King Won't Run for Governor; Doesn't Want Primary for Grassley

Iowa Congressman Steve King told me he heard from hundreds of Iowans who wanted him to run for governor and hundreds of others who wanted him to stay in the U.S. House of Representatives. King decided to stay in the house. King was my guest on my Internet radio show, "Purple Matters". Here are a few other highlights from our conversation:

He didn't say he did or didn't want former Governor Terry Branstad to run again. But he said "it would be an act of complete altruism" if Branstad did run again.

He said has no plans to challenge Republican Senator Chuck Grassley in a primary next year and he doesn't want anyone else to run against Grassley either. Some conservatives don't like it that Grassley voted for the bank bailout plan or that he is trying to work on a compromise with Democrats on a health care plan.

He doesn't want Republicans to work with Democrats on health care reform. When I told him, Congressman Tom Latham, another Republican, said Congress had to pass bipartisan reform, he said he would want to talk to Latham about it. He did not think Latham would want to compromise Republican principles on reform. He added that he seldom confers with Latham on votes before them in Congress.

Later in the show I talked with Jeff Patch, from the Center for Competitive Politics. His group has a problem with something both Iowa Democrats and Republicans did in the past week.

Here's an archived version of "Purple Matters" (Thursdays at 4pm central on http://www.macsworldlive.com/)