I’ll never forget the first time I heard a person pitch Steve King for president in 2012. Mere weeks after the 2008 election in which Barack Obama was selected as president, we at The Journal took a look at what names Northwest Iowans might see in the ‘12 race. (Yes, some readers said, too much, too soon.) That involved asking  Republican Party chairpersons in many surrounding counties to list their top three picks for four years off. A county chairwoman was quick to put King’s name on her list.

With GOP people like Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Mitt Romney and others taking top mentions in early 2009, I forgot about King as a possible presidential candidate. The speculation was whether this would be the year King ran for governor, which he ultimately did not pursue.

Then last month, when interviewing Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann for a profile piece on King, I asked about her perceived interest in the presidency. Before saying she had no intention to pursue the presidency, Bachmann first brought up King’s name as getting mention on Capitol Hill.

And last night, Dave Price of WHO, the Des Moines NBC affiliate, aired an interview with King in which the four-term congressman won’t rule out running for president. And why should he? King is beloved by the conservative base of the Republican Party, which in many states has a big role in pushing candidates toward victories in primaries and caucuses. King loves having a national voice on issues of importance, which doesn’t hurt his profile with the base. (Yeah, sure, he riles up Democrats, that’s a given.)

Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, who King has noted is essentially his twin, ran for president in 2008. Why shouldn’t Steve King?

When we get missives from the press office of the Terry Branstad for Governor campaign (yes, still technically in ‘exploratory’ status), they’ll be the product of an area native. Ida Grove’s Tim Albrecht this morning has been announced as Branstad’s communications team director, and he’s on the job this very day.

Albrecht, 32, has had a hand in a lot of Republican political campaigns after leaving the University of Northern Iowa. He was part of the Steve Forbes presidential campaign, worked for Steve Sukup when he ran for governor in 2002, then served for four years as spokesman for Iowa House Speaker Chris Rants of Sioux City.

Rants was a very early supporter of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the 2008 presidential race way back in late 2006, and Albrecht became press secretary for Romney’s campaign in Iowa. I figured at some point, Albrecht would come on board with Rants in his 2010 gubernatorial campaign. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Many of you know Albrecht about a year ago launched a popular Web site, TheBeanWalker, which is a right-of-center news aggregator, a sort of Iowa-ized Drudge Report. Albrecht announced the site will continue with a new publisher. He also is leaving behind his job as communications director for American Future Fund, the group that in 2009 brought to the state a batch of high-profile GOP people with supposed designs on the 2012 presidency, including U.S. Sen. John Ensign to speak here in Sioux City.

There’s a new news/politics Web site of note in Iowa, as Ida Grove native Tim Albrecht has launched a must-visit site. He’d tipped us to the launch about a week ago, which came with a party down in Des Moines. I’d had the impression it was going to be a blog, with the views of the well-connected Republican media expert.

But now seeing it, Albrecht, formerly House Speaker Christopher Rants’ spokesman and the Iowa spokesman for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, instead has created a sort of Iowaized Drudge Report. The Bean Walker.com is full of links to the state’s bloggers, newspapers, TV stations and top stories of interest, and so far has one high-profile advertiser, (Steve) King for Congress.

Consider adding The Bean Walker.com to your pulldown Web Favorites. A pretty cool name too.

The day after the election, the Wall Street Journal and NBC had a Republican pollster hit up Republicans for their preferences in the, yes, 2012 presidential race. The poll found a lot of familiar names from this year, including leader Mitt Romney (33 percent), Mike Huckabee (20 percent) and Sarah Palin (18 percent).

Well, we at the Journal also probed the minds of Republicans for a Page 1 piece two days ago; in our case 11 GOP county chairpersons from Northwest Iowa. Our results were much the same, with the three high-profile Republicans above getting much mention for presidential runs, along with some national spotlight newcomers in Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan. Even our own area guy, Congressman Steve King, got a mention.

One thing that surprised me — not one of the 11 locals listed Jeb Bush in their Top 3 preferences for 2012. Bush fatigue must also be hitting Republicans, not just Democrats.

The Journal endorsement of a Democratic and Republican candidate is being made this afternoon. Already one of the campaigns, with relish of course, has noted the endorsement. There are audio and video clips of the endorsements that are worth sampling on the Journal Web site, and the full endorsement will be in the paper tomorrow morning.

Who are they? Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

Yesterday’s stop by Repubican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney resulted in two Journal news articles, an overview and one focused on his stance on immigration, which has been a continuing topic in the two-day swing through Iowa. The Associated Press wrote a whole article about a nugget I placed two-thirds down in the overview story, on how Romney would campaign vs. Hillary Clinton.

Our headline reads “Immigration issue stays with Romney,” and I debated but didn’t use the word “dogged” to refer how over two days the question of what to do with the 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. was the repeated issue of Romney’s trip. One of his GOP opponents, John McCain, is sending out releases that cite opinion pieces contending Romney’s immigration position is tortured and that he’s giving no plan. It might be well for Romney to take the issue head on and lay out a plan making himself clear on immigration. He’d no doubt say that his position is more than just being against amnesty, but that’s apparently what is being heard. Check out this blog, which says Romney is twisting in the wind on immigration.

My immigration story was the product of a few Romney comments to the crowd of 200, but in large part from two questions in the press conference afterwards. It was me and several members of regional/national media, and when there was a pause at the beginning, I went first with two questions, pretty basic and unvarnished: (1) What do you do with the 12 million people here illegally? and (2) What is your definition of amnesty? The latter question led to the passage in which the former Massachusetts governor used the term “amnesty lite.”

Three related pieces have landed on my desk in the last 24 hours, bringing to light whether Mitt Romney’s religion will be an issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. Two press releases — both from the Christian Newswire, yet they couldn’t be more dissimilar — discussed whether Mormonism, the faith of Romney, should be considered a Christian faith. The Southern Baptist Convention lists the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints under “cults and sects.”

First up was Hank Hanegraaff, head of the Christian Research Institute and host of “The Bible Answer Man” radio show. Hanegraaff said members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, Mormons, are not Christians. “They take our language but they pour their meanings into the words… Mormons do not believe that the Bible is the infallible repository for redemptive revelation. They believe that the Book of Mormon is the most correct of any book on earth and it’s the keystone to their religion,” he said.

Added Hanegraaff in an interview with TheAmericanView, “We’d all be very happy if Mormonism recanted their heresy, particularly with respect to the nature of God and the person and work of Jesus Christ. But they haven’t done that.”

A second piece dealing with the Mormon faith came in a statement from Rev. Rob Schenck, an evangelical minister and president of the National Clergy Council in Washington, D.C. Schenck was responding to comments by Rev. Al Sharpton on Romney’s Mormon faith. Schenck said Sharpton’s comments suggested that Mormons don’t believe in God. Said Schenck, “While many other Christian groups may have differences with LDS doctrine, to question someone else’s sincerity of belief in God is the height of pharisaical arrogance.”

This happens as Romney’s Iowa campaign headquartered in Des Moines sent out a major mailing with a glossy, photo-filled publication and a DVD containing his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference. Included is a piece reprinted from NewsMax, in which writer Ronald Kessler hits on “the Mormon Factor.” Republican Romney in October met with 15 evangelical leaders in his home, including Gary Bauer and Jerry Falwell, to discuss religion and issues. After the meeting, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention said “evangelicals know that they’re not electing a theologian in chief, but a commander in chief. If they agree with Romney on social issues, his Mormonism won’t be a hindrance, especially if he’s the only viable social conservative in the mix.”

Said Falwell, “There’s no question that there are strong feelings about Mormonism. But we’re not electing a Sunday school teacher, we’re electing a president. I do not believe (Romney’s) church affiliation will hinder his being a viable candidate among evangelicals.”

Per NewsMax, 95 percent of Mormon voters voted for President Bush in 2004.

Another prominent Sioux Cityan has endorsed Mitt Romney in his 2008 presidential bid. Today Romney announced he had the support of Debi Durham, a Republican who was the party’s lieutenant governor candidate in the 2002 governor race. Durham has been president of the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce since 1995 and is very well connected in the area.

In selecting a Republican to support, Durham said Romney, who just ended his term as Massachusetts governor, “has the executive experience needed to bring real change to Washington. Our president must be a decisive leader experienced in leading institutions forward.”

In addition to the Durham endorsement, Romney has the support of city councilman Brent Hoffman and Christopher Rants, the Iowa House Republican Leader who was one of the first high-profile Republicans to join Romney last year.

As he adds more advisers to his exploratory presidential committee in Iowa, Mitt Romney is looking increasingly like he’s getting a lot of competent, deliver-the-goods Republicans on his team. One of the first advisers on his Iowa leadership team was Christopher Rants, the Sioux Cityan who heads the Republican Caucus in the Iowa House. Since that time, Romney got the support of Doug Gross, the 2002 governor candidate, and today he announced adding former Iowa House Speaker Brent Siegrist, who preceded Rants in the speaker role until he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2002 (losing to Steve King). Romney also has paid staffers in Gentry Collins, who served as executive director of the Iowa Republican Party in 2003 and 2004, and Tim Albrecht, Rants’ former spokesman.

In a statement, Romney said, “With the help of this experienced leadership, I know our exploratory committee will continue to have a strong presence in Iowa.” Hard to dispute that. Just like it’s hard to believe that Romney would not run for president — he will, and he’ll be in the top tier of Republican candidates.