Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told students Tuesday when he was a student at the University of Northern Iowa it was never on his mind to run for the U.S. Senate.

“I had a political career that just evolved that probably started with my mom and dad,” Grassley said. “For one reason or another, my mom and dad were always talking about politics and history.”

Grassley, speaking in Steffen Schmidt’s political science course in Hoover Hall, said he first ran unsuccessfully for the Iowa legislature when he was only 23. He was elected the second time he ran, ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974 and for the U.S. Senate in 1980 when he beat Gov. Chet Culver’s father, John Culver.

During the hour-long class, Grassley fielded a wide range of questions from students from immigration policy, legalizing marijuana, the Cuban embargo, the expiring Bush tax-cuts and education reform, where the Iowa Republican had praise for President Barack Obama.

“I even heard one of his speeches and wrote him a personal note complimenting him on what he said,” Grassley said. “I don’t know if he ever read it, but I wrote it.”

Grassley was responding to a question about Obama advocating an extension to the school year, and said the United States needs to look at why the country is falling behind in math, science and other areas.

“When you see Japanese students going to school on Saturday mornings and we don’t … we think sports are more important than book learning, we think television is more important,” Grassley said.

He said most people agree, as Obama has said, a big part of education reform must include more parental involvement.

The senator said much of education policy is left up to the states except where federal money is involved, although it’s a small portion of any education budget.

“I would say, having voted for [No Child Left Behind], we have put education in too much of a straight-jacket,” Grassley said.

‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ and national security

After opposing moving forward on the defense bill in September, which contained a provision to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, he said he is waiting until a military review comes out after the election before deciding on repealing the policy.

“I’m waiting for that study to be done. I want to know what the results are of the study and I want to know that before it changes,” Grassley said. “Does that change in policy affect the mission of the combat unit? That’s the basic question.”

When it comes to national defense you don’t tell your enemies what your plans are, he said, referring to both the USA Patriot Act and placing timetables on withdrawal from Afghanistan.

While he admitted there have been some abuses of the Patriot Act, he said it was a good law because before cell phones a person didn’t move around as much, and said we needed to bring wiretapping in to the 21st century.

Grassley encouraged the students to get involved in politics before ending the session.

“Through government you’ve got more of an opportunity to make an impact than almost any other instrument in society,” he said.

Grassley also told them to pick a political party, saying he doesn’t “bad mouth independents” but they don’t get to select who gets nominated to run.