Via Radio Iowa I learned that Tom Hoefling is collecting signatures to run for Iowa governor as a Republican. Looking on his campaign’s website, I see he announced his candidacy in early December. I’ve posted some background on Hoefling after the jump. This guy seems drawn to hopeless causes; he is a former supporter of Alan Keyes for president, but he appears to have become disenchanted with the Republican Party sometime during the last decade. In 2008 Hoefling and “many stalwart Reagan conservatives from across the country” founded the “America’s Party.” He ran for president in 2012 as the America’s Party nominee.

It’s anyone’s guess whether Hoefling will manage to qualify for the GOP primary ballot. He needs to submit nominating petitions with at least 3,654 valid signatures, spread across at least ten Iowa counties, by the end of business on March 14.

If Hoefling becomes a candidate for governor, we all know he has no chance of beating Terry Branstad. Even he acknowledges that. I will be interested to see how much traction he can gain from bashing what he calls “crony capitalism” and “economic ‘happy talk’ coming from the governor” that doesn’t reflect “the real world for the people that I know.”

Hoefling highlights some other issues that are important to many social conservatives, on which the Branstad administration and elected Iowa Republicans are perceived to be lacking. He wants GOP leaders to fight against the “Common Core” curriculum for Iowa schools and take action to reverse “the abortion holocaust” and “the homosexual agenda which is destroying marriage and the natural family.”

Republican turnout statewide should be higher than average on June 3 because of the crowded U.S. Senate primary and the competitive races for the GOP nomination in Iowa’s first, second and third Congressional districts. How large is the potential protest vote against Branstad? Spin your own scenarios in this thread.

Excerpt from Tom Hoefling’s official candidate biography:

Tom is the proud father of ten, foster father to two, father-in-law to two, and the grandfather of two. […]

Tom Hoefling was raised in Ralston, Nebraska and attended public schools there.

Tom is a long-time national conservative political activist, writer, publisher, organizer, and consultant. He is known primarily for his pro-life work and his defense of traditional marriage. He has also been a long-time advocate for the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, private property rights, economic liberty, fundamental tax reform, secure borders, and the maintenance of American sovereignty and security through a Reaganite peace through strength foreign policy.

Tom is the primary author of the Equal Protection for Posterity Resolution, which is revolutionizing how Americans look at what must be done to stop the abortion holocaust.

He was closely associated politically for many years with former Reagan administration official and U.N. Ambassador Dr. Alan Keyes.

In 2008 Tom Hoefling, along with many stalwart Reagan conservatives from across the country, founded America’s Party, a long-term project designed to rebuild principled government of the people, by the people, and for the people, without regard to political party affiliation.

In February of 2012, America’s Party, in convention, nominated Tom Hoefling to be its standard-bearer for the office of President of the United States.

On December 2, 2013 Tom Hoefling announced his intention to seek the 2014 Republican nomination for Iowa Governor.