Keep a hawkeye on Iowa

Will the much talked about "battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party" be won by the moderates, who believe that somehow making the GOP more like the leftist Democrat Party will transform it into a winner, or the conservatives, who argue that the Grand Old Party should reacquaint itself with the Reagan principles which once made it a winner? If it does return to its winning conservative ways long abandoned, will fiscal conservatives, social conservatives or across-the-board conservatives be at the helm?

The first indications of which way Republicans will be headed in 2012 may be seen in Iowa in 2010. Douglas Burns says Iowa's governor's race could be a harbinger of the GOP's future"

The personalities in the 2012 presidential nomination and the 2010 gubernatorial contest are yet to be fully cast although likely candidates are emerging. Should an Iowa conservative like Sioux City business consultant Bob Vander Plaats or U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, win the party’s nomination for governor, then the stage would seem to be set for a socially conservative presidential candidate, such as Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin or former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Palin drew the largest crowds of any Republican in the 2008 presidential race in Iowa and Huckabee won the 2007 caucuses.

If I recall correctly, Steve King endorsed Fred Thompson and campaigned hard for him in Iowa during the 2008 GOP presidential primary race.  He appeared at a Sarah Palin rally in Sioux City last October and gave a barn-burner of a speech in which he perceptively pointed out that then-candidate Barack Obama was even more extreme than a socialist. 

Huckabee, interestingly, will return again to Iowa to June 10 to officially endorse and campaign for King's possible GOP gubernatorial primary opponent Bob Vander Plaats. Huckabee did not wait long after the 2008 election to get back to Iowa. He was there ostensibly to promote his book Do the Right Thing.

It will be interesting to see if Gov. Palin's itinerary for the book tour to promote her forthcoming memoir, due to be released in the Spring of 2010, has any stops scheduled in the Hawkeye State. It will be even more interesting to see whether she endorses King, with the backing of SarahPAC, or if she follows the Huckster's lead and gets behind Vander Plaats. If the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate decides to support King, who supported her in Iowa last year, we could see a Palin-Huckabee showdown two years before the GOP presidential primaries.

- JP