Dems Giving Up on Iowa

Dems are Giving Up on Iowa

By ART CULLEN

Democrats have enough problems in rural America without nudging Iowa out of its pole position in the presidential nominating process. The Democratic National Committee is determined to put some other state in Iowa’s place and make certain that no candidate has to touch down in Sioux City in January ever again.

The DNC in a meeting March 11 put forward the argument against Iowa and its quaint caucuses. We’ve heard the particulars in the indictment so many times before: too White, too liberal, too rural, too icy, inconvenient for coastal media, and the caucuses are too inaccessible and confusing. Mortal sin: Iowa did not produce a clear winner in time for cable news on caucus night.

Too White: Barack Obama. Too liberal: You have to be kidding. Too icy: Guilty.

The real reasons that they don’t want Iowa to go first are the media and the money. Iowa is inconvenient in that it is in the heart of America. It requires getting out there to places like Storm Lake. The narratives are subtler with a fairly sophisticated local caucus electorate. It is more difficult for the money to control the message.

Jimmy Carter would not have been elected president were it not for Iowa. Same with Obama. Low-cost retail politics gave them a chance against the big money controlling marquee candidates (who loathe Iowa because of it, and these people hold grudges). No way Carter wins the nomination if California or Texas goes first. The money would flood the TV markets and Carter could whistle back to Georgia. Obama understood organizing, and used the grassroots to win the caucuses and the White House.

In neither case did Iowa declare one a winner. It merely gave Carter and Obama momentum into New Hampshire. The saying used to be that you get three tickets out of Iowa. That was when we had a half-dozen candidates. Last cycle there were 25 candidates and about a half-dozen got tickets out, including Joe Biden.

Iowa’s role is to winnow the field, not pick a winner. We have become pretty good at it over a half-century. We are fairly civil and good listeners, and we have smart questions. And, in fact, you do have to campaign in Black neighborhoods in Waterloo, Davenport and Des Moines, and Storm Lake is probably majority Latino.

New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada define a leader, and Super Tuesday confirmed it in Biden. The early states together do blend races and ethnicities, rural and urban, conservative and liberal, Northeast to Midwest to Southeast to New West. It is a representative process that is not hostage to corporate control.

The caucuses are called archaic, but we find them useful. Neighbors actually sit down and talk through the candidates with each other. They reconcile differences. They become better neighbors. They get involved in their political party. Iowa has tried to make them more accessible through virtual caucuses, snowbird caucuses in Arizona, caucuses at nursing homes and so on. People who work the night shift can be excluded, and that is a real downside that officials are trying to address.

It is easier when the money picks a candidate who barrages the airwaves and social media with an advertising blitzkrieg that determines the discussion in a bubble. We think the Iowa process, while imperfect, is far better than politics by Facebook and cable news.

It was helpful, we certainly believe, that the Iowa Farmers Union hosted the Heartland Forum at Buena Vista University to kick off the Iowa process. Elizabeth Warren had them on their feet calling for anti-trust enforcement in agriculture. Amy Klobuchar laid out a case for conservation. Tim Ryan urged us to reforge the Rust Belt through renewable technology. Joe Biden pledged to make agricultural more sustainable and resilient. Iowa forced the Democratic Party to pay attention to key rural issues that are driving voters to the Republican Party. There is a palpable frustration with institutions, with corporations, with politicians — the “swamp,” if you will — that disconnects rural Americans in ways that permanently will disadvantage the Democrats. That is especially so if we are shunted back as mere deplorables, flown over and forgotten again. They will wonder why Iowa went from purple to red, and marvel that it once elected the likes of Tom Harkin. It’s because the Democrats gave up on Iowa.

Art Cullen won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing as editor of The Storm Lake Times in northwest Iowa (stormlake.com). He is author of the book “Storm Lake: Change, Resilience, and Hope from America’s Heartland.” A documentary film, “Storm Lake,” on the challenges of running a rural biweekly paper during a pandemic, was broadcast in November 2021 on the Independent Lens series on PBS. Email times@stormlake.com.

From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2022

Populist.com