Steve King will probably be the Republican candidate for the open Senate seat in Iowa, after Tom Latham decided he didn’t want to spend two years of his life being splattered by the bullshit that would emanate from Michele Bachmann’s male doppelganger. Now that he has the nomination if he wants it, King is playing coy:
A potential Senate race remains an analytical decision first and then one that requires deep conviction. Such a decision includes, of course, my family and the best interests of Iowans and Americans. It is too big a decision to be rushed.
My analysis tells me that the best interests of Americans will be served by a homophobe, racist, dogfight supporting Teabagger candidate who likes to talk about rape and is hung up on Obama’s middle name.
Baud
Children of the Corn, indeed.
c u n d gulag
What ever happened to Bobby J’s call for “Republicans to stop being the ‘Stupid Party?'”
Having King run in Iowa, uncontested, sure looks like they’re doubling-down on “TEH STOOOOOOOOOPID!!!”
Oh, this should be fun!
To bad there’s no primary, or else King would feel the need to go ‘full-goose bozo’ to win the nomination.
Still, he can’t help himself. It’s not like, if he opens up his mouth, anything even semi-intelligent is liable to drop out.
But the sad thing is, there’s no guarantee that he’ll lose.
jonas
Obviously King’s own district is deep red, but does he really have a shot in Iowa as a whole? It’s a rather purple-trending-blue state (Obama won it in 08 and 12).
Elizabelle
Are there any good Democratic candidates?
Iowa went for Barack Obama, 52-46, in 2012.
Nominee Steve King sounds like good odds for Democrats retaining the seat, IMHO.
PeakVT
Early polling from PPP has Braley over King 49-38%.
Punchy
@jonas: Iowa’s quite proggy. Everything east of Des Moines is relatively sane and reasonable….a Dem candy would clean up in IC, Davy, Dontpuque, and a lot of the small college towns…
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Assuming Braley isn’t like Martha Coakley was in MA, this should be a seat we can hold…particularly against this asshat. I mean if we just south of the border in Misery can send “Blanche” McCaskil back to the Senate instead of a nutjob just like King, then methinks the good folks of IA can follow suit.
Waynski
I doubt he’ll run, even though I’m sure he wants to challenge Ted Cruz for the title of biggest asshole in the Senate. Why give up a safe House seat for a Senate race you’ll almost certainly lose? Maybe Rove et al were actually trying to get him to run by taunting him so he’d go on to lose and they could get him out of politics.
shortstop
@jonas: No, he really doesn’t have a chance of winning. So his being the R candidate keeps us the seat, but at the cost of everybody having to listen to this bullshit for months. I am rapidly moving past the point at which I can find these jackasses entertaining.
JPL
@Waynski: GA’s next Senator will be either Price or Broun.
There is no peak wingnut.
cmorenc
@c u n d gulag:
True; it’s advantage Democrats for the open seat only if they’re able to come up with a reasonably solid candidate themselves. I’m really hoping hard that the Dems don’t wind up shooting themselves in the foot with a nasty, counterproductive primary campaign for the nomination which either winds up gratuitously damaging the otherwise more electable candidate or the two better candidates splitting the vote and thus allowing a weaker, less progressive third candidate to wind up with a plurality win in the primary.
However, with a decent candidate, the dems should hold this seat, provided they can get decent turnout in an off-presidential year general election.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@jonas: The answer to your question is ‘no’. Yes, his part of the state is mostly deep red, but the rest of the state, the part that’s also the most populous, is mostly blue … and Braley is a very popular guy in these parts.
@Punchy: Yup.
The Fat Kate Middleton
I loved a comment I found over at GOS: “The writers at the Daily Show and Colbert broke their hands high-fiving each other” when they heard this news.
RSA
Can he or Kant he be elected?
handsmile
From GOS, a brief, useful assessment of Democratic congressman Bruce Braley and the Iowa Senate election. A good candidate for Democrats to retain this seat.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/07/1185355/-Democratic-Rep-Bruce-Braley-will-run-to-succeed-Tom-Harkin-in-Iowa-Senate-nbsp-race
Chyron HR
@Waynski:
As in all matters political, economical, historical, biological and spiritual, the Tea Party rejects your reality and substitutes its own.
JPL
OT..Politico has up the threatening emails from Sperling. Be prepared to yawn…link
Patricia Kayden
Strange that President Obama easily won Iowa twice and yet someone like King could win a Senate seat there. Hopefully, a strong Dem is run against him.
MikeJ
@JPL: I’ma call a couple of hard, pipe-hittin’ National Economic Council directors to go to work on homes here with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch.
dmsilev
Speaking of crazy Republicans, I’d like to commend the GOP primary voters of the Illinois 2nd district for their inspired choice of nominee for Congress:
SenyorDave
@shortstop: So his being the R candidate keeps us the seat, but at the cost of everybody having to listen to this bullshit for months. I am rapidly moving past the point at which I can find these jackasses entertaining.
I used to find these nutjobs almost funny, but that was when they were the exception, and considered outliers. Now that the Republican party is full of Steve King-lite types, its not funny at all. I have two grandchildren now, and I would like them to live in a country that is livable.
Todd
OT -Gawker media is a national treasure. Scocca eviscerated Allen and Vandehei last week:
http://gawker.com/5985342/the-politico-is-mad-that-the-white-house-does-and-doesnt-talk-to-the-politico?utm_source=gawker.com&utm_medium=recirculation&utm_campaign=recirculation
Now we get this from Max Read on Woodward:
http://gawker.com/5987524/woodward-all-the-presidents-mean-watergate-journalist-accuses-white-house-of-threat-runs-to-fox
Roger Moore
@c u n d gulag:
They’re too stupid to know how. SATSQ.
Ubu Imperator
I live in central Iowa, and the baby Jeebus does not love me enough to let Steve King get the Republican nomination. He’d carry his own district, but the remainder of the state–where people actually, not to put to fine a point on it, live–would roundly reject him for someone like Braley, who has the advantage of not being a complete prick all the time.
Zifnab
Is it even possible for the same state to elect Tom Harkin for multiple decades and then turn around to pick up his mirror-universe evil doppleganger?
I mean, say what you will of Grassley, but he at least pretends to be a moderate.
liberal
My impression is that there’s a rough trend in wingitude as you go further West in the state. Don’t know why; I assume it’s based on some kind of ethnic settlement pattern thing. (NE is just west of IA, of course.)
Moreover, about purpleness, my impression from my parents (who live in IA; I grew up there) is that in general Harkin tended not to win by overwhelming margins, and that he’s a cunning and nasty campaigner when he needs to be.
Rick Massimo
I think King simply has to wait a little while before announcing, since Latham’s not-running statement was essentially “Well, I FOR ONE am KEEPING my oath to serve the people of my district and not use them as a stepping-stone, unlike SOME people I could mention.”
shortstop
I always think of King as Michele Bachmann with a pee-pee. They’re both batshit crazy. She ran for president with a straight face. I see no reason why King should have the self-awareness to notice he can’t get elected to the Senate from Iowa.
Trollhattan
Have probably mentioned before that my grannie spent her last couple decades in the greater Storm Lake Metroplex, and in my many visits I never encountered anybody remotely like the bizarre, spittle-emitting Herr King.
But, the firstest WalMart I ever shopped is in Storm Lake and
zut alorsai-ai-ai, there were brown people shopping there who spoke some kind of furrin’ tougue. “Spanish” translated I, an exotic California dweller and cultural attache for the locals.My suspicion is this encroaching brown horde (somebody’s gotta work at that pork plant on the lake) creates the environment in which a Steve King can be elected and re-re-reelected. But most locals are quite polite about it.
evgen
Harkin was always a solid winner. Iowans like their Senators to agree with them politically, but more important to them than where a Senator lies on the political spectrum is whether or not they have enough seniority and enough markers piled up with the right committee chairs to continue to bring home the Ag support pork that the state depends upon. Harkin and Grassley could run until they make Byrd look young and would only break a sweat during re-election campaigning if facing a former Gov (Vilsack or Branstad before he went wingnut).
For an open seat the demographics and general state politics favors the dems. The IA republican party is deep into serious wingnut mode, with an ongoing inter-necine war between the fundies and Paul-ites basically chasing anyone even close to moderate out of party leadership. This is the dynamic that leads the republican primary voters to favor someone like King even though he will lose big.
IowaOldLady
Bruce Braley, the likely Democratic candidate, is my congressman. He’ll do well, I think, though since it’s an off-year election, we’ll have to GOTV.
pseudonymous in nc
@shortstop:
I always think of him as Tom Tancredo’s mini-me: he’s a stone-cold racist in a way that Bachmann Crazy Overdrive has never showed herself to be.
formerindependant
Interesting thing is the Lt. Gov is making noises about running if KKKing doesn’t. Some sources indicate her batchit credentials are apparently deficient (primary contest from the reich if she announces), this makes me think insiders don’t believe KKKing will run.