But that $15 million may have also cost the state its swing-state soul.

Of the 16 districts created, 12 are Republican and only four Democratic. In the last few days, revelations about the redistricting process, including taxpayer-funded hotel strategy rooms and pony-show public hearings caused an outcry against the process, seemingly lending momentum to the Democrats, who had already mounted a petition to place the first reapportionment bill, House Bill 319, before a public vote through referendum next year.

Redistricting watchdog group Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting brought these revelations to the public’s attention via a report detailing alleged misconduct of senior Republicans, prompting one Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Dennis E. Murray (Sandusky), to request an investigation into the process by the state’s legislative and inspector generals.

Despite the corruption allegations, a vote on the redistricting bill was not postponed, and Ohio will be able to seat Congress in 2012.

The state’s primary is scheduled for March 2012.

Photo of the Ohio state House (Flirkr/OZinOH)

Speaking with ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus indicated there would be no forgiveness for Florida’s 2012 leap-frog that tossed the calendar set by the national political parties into chaos.

“There is no discretion. There is no coming back. There is no kumbaya that’s going to happen in two months. The nominee isn’t going to be able to do a thing about it,” Priebus said.

“They’re going to lose half of their delegates and that’s a pretty serious penalty.”

The Orlando Sentinel reports that the loss of delegates is something state officials have already taken into consideration, noting that 50 of the state’s 99 delegates will be allotted as a part of a winner-take-all contest.

As Iowans involved in previous calendar squabbles can well attest, the intention of the national political party might be to penalize the states who violate calendar rules, but the final decision has typically been left in the hands of the presidential nominee — a person that doesn’t typically want to alienate any delegates from any state. In an effort to remove that conflict for the nominee — and to prevent state’s from circumventing the consequences of their actions — Preibus said that Florida will only have 50 delegates; that’s all that will be elected.

“They are not going to be able to recreate their delegate strength,” he added.

Similar penalties will also be applied to the other primary states that moved their dates forward.

“The penalty is there. The penalty is going to stick. That’s all there is to it,” he concluded.

Bundlers are individuals connected to a political candidate who offer to collect money on the candidate’s behalf and then ‘bundle it’ together. They are usually the largest contributors to candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Campaigns are not required to disclose their bundlers, and in fact, none of the Republican candidates have publicly named their donors who are giving money on behalf of other contributors. President Obama has elected to disclose his bundlers.

“When you release this level of information, it invites scrutiny, and the campaigns are shy about letting the public see the influence peddling that goes on behind the scenes,” said Michael Beckel, spokesman for The Center for Responsive Politics. “We know that there are perks and incentives involved for bundlers. This can be as small as being able to have a face-to-face conversation with a candidate at an event, or you might end up with an ambasadorial appointment abroad.”

According to iWatch news, this is a departure from the 2008 presidential campaign, when all the major candidates released their bundler information.

President Obama received at least $55 million this year from his bundlers, and more than 40 bundlers each brought in over $500,000. The minimum donation from a bundler is $50,000.

In contrast, individual donations for the campaign averaged $56 per person. According to Obama for America, more than 606,027 people have donated individually.

Bundlers are just one part of a growing trend of organizations and individuals contributing to political campaigns on behalf of donors that prefer anonymity. Other organizations that fall under the 501(c) tax code, like Americans for Prosperity, co-founded by the infamous billionaire David Koch, are not held to any disclosure rules as long as their primary purpose isn’t political.

The speech has won plaudits from labor groups and most of the Democratic base for its extension of unemployment insurance benefits and direct jobs training and hiring subsidies for employers, while the package of household and business tax cuts has piqued the Republican Party’s interest as well.

Among the direct jobs spending the president called for, $30 billion would be spent on retaining 280,000 teachers as a counter-cyclical measure to wait out the sluggish economy. After a several-month period of 100,000-plus job gains in the labor market, hiring has slowed, with the most recent monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics noting job growth was completely flat, with net zero new hires.

Going into the 2011-2012 school year, nearly 85 percent of all school districts face budget cuts, according to labor groups; the depletion of 2009 stimulus money that relieved state legislatures from cutting even deeper into education spending meant more layoffs and school infrastructure neglect. The National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union in the country, have said the first round of stimulus funds helped 90 percent of school districts avoid spending cuts. Though with many state legislatures passing expansive tax cuts, school spending was on the cutting block.

Many states have dramatically thinned out spending streams to education. From Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

21 of the 24 states analyzed are providing less funding per student to local school districts in the new school year than they provided last year, and 17 of the 24 are providing less than they did before the recession, after adjusting for inflation. In 10 of these 24 states, per student funding is down by more than 10 percent from pre-recession levels. The three states with the deepest cuts — South Carolina, Arizona, and California — each have reduced per student funding to K-12 schools by more than 20 percent.

Though state contributions to school district spending varies by state, nationally, 47 percent of public education spending comes from state coffers. Since the start of the Great Recession, 229,000 teachers were laid off. And with the housing market at a standstill, local communities are strapped as their chief revenue stream runs dry.

Still, a few states upped their primary and secondary education spending: Alaska, Iowa, New Hampshire, Maryland, Massachussetts and Pennsylvania sent more dollars to K-12 education since the start of the recession.

Because public education allotments follow ‘formula’ spending as indicated by federal law — in which dollars are sent over based on district financial need — a disproportionate amount would flow to poorer neighborhoods, meaning middle-class zones would feel the squeeze. New Jersey, for example, is under court order to withhold any more spending cuts affecting school districts in low-income areas.

The remaining $25 billion would go to refurbishing school structures while funding new science labs, internet-ready classrooms, and modernizing rural school houses while bolstering public school facilities’ green bonefides across the country.

A statement from the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest teachers’ union, read in part:

President Obama also made it clear that the path to our future is through education. We have seen a loss of 300,000 education jobs since 2008 as well as long-delayed school repairs and modernization projects. We can’t equip our kids for the knowledge economy if we continue to slash education budgets. This robust plan will put people to work teaching and modernizing schools, and it will save money in energy costs that can be reinvested in education.

For a spending breakdown of the president’s proposed jobs bill, click here [PDF].

In a recent Washington Update, Perkins warns that “activists are already plotting to overthrow the Republicans’ pro-life, pro-family platform. … Homosexual groups like GOProud and the Log Cabin Republicans are hoping to elbow their way into the conversation, but they’ll meet strong resistance from the solid conservatives that have historically dominated the platform process.”

Gay GOP groups’ essential strategy, as reported by the Washington Blade, is to try to make the party’s 2012 party platform more LGBT-friendly than 2008′s platform, which denounced same-sex marriage as well as statues against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in areas such as employment and adoption.

“Log Cabin Republicans plan to actively participate in the process to revise the party’s platform,” Log Cabin Republicans Deputy Executive Director Christian Berle told the Blade. “We recognize there will be a lot of work to be done to strengthen the importance of reaching out to LGBT Americans as a part of strengthening the party.”

Despite Perkins’ insistence that such efforts should be tamped down, he disputes the idea that there is a gay constituency in the Republican Party, stating, “Although Gov. Jon Huntsman is the only candidate with a pro-gay agenda, [GOProud board chair Christopher] Barron says he’s ‘confident’ that this almost non-existent constituency is ‘going to have a nominee that gay conservatives can work with.’” (Perkins ignores the fact that openly gay Republican candidate Fred Karger is still in the race and but has been fighting for recognition from his own party.)

Last month, GOProud was uninvited to next year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) “for pushing this same divisive agenda,” says Perkins. However, as a boost to their credibility within the Republican Party, GOProud recently acquired conservative commentator Ann Coulter as the new “honorary chair” of their advisory council.

Perkins’ major concerns with LCR and GOProud appears to stem from a concern that the Republican Party might bend a little on LGBT issues, but it’s the 2012 Democratic Party platform (which he says is also “under attack” by LGBT lobby groups) he fears more.

Homosexuals are already leaning on Democrats to step up their support for the LGBT cause when the Left convenes in Charlotte more than 13 months from now. In 2008, delegates made it clear that this is not your grandparents’ Democratic party. For the first time in history, the Left’s planks called for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Now, homosexuals want more. They want “marriage.”

But FRC’s lobbying arm, FRC Action, and new Super Political Action Committee, Faith Family Freedom Fund, are prepared to push back on LGBT agendas from both parties.

“As always, the FRC Action team will be on hand in Florida, fighting for the values and priorities of America’s families,” Perkins said. “We’ll make sure the conservative base has a solid platform to stand on.”

Within the debate’s first 45 minutes, Santorum had received roughly one minute of face time, and finally, appearing frustrated, the former Senator raised his hand and remarked, “I haven’t gotten to say a lot.”

Rick Santorum 

But Friday, Santorum, appearing casual and relaxed in a Penn State University polo shirt, said he felt “really good about last night.”

Not that he was without some contention on points he would have liked to see addressed more in-depth, he told The Iowa Independent exclusively.

“It would have been nice to talk about health care” more, Santorum said, taking the chance to throw barbs at his opponents, particularly former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

“I believe in a market-based, market-driven, consumer-driven health care system.  I don’t believe in a government-run health care system,” Santorum said. “Mitt Romney and [former Minnesota Gov.] Tim Pawlenty and [former U.S. House Speaker] Newt Gingrichhave all advocated for individual mandates. In Mitt Romney’s plan, he tries to draw this distinction, ‘well, it’s right for Massachusetts.’ No, it’s wrong for Masachusetts, and it’s wrong for any state. We’re seeing that it’s bankrupting the state of Massachusetts, and it’s going to bankrupt this country, just like it has every other country that has gone to socialized medicine.”

Santorum called government-driven healthcare “a black hole of waste, fraud and an inefficient use of the health care system.”

The former Senator said last night was the not the first time debate moderators have shut him out.

“Gov. Romney needs to be taken out on this, and he wasn’t last night,” Santorum said, meaning the issue of socialized medicine and President Barack Obama‘s healthcare reform bill, oft referred to as “Obamacare.”

“It’s very frustrating again, for the second debate in a row, not to have the opportunity to get involved and debate something which I’ve been a leader on,” he said.

Santorum will take The Des Moines Register’s soapbox at the Iowa State Fair, where Thursday, Romney encountered aggressive heckling and questioning. The former Senator appeared unfazed.

“I’ll be ready for whatever they want to throw at me. You don’t understand, I come from Pittsburgh. I’m a conservative in a big steel union worker town,” he said. “I’ve been there before. I’ll give people the opportunity to say what they want to say, then have respect enough to let me to answer the question.”

As The American Independent recently reported, the Palmetto Family Council is using its state’s influential primary status to communicate its top issues to the presidential hopefuls. These are issues — among them marriage, abortion and religion in public life – that Palmetto has lobbied over in the past while receiving federal money for faith-based programs. And Huntsman is the first to show his allegiance to Palmetto’s causes.

Anticipating its first-in-the-South GOP presidential primary, the Columbia-basedPalmetto Family Council (PFC) recently sent out a Family ’12 challenge to all the presidential contenders asking them “to make family a centerpiece of their campaigns.” The challenge was accompanied by an indicators report showing that South Carolina has higher crime and welfare rates than the nation has a whole.

In an email to supporters, PFC President Oran P. Smith said Huntsman’s letter (pdf) was delivered Friday. Smith also indicated other candidates have “expressed interest” in Palmetto’s Family ’12 campaign, which essentially asks candidates to present solutions they would enact as president to restore family life.

From Huntsman’s letter (PDF):

As I stated at the Faith and Freedom Conference last month, “I do not believe the Republican Party should focus only on our economic life to the neglect of our human life. That is a trade we should not make. If Republicans ignore life, the deficit we will face is one that is much more destructive. It will be a deficit of the heart and of the soul.”

[...]

I agree with you that the decline of the family seriously threatens our future in America. Broken families not only lead to broken spirits — they lead to increased poverty, homelessness, crime, and government dependency.

[...]

As Governor of Utah, I signed some of the nation’s toughest laws to limit abortion and defend those who cannot defend themselves. We made second-trimester abortions illegal, required parental consent for minors, and allowed women to learn about the pain their aborted child would feel. My goal is to bring these pro-life, pro-family values to the White House.

[...]

I applaud the Palmetto Family for your FAMILY ’12 project. The research you have done clearly illustrates just how important it is to restore America’s Foundation.

“I think President Barack Obama does get some credit for being the first African American running for president,” Cain told The Iowa Independent Tuesday night at a Linn County GOP chili cook-off. “It’s not talked about as much this time because the novelty of happening to be of a darker hue, or the novelty of happening to be a female isn’t as big of a news story as it might have been in 2008.

“I believe that the big story in 2011 and 2012 is not going to be about color, not going to be about gender, but about content of ideas and character. That’s what the story is going to be about.”

Any residual belief that the residents of predominantly non-ethnic Iowa aren’t open to welcoming and promoting another person of color, he said, should be cast aside.

“I have absolutely no qualms about me being an American black conservative — I’m an A.B.C. — I don’t want anybody else to label me. I’m an A.B.C., an American Black Conservative,” he said.

“I have been so warmly received by the people here in Iowa. They aren’t looking at color. They are looking at the content of my ideas. They are looking at my character and they are looking at what I can bring to the table as a leader in the toughest job in the world as President of the United States of America.”

If his public remarks were any indication, Cain is right. From the moment he entered the event, he was greeted with warm embraces, applause and firm handshakes. Before he was ushered to his awaiting chair at the front table, he was first brought cups of chili for taste-testing. When he was finally given the microphone, his voice flowed easily between a slow and deliberate cadence, sprinkled with “that’s rights” and “amens” from the audience, to a booming crescendo filled with urgent rifts of rhyme, often difficult to hear to the end due to applause.

He’s also right about being immune to labels. He’s part Southern Baptist preacher, pulling his flock toward stark realities while simultaneously offering glimpses of a future promised land. He’s polished, but not brass or pretentious. He’s wealthy, but hasn’t forgotten his family’s roots in poverty. He’s comfortable around others, quick with a smile and a laugh, and, obviously, a lover of life’s journey.

He’s the archetypal hero of Joseph Campbell fame — a self-made man of ordinary beginnings that seems poised to answer the call of a new adventure full of promise not only because of the victory that could be his own, but because of what he believes will result for everyone once the task is complete.

“I didn’t get the memo about this country,” Cain told event attendees, relating the state of the country to the dismal state of Godfather’s Pizza when he was asked to take it over and ultimately led it back to prosperity. “I believe we can turn things around.”

He wants to change the tone in America, he said, and make it acceptable again to be successful.

“There are folks who want to make us feel guilty,” Cain said. “But I’ve earned my success and I’m proud of it. … We don’t have to apologize for it.”

“At this moment, I am officially announcing that I am a candidate in the Republican primary,” Paul announced on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Paul decided to enter the race because the “time has come around to the point where the people are agreeing with much of what I’ve been saying for 30 years.”

It is the Congressman’s third bid for the White House. He ran in 2008, losing the nomination to John McCain, and in 1988, as a member of the Libertarian Party. Buzz has already started over Paul: last week, he raised more than $1 million leading up to the first GOP debate in South Carolina.

Paul opened his first campaign office for the 2012 election in Ankeny Tuesday. Today, he is scheduled to be appear in Exeter, New Hampshire.

Fellow Republican and former Speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich announced he would also run for President Wednesday.

A meet and greet will be held Friday morning at 11:45 a.m. at the Marion Public Library and, later that evening at 6 p.m., Pawlenty will serve as keynote speaker at the Johnson County Republican Party’s Reagan Dinner. The dinner is being held at Clear Creek Amana High School in Tiffin. The first event is free to the public and the evening event is a party fundraiser.

On Saturday, at 9:45 a.m., Pawlenty will meet with Iowans at Legends American Grill in Marshalltown. At 1:30 that afternoon, he will host an ice cream social and town hall meeting in Indianola at One Stop Sandwich. Both of these events are free to the public.

According to his Iowa staff, Pawlenty’s remarks during this visit will focus on the importance of cutting the federal deficit.