Another View of the Iowa Caucuses

There's been a lot of talk, mostly negative, in Michigan recently about the Iowa caucuses, spearheaded by Sen. Carl Levin's belief that Iowa is the wrong state to kick off the presidential nominating process.

Somehow, people outside of Iowa have gotten the impression that Iowa decides whom the party will nominate and no other state has a voice in the decision. Although I don't want to pick an argument with the distinguished Senator Levin, I do think it's important to point out a few things.

First of all, the Iowa caucus winner generally does not have a lock on the nomination. If they did, the Democrats would have nominated Rep. Dick Gephardt in 1988 and Sen. Tom Harkin in 1992. Neither of those things happened. Nor did Republicans nominate George H.W. Bush in 1980.

Secondly, there's no requirement that candidates campaign in Iowa in order to win the nomination. Bill Clinton skipped the Iowa caucuses in 1992 and still won the nomination. Ronald Reagan scarcely campaigned in Iowa in 1980 and ended up with the nomination anyway.

Thirdly, candidates seem to like to campaign in Iowa. It gives them a chance to fine tune their campaign organizations and their campaign skills without having a lot riding on the outcome. With only seven electoral votes, Iowa is not a make-or-break state for any candidate. Imagine if California, New York, Florida, or Texas went first. A candidate who stumbled right out of the blocks in one of those states would be fatally wounded, but there's plenty of opportunity to recover after an Iowa failure.

As The New York Times pointed out Tuesday (January 1, 2008),
"Watching these candidates, Democrats and Republicans, deliver their final speeches, take the last rounds of questions from Iowans and shake the hands of supporters one more time, it is apparent that most of them are much better at campaigning than they were a year ago.

"Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, an old Iowa caucus hand who has moved here to help out in the final days, said as much in explaining why he would be comfortable with even an inconclusive outcome. 'The experience here in Iowa,' he said, 'has been tremendous for the entire campaign.'"

Fourthly, campaigning in Iowa is done face-to-face with voters in dozens of town hall meetings, coffees in homes, or meet-and-greets in diners or union halls. That means candidates get to make their case directly to people rather than have it filtered through the media.

The caucuses are part of the culture of the state. People in Iowa are used to going out to meet the candidates and take their measure in person rather than rely on campaign ads. Maintaining one space where candidates must actually meet voters face to face seems valuable for a democracy. Candidates cannot rely on scripted performances or canned speeches to create a false personna for themselves. In these live, face-to-face events, their real personalities are likely to come out, for good or ill.

Reporters there are used to covering presidential candidates up close, one-on-one, in a way that even big-time reporters in Washington, D.C., do not have the opportunity to do. As an Iowa reporter, I covered presidential candidates dozens and dozens of times. Years later, Jesse Jackson still recognized me. The cadre of political reporters there is an experienced bunch who are on a first-name basis with national political operatives. Campaigns may not always like the coverage they get, but from the start of the process, they know whom they are dealing with and know what to expect.

The emphasis on retail politics means campaigning in Iowa is much cheaper than it would be in media-dominated campaigns in large states or in some sort of semi-national or national primary. So instead of only a few, well-heeled candidates in the field, people like Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, and Chris Dodd can mount campaigns and influence the campaign issues and discourse. In other words, having Iowa go first creates more choices for voters, not fewer.

Fifth, candidates and the party establlishment seem to trust the common sense of Iowa voters and the stability of the Iowa process. Iowa caucus goers never turned out for George Wallace, as voters in the Michigan Democratic primary did in 1972. That year, Iowa caucus goers proved they were reliably liberal -- Ed Muskie finished first and George McGovern finished second in Iowa.

And Iowa hasn't tinkered with its procedure the way other states have done. Michigan has had a caucus (2004) an open primary (1972), a closed primary (2008), a confusing caucus system (1988), and maybe some other system that I can't remember right now. Exactly what the system will be is often subject to negotation with Republicans, as in 2004 when Republicans forced a caucus on Democrats who did not want an open primary.

In contrast, both parties in Iowa are satisfied with the caucus system, which has been in place for every election except 1916, when the state tried a primary. With Iowa, candidates know exactly what sort of procedure to prepare for.

Will Iowa always go first? Who knows? Des Moines Register reporter David Yepsen offers his take on that question here. The gist of his argument is that whoever wins the White House in 2008 will likely be one of the top three finishers in Iowa and is likely to want to return to friendly territory to start the 2012 campaign.

We don't know yet what the results will be in Iowa on Thursday -- whether there will be a clear winner or a trio of candidates so close that all can claim a share of the victory. If history is any guide, we do know that Iowa will only start the nominating process and not finish it, despite the fears of caucus critics.