AMES, Iowa — One of the most oft-repeated lines heading into Thursday’s Republican presidential debate and Saturday’s closely watched Ames straw poll is that, on the campaign trail in Iowa, Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) has the most passion and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty has the best organization. But on Wednesday it was Bachmann whose campaign event looked a little staged, and Pawlenty who drew more excitement, with an early-evening rally here featuring live rock music, a rousing speech by his wife, Mary, and a cheering crowd of more than 100 supporters. Read full article > >

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Pawlenty gets Iowans fired up on eve of Republican debate

His Justice and Development Party (AKP) won a whopping 50 percent of the country’s vote and an overwhelming 326 parliamentary seats. Still, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, AKP’s leader and Tukey’s bombastic prime minister, forsake his usual swagger for an apologetic tone during his victory speech on Sunday night. “Today is not a day of reckoning,” he said to a cheering crowd of several thousand at AKP headquarters in Turkey’s capital Ankara, “Today is a day of reconciliation.” Perhaps they were words prompted by the admitted loss of four seats. Nonetheless, they were, along with his appeals for consensus building with those that oppose him, uncharacteristic words for Erdogan, who has prided himself for being and representing the “outsider.”

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Sizing up Erdogan: A View from the Ground in Turkey