I can be smirk about this as my congressman is Steve King.:)
How he became our congressman is an interesting story and shows the necessity of hanging together and planning ahead.
The year he was first elected, we had a four-way primary. Iowa law says that in a primary, the candidate must win by 35% of the vote or the election will go to the district convention.
We live in a heavily Republican district so the trick was to only get the nomination. After that, it would be home free.
This process works from the bottom up so it was necessary to get as money King supporters to attend their local caucuses as possible and then for them to get themselves nominated to the country conventions and then to get themselves nominated to the district conventions.
It sounds more difficult than it is. It's not that hard. It worked and Steve eventually prevailed at the district convention. Consequently, we have one of the finest congressmen in the whole congress. I hope you've seen him. He freeps and has addressed Freepers.
Do you like Iowa’s caucus system, or do you think that your state should only use primaries? Rep. Kirk was first elected in 2000. 11 Republicans ran, and the majority of them were conservative. The conservative vote split, helping Kirk win the primary, with 31% of the vote. Since then, he’s been unopposed, in the primaries. I ran, as a write-in candidate, in the 2006 primary, and a newspaper said that I got 144 votes, although I didn’t spend any money, on the campaign.