Jonathan Narcisse

Jonathan Narcisse

Former Des Moines School Board member Jonathan Narcisse went to the African American History Museum in Cedar Rapids today to say he’s running for governor again.

“I don’t have all the answers, but that’s not the governor’s job,” Narcisse said. “The governor’s job is to find good people who are smart and smarter than him and to surround himself with these people, but also to make sure that they have the right moral compass, that they first and foremost as public servants are going to put the interests Iowans — our taxpayers, our families and our children — above personal ambition and politics and greed.”

Narcisse ran for governor in 2010, originally saying he’d challenge Democratic Governor Chet Culver in a primary, but he dropped out before the filing deadline. Narcisse ultimately ran as the “Iowa Party” candidate in November of 2010. Today Narcisse railed against the package of tax incentives Republican Governor Terry Branstad gave an Egyptian firm that’s building a fertilizer plant in southeast Iowa.

“We have these priorities wrong. We ought to be protecting our families and our children,” Narcisse said. “When you have a single mom working two and three jobs, one at 4 a.m., she ought not be financing millionaires and billionaires, just because they write checks to Governor Branstad and my administration will end that foolishness.”

Narcisse has proposed that Iowans who are paid by the hour should only pay state income taxes on their first 40 hours of work in a week. Narcisse is also pledging to lead the charge to reduce obesity, especially among children in Iowa.

“We need a better example for our young people and for Iowans and I think in the area of health I provide a pretty good example,” Narcisse said. “In fact, I hope before the end of my administration to be able to lift my shirt up and show my eight-pack. That might not happen now, but it is a goal and a dream.”

Narcisse has said that “under no circumstances” will he run again as a third-party candidate for governor, calling his 2010 a decision “a mistake. He’s now among three announced candidates for the Iowa Democratic Party’s 2014 gubernatorial nomination.