The American Spectator

In a letter to the Iowa Republican on the issue of involving Karl Rove’s controversial “Conservative Victory Project” in next year’s Republican primary to fill outgoing Senator Tom Harkin’s U.S. Senate seat, the head of the CVP has now backed off on the idea of challenging Congressman Steve King.

As this article in the February 2^nd New York Times indicates, a potential King candidacy was very much on the mind of Rove and his backers. The article featured a photo of the Iowa Republican congressman, falsely accusing him of having agreed with the idiotic comments from 2012 Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin on rape. King did no such thing, specifically saying he disagreed. In spite of this, the CVP president Steven Law was quoted in the Times as saying:

“We’re concerned about Steve King’s Todd Akin problem,” Mr. Law said. “This is an example of candidate discipline and how it would play in a general election. All of the things he’s said are going to be hung around his neck.”

Now, while Law is still trying to say King said something he clearly did not, the Rove ally and CVP president has conceded that opposition from CVP to a King candidacy is “non-existent” — and went out of his way to note that Rove’s other group — American Crossroads – had supported King’s re-election to the House in 2012.

An interesting about-face. While the letter to the Iowa Republican contains a lot of Beltway mumbling, Law is clearly backing off in a letter that is as close to a public apology as Iowa Republicans and King will get.

It will be interesting to see if Law and Rove stick by Law’s promise of “non-existent” involvement against King in the Iowa Senate primary as 2014 gets closer.