in third with 2,293 votes, or 14 percent.


Bachmann’s campaign has been on rocket fuel since she announced her candidacy on June 13. The fiery legislator quickly shot to first place in polls of Iowa Republicans, whose party is dominated by Christian conservatives who align with the low-tax, small-government message of the tea party. Bachmann heads the Tea Party Caucus in the House.


The entry of Texas Gov. Rick Perry into the GOP race on Saturday likely sets him up to be the alternative to Bachmann in the conservative wing of the party. National front-runner Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, opted not to take part in the Iowa straw poll, though his name appeared on the ballot. He won 587 votes, compared with 718 write-in votes for Governor Perry.


In a statement after the results were announced, Bachmann thanked Iowans for "this tremendous victory.


With Republican enthusiasm swelling over the prospect of defeating President Obama next year, thousands of party activists and voters converged here for the Iowa straw poll. The outcome provided a snapshot of the campaign that could help reorder the top tier of contenders as candidates move into a critical five-month stretch before the nominating contest begins.


“We did this together,” Mrs. Bachmann said, standing outside her campaign bus after she was declared the winner. “This is the very first step toward taking the White House in 2012.”


Ron Paul of Texas, whose libertarian views put him at odds with many Republicans, finished just a few votes behind Mrs. Bachmann. Tim Pawlenty, a former governor of Minnesota who had sternly warned voters against supporting Mrs. Bachmann’s candidacy, finished a distant third.


The results of the straw poll, along with the arrival of Mr. Perry in the race, represented a turning point in the campaign, but also underscored an uncertainty in the Republican contest to find a nominee to challenge Mr. Obama. Republicans sense a new opportunity at the chance to win back the White House, but there was little clarity about whether voters would choose someone from the party establishment or an outsider — or a hybrid.


By virtue of his long tenure as governor of Texas, his credentials as a social and fiscal conservative and his fund-raising capability, Mr. Perry has an opportunity to challenge the perceived front-runner in the race, Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, who did not actively participate in the straw poll. Mrs. Bachmann’s victory here gives her the opportunity to increase her profile, raise more money and begin building a national organization.


The straw poll in Ames, along with Mr. Perry’s announcement in South Carolina, marked the biggest day yet in the Republican presidential campaign. The events were 1,200 miles apart, but Mr. Perry’s entry into the race was a chief topic of discussion here as Republicans turned out by the thousands to deliver an early judgment on the field.


In caravans of cars, vans and buses, party activists and curious voters descended on the campus of Iowa State University on a cool, pleasant summer day. While the candidates repeatedly assailed Washington, the straw poll grounds seemed as though much of Washington had been transported here, with party leaders, television personalities and a collection of interest groups on hand.


It was hardly a perfect laboratory of democracy.


The right to cast a ballot cost $35. Most campaigns footed the bill, throwing in a lunch of barbecued pork, grilled hamburgers and ice cream as an enticement to spend part of the day in Ames. The campaigns poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the political carnival, which is a fund-raiser for the Republican Party of Iowa.


The event unfolded as a daylong pep rally for Republicans, who may have supported different candidates, but were unified around the notion of defeating Mr. Obama. In speech after speech, the candidates drew the most enthusiastic applause when they expressed optimism for taking back the White House.


“We are going to make Barack Obama a one-term president,” Mrs. Bachmann said, pausing for emphasis as the crowd chanted the words “One! Term! President!” right along with her. “Iowa will be the pace car, if you will, to set the tone and set the pace to bring this country back to its greatness.”


No candidate invested more in the straw poll than Mr. Pawlenty, who relocated his national campaign operation to Iowa in hopes of jump-starting a candidacy that has flagged since Mrs. Bachmann joined the race in June. In the event of a poor showing, he said he would have to “retrench in some way,” with the prospect of his fund-raising drying up and an expensive overhead to maintain.


Even before Mr. Pawlenty finished a distant third, Mr. Perry’s candidacy posed a new complication for him. For weeks, Mr. Pawlenty urged voters to settle on a candidate with executive experience. The candidate who could pick up that argument, several Republicans here said, could be Mr. Perry.


“He’s an attractive candidate,” said Tim Gibson of Clive, Iowa, 59, who stood in line at the straw poll, waiting to cast a write-in vote for Mr. Perry. “He brings leadership to the race. My top priority is winning the election and I want to vote for someone who can win.”


It remains an open question what long-term effect Mr. Perry will have on the race. But the short-term implications were clear, with his candidacy opening just as the Republican field enters a new — and potentially clarifying — phase. But several voters said on Saturday that they did not know much about Mr. Perry and were eager to learn more before joining his campaign.


The participation of 16,892 Iowa voters on Saturday represented an increase from 2007, when 14,302 voters turned out for the straw poll. But even with swelling enthusiasm over the prospect of defeating Mr. Obama, the balloting was far less than the 23,685 people who voted in the 1999 poll, which propelled George W. Bush’s candidacy.


“The size of today’s crowd is a sign that the Republican resurgence is alive,” said Matt Strawn, chairman of the Iowa Republican Party.


The raw vote totals represented a sliver of the people the campaigns will ultimately need to win over before the Iowa caucuses, which open the party’s nominating fight early next year. The results are not intended to serve as a predictor of things to come, but rather a snapshot of time for the intensity, organization and sentiment surrounding a particular candidate.

President Obama sets sights on rural America to talk jobs

WASHINGTON — As the economy worsens, President Obama and his senior aides are considering whether to adopt a more combative approach on economic issues, seeking to highlight substantive differences with Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail rather than continuing to pursue elusive compromises, advisers to the president say.


Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Plouffe, and his chief of staff, William M. Daley, want him to maintain a pragmatic strategy of appealing to independent voters by advocating ideas that can pass Congress, even if they may not have much economic impact. These include free trade agreements and improved patent protections for inventors.


But others, including Gene Sperling, Mr. Obama’s chief economic adviser, say public anger over the debt ceiling debate has weakened Republicans and created an opening for bigger ideas like tax incentives for businesses that hire more workers, according to Congressional Democrats who share that view. Democrats are also pushing the White House to help homeowners facing foreclosure.


Even if the ideas cannot pass Congress, they say, the president would gain a campaign issue by pushing for them.


“The president’s team puts a premium on being above the partisan fray, which is usually the right strategy,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate. “But on this issue, when he knows what the right thing to do is, and when a rather small group on one side is blocking any progress, you have to be willing to call that group out if you want to get anything done.”


The debate is being framed by the 2012 election. Administration officials, frustrated by the intransigence of House Republicans, have increasingly concluded that the best thing Mr. Obama can do for the economy may be winning a second term, with a mandate to advance his ideas on deficit reduction, entitlement changes, housing policy and other issues.


Obama won a clean sweep in 2008 of Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan, a region that has supported Democratic presidential candidates since 2000, except for President George W. Bush’s narrow victory in Iowa in 2004.


But Obama’s standing in these states, as elsewhere, has grown precarious as the economy has slumped.


Republican governors are now in charge in three of those five states, and Obama’s approval rating, as measured by Gallup, is hovering around 50 percent in most of the region.


“We got a president who got a decrease in the credit rating of our nation, and that’s because our president simply doesn’t understand how to lead and how to grow an economy,” Republican hopeful Mitt Romney said in Thursday’s Iowa debate.


Romney and his GOP rivals blamed Obama for the growth of the federal deficit and the credit downgrade by Standard and Poor’s, the first in the nation’s history.


The GOP race intensified with Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s entry Saturday. When Obama arrives at a town-hall meeting in Decorah, Iowa, on Monday afternoon, Perry intends to meet with voters in eastern Iowa, about 100 miles away.


Nationally, Obama’s approval rating is comparable to President Ronald Reagan’s ratings in August 1983. But recent Gallup polls indicated that Obama’s approval rating was hovering between 44 percent and 49 percent in 10 states closely watched by his political advisers. Those states include Iowa, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida.


Obama’s standing with independents, who helped him win in traditionally Republican states such as Indiana and North Carolina, has fallen, too.


“The country is in an unbelievably angry mood,” said Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg.


Most presidents like to get away from the nations’ capital, and this excursion couldn’t come at a better time.


As a candidate, Obama said he would tame Washington’s gridlock. Yet it was political paralysis that scuttled his quest for a “grand bargain” with congressional Republicans on increasing the country’s borrowing limit and forced him to agree to smaller spending cuts without higher taxes on the rich, as he demanded.


The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that economic growth had been “considerably slower” than expected this year and outlined a glum forecast. Obama will have a tough sales job on the road. Unemployment is high, foreclosures are rampant and Wall Street is jittery.

Congressional gridlock on education needlessly threatens schools

Citing a lack of action on the part of Congress to reauthorize and reform No Child Left Behind Act, the Obama administration announced earlier this week that it will now provide a process for states to seek a waiver that will allow for exemptions from key provisions of the federal education law.


And it appears that if Connecticut's Department of Education does decide to pursue that waiver, it would have the support of many local level school administrators.


Greg Florio, superintendent of the Cheshire Public School District, said he was not surprised to see the federal government move forward to provide states with some kind of flexibility in meeting NCLB requirements.


"I think that they are coming to the realization that it's just an unrealistic goal," Florio said, noting that according to the act, by 2014 every public school student across the country will be required to test at their state goal level for proficiency in reading and math.


"If that was the case, then just about every school in the state of Connecticut will be seen as not making AYP (Annual Yearly Progress), and having to deal with the ramifications of that," he said.


Florio said while standardized testing and measurements are important, it is not the most important piece in the academic achievement puzzle.


"Individual student growth is more important than some artificial target," he said.


Since the law was first enacted in 2002, NCLB has been the frequent target of criticism from educators who have complained about its so-called "one-size-fits-all" approach of student assessment through standardized testing.


The problem is Congress’s failure to update the No Child Left Behind law. Anybody who’s been paying attention has long known that it has serious shortcomings. But the Democrats failed to overhaul it when they controlled Congress until early this year, and now tea party Republicans are making it harder still to do what’s right.


In particular, Congress needs to scrap the wacky requirement that sets steadily rising benchmarks that will ultimately oblige schools to achieve 100 percent proficiency in reading and math tests by 2014. Schools that fall short are labeled as “failing” and suffer sanctions including loss of federal aid, the obligation to let students transfer and the complete overhaul of staff and curriculum.


It’s admirable to set ambitious targets, and the 2002 NCLB law has succeeded in making schools more accountable. But requiring 100 percent is ludicrous. It amounts to saying that anything short of A-plus performance is the same as flunking.


What’s more, the NCLB benchmarks apply to every subgroup of students in every school — including non-native English speakers and students with learning disabilities.


“All you have to do is miss any one group and be branded for life as a failing school. It is pretty crazy,” said Fairfax Deputy School Superintendent Richard Moniuszko.


To his credit, Education Secretary Arne Duncan acted Monday to address the issue. He proposed to sidestep Congress and unilaterally exempt states from meeting NCLB’s requirements if they met certain conditions. That could mean sanctions would be delayed while Congress gets more time to fix the problem.


Some Republican leaders objected, however. They said Duncan had no right to act on his own and that his plan could undermine efforts to get a deal in Congress.


Duncan’s “general idea is a good one, but he may push it too far. It may get embroiled in lawsuits or political controversies about whether he should grant waivers or not,” Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, said.


The release of Virginia’s annual test scores Thursday highlighted the surreality of NCLB’s current grading curve. It seemed to suggest the state’s educational performance has worsened drastically.


Fully 62 percent of Virginia schools fell short of a passing grade, up from 39 percent last year. Every school district in Northern Virginia missed the benchmark for what’s called “adequate yearly progress.”


Now ask yourself: Does anybody really believe that Virginia schools deteriorated that much in 12 months? Of course not. It just meant the cutoff for a passing grade had jumped.


For instance, Fairfax as a whole got a failing grade this year for the first time since 2007, even though its overall test scores were unchanged from 2010. Many schools with high overall scores and excellent reputations were listed as inadequate, including W.T. Woodson, Lake Braddock and Chantilly high schools.


In Maryland, 44 percent of elementary and middle schools were labeled as failing earlier this summer. That seems a wee bit at odds with the assessment of Education Week magazine, which has ranked Maryland’s public schools as No. 1 in the nation for three consecutive years.


“NCLB has outlived its usefulness,” said Josh Starr, Montgomery County’s new superintendent. “Test scores are not the equivalent of a profit and loss statement. . . . You have to look at multiple sources of information to understand how well kids are doing and how well schools are doing.”


Ultimately, the failure lies with Congress and the White House. President Obama, preoccupied with the stimulus package and health-care reform, took too long proposing an NCLB overhaul when Democrats controlled Congress. Now Republicans who control the House can’t agree on a proposal, partly because some conservatives believe the federal government should stay out of education entirely.