Driving Political Opinion

Iowa is a good laboratory in which to study the political process. Geographically it is a small (just under 56,000 square miles), rectangle-shaped state that can easily be traversed from east to west (307 miles) in less than five hours and from north to south (219 miles) in less than four. Political candidates can access a large percentage of the Iowa electorate (there are 3 million people and 2 million registered voters) and the electorate can get to know the politicians up close and personal in a way that could not occur in bigger states with larger populations.

Iowa’s population is well-educated (86 percent of Iowans 25 and older are high school graduates; 21.2 percent have a bachelor or higher degree), the state unemployment rate is low, and the median household income is around $42,000. The state does not have a history of a corrupt political machine nor has it been known to have ties to organized crime.

Some people say that Iowa lacks the racial diversity (91 percent white) to represent the entire US population and thus the state should not have such an important role in Presidential politics. No state is completely representative of all things American, and race, although very important, should not be something that ever excludes one group of citizens from the political process. Iowa plays an important role in winnowing down the slate of contenders. Iowans are plain spoken, hard-working people. We weed out the weaker candidates. Those who run and survive the gauntlet here leave as winners who have many campaign trials yet to come.

Some argue that the process should be truncated to 30, 60 or 90 days. To really get to know candidates in all their vicissitudes – to see them in the good, the bad and the ugly – the testing process needs to take place over a long-enough period of time so voters can actually come to know the candidates and compare them. Truly few other states would really want this process dropped into their laps.

The idea of rotating the caucuses, allowing states to compete in some type of lottery to “win” the right to conduct the caucuses belies an ignorance of the role of the caucuses. The very reason the Iowa caucuses developed over the past 25 years to be what they are today is because of the states’ size and political civility, because of the access candidates have to voters and the level of engagement Iowa voters’ have in the process, and because the national press has chosen to cover the process as extensively as it does and therefore plays an enormous role in agenda setting. That would happen no matter where the first-in-the-nation caucus process took place, but the level of involvement of the citizens might be far less due to geography and size of the population in other states.

Last night as I left a post-caucus rally for one of Iowa’s winners, I talked with members of the media (as a journalism grad student I am far more star-struck by the media folks than the candidates!) who said the Iowa Caucus process is alive and well and that 2012 will be bigger and better yet. There are 3 years, 11 months and 30 days (1461 days) between January 3, 2008 and New Year’s Day 20012 – I can’t wait!