One of the consequences of the late start to the presidential campaign is that candidates haven't been spending as much time in Iowa, and apparently, some candidates are contemplating skipping it altogether the way John McCain did in 2008, not least because Iowa's Republican voters seem to be getting more and more conservative. This is a good time to remind ourselves that the ritual candidate humiliation of parading through living rooms to meet Iowa voters 10 at a time is not actually written in the Constitution. Iowans certainly like it that way -- who wouldn't? I'd love to have presidential candidates personally beseech me for my vote. But it doesn't necessarily produce better presidents. The skills it takes to win in Iowa aren't the same as those required to achieve legislative victories or win concessions in diplomatic negotiations. You could say that about the campaign as a whole, of course, but Iowa's outsized importance didn't happen because the rest of us thought Iowans would be the best ones to choose who our presidents are.
And frankly, the people of Iowa aren't really measuring up. Back in October of 2007, I wrote a grumpy column about this:
As you read this, some of the most important and powerful people in America are crawling through the Hawkeye State on their knees, pretending to know more than they do about corn, pretending that the deep fried Twinkie they had back at the state fair was just dee-licious, pretending that ethanol is the key to our energy future, and pretending that every precinct captain and PTA chair they meet is the very heart and soul of our nation, whose opinions the candidate is just dying to hear. And the good people of Iowa? They couldn't give a rat's ass.
If this is a typical election, somewhere between 6 and 10 percent of voting-eligible Iowans will bother to show up to a caucus. Yes, you read that right. Those vaunted Iowa voters are so concerned about the issues, so involved in the political process, so serious about their solemn deliberative responsibilities as guardians of the first-in-the-nation contest, that nine out of ten can't manage to haul their butts down to the junior high on caucus night. One might protest that caucusing is hard -- it requires hours of time and a complicated sequence of standing in corners, raising hands, and trading votes (here is an explanation of the ridiculousness). But so what? If ten presidential candidates personally came to your house to beg for your vote, wouldn't you set aside an evening when decision time finally came?
In 2008, everyone trumpeted the record turnout of the caucuses, when 347,000 people came out. According to the census, the population of Iowans over the age of 18 at the time was about 2.2 million, meaning caucus turnout was a spectacular 16 percent. Just something to keep in mind when they're deciding who will get to run against Barack Obama.
