King Not Conservative Enough

King Not Conservative Enough?!?

Steve King just scored an award from the American Conservative Union for a 96 percent "right" (heh) rating. But apperantly that's not good enough for `02 Senate candidate Bill Salier, who's talking primary. You hears me. He wants someone to primary Steve King. From the right.

The problem, in a nutshell, seems to be that King, who for all his faults has actually served in government, is advocating the constitutional amendment approach to marriage inequality. Salier, the outsider who lost the one election he's run, want civil disobedience at the county recorder level and unconstitutional executive orders at the governor level. At least that's how I'm reading it.

From the left, Bleeding Heartland has more analysis: "I never thought I'd see the day when Steve King defenders look like the reasonable ones in a clash among Republicans."

As for King and primaries, his first one was epic. It was an open district in 2002 after Leonard Boswell carpetbagged to Des Moines, conceding to the GOP a district he and only he might have been able to hold to hold for the Dems. Four Republicans jumped in including sitting House speaker Brent Siegrist, and no one reached the required 35 percent; they all landed between 21 and 31 with King first. He then sealed the nod at a party convention and swamped Council Bluffs Council member (I love writing that, like I love Iowa City City Council) Paul Shomshor, who used the respectable defeat to springboard into the legislature.

I don't see any traction in challenging King from the right; that's a reeeeealy narrow lane. The time to take on King might be a 2012 primary, when he has new turf that could conceivably reach as far as the west Des Moines suburbs.