This week, some within the Republican Party, led by Washington, D.C., insider Ben Ginsberg, who currently serves as GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s top lawyer, attempted to do serious harm to Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status in the presidential nomination process. Had they succeeded, it would have damaged Newton’s and Jasper County’s status on the political stage, as well.
 

Few, if any, communities of our size can boast having had two visits from a sitting first-term President of the United States. Barack Obama has been to Newton three times, if you count his swing through during the run-up to the 2008 presidential election.
 

And while the traffic was muted a bit this time around, in 2008 literally every political candidate from the Democratic and Republican parties came through town. Iowans generally have tremendous access to politicians during the campaign leading up to the caucuses, but Newtonians and Jasper County residents get a front-row seat.