Blasted John Deeth, beating me to the punch with a post of plentious sagacity. Iowa City-based Deeth not only has his original JohnDeethBlog site, but lately he’s moved onto periodic posts for The Des Moines Register. Two nights ago in handling what I’m hoping (please!) is my last time raking leaves in 2009, my mind went to 2010 gubernatorial politics and the Republican field. I was thinking how if the large GOP field isn’t settled by the June primary, Bob Vander Plaats would be the favorite in a special convention to pick the nominee.

I dawdled on that topic for a post, but Deeth laid that thought out similarly here. Give it a read, I’m essentially in agreement. As said in this blog previously, in his third attempt in running for governor, Vander Plaats enjoys a strong constituency of supporters who won’t want to move to another candidate. I’ll put that at 30 percent, perhaps 35 percent, that the Sioux City management consultant can lock-it-in count on. I don’t believe any other candidate, Terry Branstad included, has such a rabid core of supporters.

There could be a field of three or four from among Vander Plaats, Branstad, Chris Rants, Jerry Behn, Christian Fong and Rod Roberts still going come June, and if the primary doesn’t result in one of the candidates amassing the 35 percent threshold in the primary, I posit that Vander Plaats would have the advantage in the convention. Vander Plaats might want to hope for the biggest field possible to ensure no one gets 35 percent in the primary. On the other hand, the smaller the field, the more likely it is that someone like Branstad or Rants could squeak out a 36-to-38 percent win.

These special conventions are rare but interesting, as evidenced by the summer 2002 event in Denison that included horsetrading before then-State Sen. Steve King emerged with  the Iowa 5th District Congressional GOP nod.

U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., is a guy some Republicans want to see a run for president. After his bruising 2004 win that knocked Democratic heavyweight Tom Daschle out of a seat, Thune can be forgiven if he takes his 2010 re-election bid with less concern and actually looks ahead at a 2012 presidential bid.

But he might want to watch his words, as he’s received some attention for a line in a CNN profile. Downplaying any presidential aspirations, Thune obliquely referenced the important Iowa caucuses in the selection process, speaking thusly: “I may go across Iowa, but it will be to get somewhere.” That caused Democratic activist Taylor West to tweet that Some of us think Iowa IS somewhere.

Of course, Thune has been in Iowa before, including earlier this year when he spoke at an event set by Iowa 5th District Congressman Steve King and again Sept. 1 at an Ag Committee hearing in Sioux City. (He’s pictured at right, beside U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.)

Speaking of the 2012 presidential contest, Republicans with either vague or profound thoughts, however coyly expressed, of running to unseat President Barack Obama are coming through Iowa with repetition. We had Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Saturday in Des Moines, former New York Gov. George Pataki spoke at a Scott County GOP function last night and on Friday and Saturday Texas Congressman Ron Paul will appear in Ames and Des Moines events. Paul, who has a strong Libertarian bent in with his Republicanism, had a small but impassioned band of supporters during the run-up to the January 2008 Iowa caucuses.

Steve King looks at the health-care proposal.

You may have seen the big feature in The Journal today concerning health care reform and Steve King. It was something of a shocker that has people talking — Republican King is so opposed to health reform pushed by Democrats that he chose to stay in D.C. Saturday to cast a ‘nay’ vote instead of coming back home to see a son get married.

King also on Saturday had a second big public event in three days to air his concerns with the bill. In an interview with me yesterday, King said the genesis of the public rally idea came from Sioux City native Col. Bud Day, a big buddy of 2008 presidential candidate John McCain after the two were prisoners of war in the Vietnam War.

King said he’d been hunting with Day in Northwest Iowa when the most decorated American veteran came up with the rally idea. Separate from that, in an interview with fellow Journal reporter Michele Linck, Day on Friday praised King for his leadership in setting up the rallies. Day will be in a Journal feature this week after being included in a new Topps cards (you know, the company that makes baseball cards) series entitled American Heritage Heroes. He is one of the 10 military heroes, while there are 10 political heroes (including Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama), 10 civil rights heroes, and so on.

Talking with Michele, I connected the dots on the mutual admiration the two men have for each other. Day told Linck about hunting in the Loess Hills, when he suggested less talk and more action in a demonstrative way, including perhaps surrounding the White House. King then worked with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., on the plans. One image from the Thursday rally showed King (left) holding the 1,990 pages of the health reform bill (that ultimately passed on 220-215 count). You can see more images from Saturday’s event here.

“I got this real excited call from Steve. ‘I took your advice, we charged The Hill, surrounded Congress,’ ” Day related.

The three-day gap in posts here is due to a long weekend in Cedar Falls. Had a good time — and had a political connection when watching University of Northern Iowa Panther volleyball. In walked U. S. Sen. Charles Grassley, who goes to a lot of volleyball, in part to hear his son Jay handle the announcing. We had a brief chat, then others in the crowd hit him up as well, so I suppose Grassley didn’t get to see too much of the Panther plays.

Anyway, being away from computer and television for the weekend, my news dosage was simply reading the Sunday newspaper. Settling back into town here I see the U.S. House passage of federal health care reform ran on P5 of the Journal, while in the Waterloo Courier it warranted P1. The Courier also devoted much of the jump page to a comprehensive breakdown of what was in the reform bill,  as well as what was in the competing Republican reform bill that wasn’t enacted. I knew from reading the piece that only one Republican voted for the bill, so was certain that tri-state Republicans Steve King of Iowa and Jeff Fortenberry of Fortenberry did not vote for it.

However, several Democrats voted against the measure, but there was no breakdown of names in the article. So the nagging thought the rest of the weekend was whether South Dakota Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, a Democrat who lines up with the fiscal moderate Blue Dogs, had bucked the party line and voted against the bill. She’d expressed concern over health reform in a conference call just over a week ago, and I had an inkling she might not vote for reform in a state where Republicans dominate politically.

Sure enough, Herseth Sandlin voted ‘nay.’ As this Mount Blogmore post relates, that riled some South Dakota Democrats who saw merits in comprehensive reform. In a statement, Herseth Sandlin bemoaned the potential impact on Medicaid provisions on S.D.’s state budget and reductions in payments for long-term care under Medicare. She also pointed to insufficient cost containment and deficit reduction provisions. Herseth Sandlin said South Dakota families just didn’t support that particular reform package, as much as she still thinks reform is necessary.

So all three Siouxland members of Congress voted no on HR 3962. Now the gaze turns to the Senate, where this piece relates how that bill is unacceptable to some senators.

Posted on Twitpic by Somethingfishie

Federal health care reform talks have achieved critical mass, as the end of this week will be a key time to see whether reform moves forward. The U.S. House could vote on a measure Saturday, and today some local chapters of the American Association of Retired People are holding press conferences to talk about support for the House bill. That will happen in a few minutes in Des Moines with Iowa AARP talking about advocacy efforts.

On the flip side, at noon Republicans like Iowa 5th District Congressman Steve King and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann will follow through with a press event called a “house call” on the east steps of the Capitol in Washington to beat back reform. Two days ago King and other reform critics called on Americans to “fill the streets of Washington and opposed the (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi health care bill. ”

“For liberals, this legislation is the crown jewel of their socialist agenda,” King said, since it “will place bureaucrats between patients and doctors,” and raise taxes on small businesses. Bachmann pitched the “house call” with, “Nothing scares members of Congress like freedom-loving Americans.”

With equal conviction he’s right on the issue, on Tuesday a Storm Lake newspaperman gave testimony to the Senate Health, Education, Health and Pensions Committee hearing on health insurance, as invited by U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. Art Cullen of the Storm Lake Times spoke about how the newspaper has struggled to continue to provide health insurance to 12 employees as costs rise. He cited rates doubling (and then annually increasing by double digits) after an employee had a kidney transplant in 2005, and bemoaned an inability to change insurers because of employees with pre-existing conditions.

“The Storm Lake Times now pays nearly $50,000 per year for health insurance coverage. That’s almost as much as we pay for newsprint. Were it not for such high insurance costs we could add more employees and help to grow our local economy,” Cullen testified.

Cullen noted Buena Vista County families have an average household income of $36,000 and it costs about one-third of that amount to buy an annual private health care plan. Click here to see the 176-minute hearing, including the very last minute in which an incensed, arms-waving Cullen goes off prepared testimony to vent about  insurance companies “screwing” Americans.

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?

There’s very entertaining reading today as a perfect storm of politics, sports, news media moguls and pop culture came to a head in the words of  Iowa 5th District Congressman Steve King. You want Rush Limbaugh calling NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell a weasel? It’s here. I never thought I’d hear King namecheck female pop stars J.Lo or Fergie, but we’ve got that.

King referring to the Iowa Hawk football victory Saturday over Michigan State to go to 8-0? Oh, yeah. References to what Limbaugh said about Philly QB Donovan McNabb in 2003? It’s all good.

The episode was King grilling Goodell in a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing. Limbaugh so enjoyed King’s pointed questioning that he then held forth, using the “weasel” description for Goodell. Click here to read a transcript of the King/Goodell back-and-forth in the hearing, as posted on Limbaugh’s Web site. Recall, this all relates to Limbaugh being part of a bid to buy the St. Louis Rams football team, then being dropped by the partnership team when some of Limbaugh’s comments drew hot water.

Also, click below on the screen to see the hearing, via YouTube.

Had my first conversation with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., a political kindred spirit with Iowa 5th District Congressman Steve King. She’ll be part of an upcoming political feature, and Waterloo, Iowa, native Bachmann was fine with going off-topic for a few stray questions at the end of our chat.

I relayed the report this week showing U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley had the bountiful amount of $4 million in his 2010 senatorial campaign coffers, but was down for money raised in the third quarter, compared to when he ran for prior re-election six years ago. I was curious about whether federal officeseekers were typically having a tough time in fundraising.

“Members of Congress have to work even harder now in these recessionary times to raise money, than they did in the past. Also, Republicans are in the minority, and that makes it very difficult to raise money. When a member of Congress is in the majority (party), it is far easier to raise money,” she said.

Bachmann, as a committed conservative who riles Democrats, noted she needs to raise a lot of money, since “I’m one of the top targets for elimination by Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi. Because of that, I have to work that much harder on fundraising.”

Bachmann has already announced she’ll seek a third term in 2010, and she’s raised about $800K in this year and has about $600K on hand.

Additionally, I asked Bachmann if she is being prodded to seek the 2012 presidency, given her growing national profile. She said she has no doubts the GOP will produce a good crop of  presidential candidates, and threw out King as a name of interest.

“Steve King is mentioned as a potential nominee. I have a very high opinion of Steve King and his ability, so I would encourage him to consider any position for higher office,” Bachmann said.

As for herself, Bachmann said, “Goodness, I’ve only been in the House for three years, so, no, I’m not considering anything like that.”

Two 2010 political candidates will be in the area this week, one Republican, one Democrat, with the officeseeker options spanning two states. First will be State Sen. Tony Fulton of Lincoln, who is running for the Nebraska state treasurer position as a Republican. Fulton tomorrow kicks off a three-day swing through the state with a morning press event in South Sioux City, then he’ll move along to finish in North Platte and Scottsbluff.

As mentioned in a post Friday, Democrat Mike Denklau of Council Bluffs will officially announce his candidacy for the Iowa 5th District congressional position. We now know it will be held at 9 a.m. Thursday at Morningside College.

That puts me in mind of former state legislator Gene Blanshan, who sought the Iowa 5th congressional position and also launched his run at Morningside College, from which he had been graduated. But Blanshan  lost in the Democratic primary to Joyce Schulte in June 2004. I imagine Denklau hopes there is no such thing as a Morningside jinx, but he certainly faces an uphill battle in unseating Congressman Steve King in a district with a considerable Republican voter registration advantage.

Next week it will become official, but a Democrat has decided to launch a campaign to unseat Republican four-term Congressman Steve King in Iowa’s 5th District. Mike Denklau has eyed the possibility of running in the strong Republican district since early 2009, and after traveling western Iowa recently he decided to go all-in.

On Oct. 15, Denklau will announce his candidacy 55 weeks out from the election in stops here in Sioux City, Council Bluffs and Des Moines. Denklau will turn 27 next month — he was raised in Blue Grass near Davenport and graduated from the University of Iowa with majors in political science and finance. He worked in New York for two banking firms through June 2009, including Lehman Brothers, until moving to Council Bluffs recently.

In minutes from the Iowa 5th District Democratic Party Central Committee meeting on Aug. 15 in Denison, Denklau noted filing Federal Election Commission paperwork to become a candidate. The minutes also show the 2008 Democratic 5th District congressional candidate Rob Hubler asked each of the 32 county organizations to put forth $200 each for the 2010 congressional candidate.

I’m told Hubler hasn’t decided whether he’ll run for the post again. There’s a precedence for that — Joyce Schulte was the party nominee in 2004 and 2006 in her unsuccessful attempts to derail the King Express.

I laid out several King positions on federal issues and Iowa politics  in two posts yesterday. Today he’s being included in a new Democratic National Committee series of “radical” Republican views in what is called “The Faces of the GOP.” Kings past statements about Joe McCarthy and radical Islamists dancing in the streets if Barack Obama won the presidential election are regurgitated in the video.