Conservative Senator Denied Delegate Slot For Not Being Right-Wing Enough

By Eric Kleefeld
TPM
July 22, 2008

Now this is just sad. Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who has long led the conservative forces of his state, has been denied his customary position as a voting delegate to the Republican National Convention -- and it's being done by an even more conservative bunch.

The Iowa Christian Alliance, a successor to the state's Christian Coalition, has effectively taken over the state party's executive committee, and they obviously weren't happy with Grassley. It does seem curious, though, when one considers that he came up in the ranks of conservative activists and was elected to the Senate in 1980 on Ronald Reagan's coattails, and is a reliably conservative vote on issues like abortion and gay rights. What could have gotten them angry?

The Washington Times, of all places, has a hypothesis: Grassley teamed up with Democrat Max Baucus to investigate the finances of televangelists.