Can Ron Paul Fans, Evangelicals and Moderates Agree on GOP Candidate for Harkin's Senate Seat?

Iowa Democrats have a head start, at least for now, in the race to replace Tom Harkin in the U.S. Senate in 2014.

Bruce Braley, the first district congressman from Waterloo who declared his candidacy in January, is amassing a roster of supporters and money and appears to have no competition for the nomination.

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, there's been speculation but no headliner announced.

The question is whether internal rifts between the growing Ron Paul wing, Christian conservatives and moderate Republicans will doom a prime opportunity for Republicans to pick up a seat Harkin had locked down for years.

A recent Associated Press report explores the GOP's struggle for a preferred nominee and the divide between factions within the party.

... Republicans here find themselves in a surprising predicament - still trying to come up with someone to run for the job, and struggling to avoid becoming another example of the party's disarray after its presidential defeat.

Ever since Harkin, who had held the office since Ronald Reagan was president, provided an opening for the GOP, the party has bounced between two options for the Senate seat: candidates who could win but won't run, and candidates who could run but, party officials fear, couldn't win.

Meanwhile, the state party apparatus has become a reflection of the GOP's bitterly divided factions. Now led by followers of libertarian Ron Paul, the organization has quarreled with Iowa's senior Republican eminence, Gov. Terry Branstad, and disputed his strategy for state government and party affairs.

Several names have been tossed around, including Steve King, a multi-term Republican congressman from western Iowa who's lead in polling in a mock GOP primary.

King has a strong base, particularly in western Iowa, but some doubt the controversial conservative's chops in a general statewide election. And, mainstream Republicans at the national level disapprove of King, a politician they see as ripe for campaign-ending gaff, the AP, New York Times and Des Moines Register report.

Karl Rove’s new Conservative Victory Project has targeted King for a take-down, according to an article in The New York Times on Sunday.

The implicit message: the GOP shouldn’t run more candidates who easily win primaries but are too right-wing or have made too many controversial statements to win a general election. See: Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin, Rove said on Fox News Wednesday.

“We’re concerned about Steve King’s Todd Akin problem,” Steven Law, the leader of the Conservative Victory Project, told the Times. “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.”

King said he will make a decision soon about whether or not he will run. In an article last month, Harkin meanwhile warned Democrats not to underestimate King, who he called "a smart guy" and a "tough campaigner."

Tom Latham, the third-district congressman and a more moderate Republican, has said he won't run. Latham was the first choice of Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, the AP reports. A couple of popular Republican names are still in the mix, but they have limitations. Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has the support of Branstad, is untested, and Bill Northey, Iowa's agriculture secretary, is less prominent, the AP reports. 

Doug Gross, a former Republican nominee for Iowa governor, during a taping of Iowa Public Television's Iowa Press expressed doubt that any of the three - King, Northey or Reynolds - will run. Gross didn't speculate who the candidate might be, beyond saying it won't be himself.

“I know (King) was here last week indicating that he is analyzing it,” Gross said on the public affairs show that airs at 7:30 p.m. Friday and noon Sunday on IPTV as well as 8:30 a.m. Saturday on IPTV World. “Usually when I’ve worked with politicians over the years, when they’re analyzing something they’re usually trying to figure out how not to do it, because usually their gut tells them when they’re going to do it.”