Brownback’s Iowa connection

Kansas Senator Sam Brownback has an old friend in his corner here in Iowa who should prove helpful in his quest for the White House.  Brownback formed one of those obligatory "exploratory" committees this week, but it’s clear he’ll be competing for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. 

During a conversation earlier this evening, Brownback said he’s interviewing people to head up his campaign effort in Iowa, and Chuck Hurley is "working very closely with me."  Hurley is a former state Representative who represented the Oelwein area in the legislature.  After leaving office Hurley has been involved in the Iowa Family Policy Center, the Iowa chapter of "Marriage Matters: and legal challenges to gay marriage policies, such as the NW IA judge’s ruling which granted a divorce to a gay couple who had obtained a "civil union" in Vermont. Hurley also served a stint on the State Parole Board.

"I trust Chuck a lot.  We will put people on the ground (in Iowa)," Brownback said.  "We’ve got the exploratory launched just a week ago, so I’m very early in this process but we’ve got staff on in DC and I hope to move the headquarters back to Kansas City once we go from the exploratory to the full-blown campaign…That’s the intent at this time to move it out of D.C."

"How did you meet Chuck?" I asked.

"We were in undergrad together at K-State.  We both have agriculture economics degrees (and) are from small towns.  He’s from Glascow and I’m from Parker, Kansas.  We both went to law school at Kansas at the same time…We’ve been friends a long time and I got behind him on kids.  I only have five and Chuck’s got 22."

Brownback’s exaggerating a bit. The Hurleys have 10 children; the two oldest are adopted.