Almost as quickly as it started, the idea that Des Moines attorney Roxanne Conlin might challenge Republican Sen. Charles Grassley in 2010 has been quelled.

The rumor started on “The Insiders,” the Sunday political talk show on Des Moines NBC affiliate WHO-TV. This week’s show featured former Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Gross, who in the course of making predictions said Conlin  has “a huge cache of money, that she’s bored and she wants something to do and I think she will do that.”

But later the same day, Conlin, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1982 and has built a reputation as one of the country’s leading civil rights attorneys, told The Des Moines Register there no truth to Gross’ prediction.

“I really think this is a fundraising ploy for Grassley,” she said. “That is the only reason I can possibly think Doug would have said such a thing because it’s not based in fact.”