Now that it looks like Iowa will not get to keep our “first-in-the-nation” caucus status, we can all stop pretending that America respects our political opinions.
Gone are the days when a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist from the New York Times will call a pizza restaurant owner in What Cheer, Iowa to get their views on the conflict in Yemen. No longer will front-runner presidential candidates interrupt the dinner of a landscaper from Council Bluffs to ask with a straight face if he thinks the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates again this year. The truth is, they never really took us seriously. They didn’t think Iowa had its finger on the pulse of American politics. As a state with only 4.1 percent African Americans, Iowa didn’t represent a true profile of the country. Our caucuses didn’t reliably choose presidential candidates who went on to secure the party’s nomination. Sure, reporters and politicians asked our opinions, but with their big-city sneer. The Iowa Caucus was never the king maker they pretended. We were a running joke. To them, Iowa was the Punxsutawney Phil of American politics.
Since the tradition began in the 1880’s, the famous Philadelphia groundhog has managed to accurately predict an early spring only 39 percent of the time. You could do better flipping a coin. And even though, every year, the mayor of Punxsutawney is clearly terrified, holding the toothy marmot up for the cameras, he takes a deep breath and does it anyway for the sake of tradition. One would guess that the mayor would be greatly relieved if only somebody would declare that, like the Iowa caucus, the Punxsutawney Phil thing is finally over.
Probably when the Washington elites think of Iowans, they think of “American Gothic”, Grant Wood’s widely parodied painting of the dour, puritanical couple, standing awkwardly in front of the Eldon farmhouse, the man curiously holding an apparently new pitchfork and wearing a nice suit coat over his work overalls. Wood had intended the scene to depict a farmer and his daughter, although everybody assumes they are husband and wife. The model for sour-looking woman was actually Wood’s own sister, Nan and the man was not a farmer, but Dr. Byron Mckeeley, a Cedar Rapids dentist who probably never held a pitchfork in his life. But as contrived as Wood’s painting is, this is how the country sees Iowans—straight-laced, humorless rubes.
It was probably the 2020 presidential season that cooked the caucus goose for Iowa. The democrats fumbled the vote tally and were unable to deliver the results in a timely manner—as if it really mattered. Iowa had Pete Buttigieg in first place with Bernie Sanders second. Biden was an also-ran in fourth place. Iowa failed to nominate Ronald Reagan in 1980, George H.W. Bush in 1988 and Trump in 2016. The Iowa caucus’s claim to fame came in 1976 when it drew attention to the unknown peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter, handing him the nomination.
Yes, Iowa restaurants and hotels will miss the extra business the caucuses brought. But as attention turns to more diversified states like South Carolina and Michigan, it is time to say good-by to the charade. Now let those Washington elites ask Iowans something meaningful for a change—like—will we have an early spring this year?