Iowa lunatic homophobe Rep. Steve King's job to be eliminated; Ex-Iowa first lady to challenge him in new district

POLITICO reports that former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack (from Mt. Pleasant) has received the blessing of Iowa Democratic party leaders for a congressional challenge to Rep. Steve King, who represents the soon-to-disappear Iowa Fifth Congressional District. The Des Moines Register has called King an embarrassment to Iowa. Nebraska's Omaha World-Herald, widely distributed in Western Iowa, has endorsed King.

An Iowa Democrat familiar with Vilsack’s planning said she is mulling a move to [ultra-liberal]Ames, Iowa, which would place her in the newly drawn 4th district that King occupies...
     Vilsack had been weighing the possibility of running against a Democratic incumbent in a primary — against either Rep. Dave Loebsack or Rep. Leonard Boswell — but waging a campaign against King instead would allow her to rally the party against a lightning-rod conservative and avoid a contentious and potentially bloody intraparty battle.
     The scrutiny surrounding Vilsack’s future comes as Iowa lawmakers finalize a new congressional map that will shrink the state’s House delegation from five seats to four. The Legislature approved a new map last week and sent it to GOP Gov. Terry Branstad, who told local reporters Friday that he will sign the plan into law.

The World-Herald is saying that a possible Vilsack vs. King matchup would have all the makings of a high-profile, red-hot race, according to Steffen Schmidt, a political scientist at Iowa State University:  “It’s great. It’s wonderful. It’s going to make that race one of the most expensive House races in the State of Iowa,” said Schmidt.