The 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary is shaping up to be a spirited affair, with candidates already actively campaigning and taking shots at their fellow Republicans more than seven months before Election Day.

But Civic Skinny, the anonymous gossip columnist for Des Moines’ Cityview, says the contest is as much about revenge and staking a claim on 2012 as it is about who gets to challenge incumbent Democratic Gov. Chet Culver.

[According to a source] “A part of this is settling scores, another part is Iowa caucus related and, yes, [part is] the contest on the ballot,” this person said. He, or maybe she (“Keep my name out of the mix,” she, or maybe he, said) continued: “There was bad blood between Doug Gross and Bob Vander Plaats during the ’02 GOP gubernatorial race [which Gross lost to Tom Vilsack], especially at the end. The two ripped one another, nearly allowing Rep. Steve Sukup, as the good guy, to win a razor-thin, three-way primary race. As it was, Gross barely exceeded the minimum threshold of 35 percent to avoid the battle going to a state convention. Since then, Gross sided with [loser Jim] Nussle in his poorly run ’06 [gubernatorial] effort that saw Vander Plaats join the ticket after dropping his primary candidacy.”

There’s more: “Differences continued during ’07 and early ’08 with Gross leading the Mitt Romney effort in Iowa and Vander Plaats chairing the Mike Huckabee campaign, which won. Both former Governors are quietly preparing encore efforts. Huckabee will deal with high expectations; unclear yet what commitment Romney would make to Iowa a second time around. Huckabee has endorsed Vander Plaats in the ’10 GOP primary, as you know. With a ’10 victory, a newly re-inaugurated Terry Branstad would be in the thick of the action with governors and former governors dominating the field — possibly including Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, even George Pataki, who made early stops in Iowa in ’05-06, only to defer to Rudy Giuliani when he made his candidacy clear. A governor Branstad would likely remain neutral, but not necessarily his political team with a data base of updated names.”

In other words, Gross is still pissed, and one reasons he’s backing Branstad is so he can settle a few scores.

Gross, who served as Branstad’s chief of staff when he was governor, has become a controversial figure for Iowa social conservatives thanks to a series of Op-Ed columns he penned earlier this year calling on his party to be more inclusive and focus less on social issues that are turning off a younger generation of voters.