Today Mitt Romney is experiencing another vicissitude of a campaign that requires a uniformly strong performance across a large landscape of battleground states: it can bring you into close proximity to crazy people in your party. In Iowa, he’s all snuggled up to Rep. Steve King:
At a rally in the most conservative county in Iowa, Mitt Romney enthusiastically endorsed conservative lightning rod Rep. Steve King — prompting the Obama campaign to renew its claim that the Republican supports an extreme social agenda.
“I’m looking here at Steve King,” Romney declared about halfway through his speech. “He needs to be your Congressman again. I want him as my partner in Washington!”
As Team Obama quickly pointed out, King has recently declared himself “open” to Todd Akin’s views about women not being able to conceive if subjected to “legitimate rape,” and has a vast record of extremism on many subjects, particularly immigration and laws against cruelty to animals. King is also a Very Big Dog in Iowa right-wing circles, and is actually in a rare competitive race against Christie Vilsack, so Mitt does not have the luxury of giving him a wide berth. But Democrats will have great sport identifying the two men in parts of Iowa–not to mention other states–where comparing immigrants to dogs while also voting against restrictions on dog-fighting don’t go over so well.
But hey, it gets better! At some point Mitt will almost certainly get to campaign in Florida with Allen West and in North Carolina with Virginia Foxx!
