Democrats to Iowa: Drop dead
DNC out of touch with Rural America
President Joe Biden’s orders to put South Carolina first on the presidential nominating calendar, and to displace Iowa, are perfectly understandable. Biden owed Rep. Jamie Clyburn, dean of South Carolina Democrats, for his seminal endorsement in 2020. Biden owes Iowa nothing, having placed fourth in the caucuses with a feeble effort. Iowa does not reflect national demographics. The caucuses are not fully accessible; they are cumbersome and fraught with confusion.
We appreciate all that, except for two predicates that the Beltway talkers repeat ad nauseam:
That Iowa is too White, with the implicit (and often explicit) suggestion that we are racist.
That the Iowa Democratic Party messed up reporting results in the last cycle.
These are two frauds cooked up to put the caucuses to rest, a campaign underfoot since they rose to prominence 50 years ago. The big money that controls politics has never wanted the nomination to begin on a level playing field where candidates are actually forced to meet voters, and where an outsider like Barack Obama could vault to the White House.
Which brings us to the first predicate: How is it that lily Iowa can put Jesse Jackson in the front of the pack, and see Obama put a wrench in the gears of the Clinton Machine? That’s the real issue. Iowa allowed Black candidates to challenge the White corporate Democratic power brokers. It allowed Bernie Sanders to rise to the top with a call for Medicare for all — a huge threat to the Wall Street funders of Democratic leadership.
Those same brokers, acting through the Democratic National Committee, forced the Iowa Democratic Party to use a flawed system designed by pals of the DNC and the Clintons. The Iowa Democratic Party took the fall because it does not control the message to the East Coast media — the corporate Democrats do. The party did the best it could with a confusing process built to fail by people outside Iowa. The DNC rejected a plan drafted by John Norris and other Iowa Democrats that would have provided accurate and timely results. That Iowa failed to do its job is a deception concocted by those who were committed to seeing some other state go first.
Otherwise, we are agnostic about Iowa going 35th.
Of course, we loved being able to ride for a half hour with John Glenn in a van and imagine him in flight; it was a treat to visit with Illinois Sen. Paul Simon (a former weekly newspaper editor) for a couple hours one Saturday morning years ago. It was fun while it lasted. And we were good hosts. We asked serious questions, we forced campaigns to prove their organizational skills, we hashed it out on caucus night, and we winnowed the fields down to the strongest core candidates. We were vetters, not kingmakers. We were good at it.
But it wasn’t necessarily good for Iowa. During the last 50 years the candidates we have met did little for Rural America, obviously. They all had good answers to our questions but then went back to Washington and wrote off working folks, immigrants and small businesses. There are half as many farms and schools. Sac City is a shadow of its 1972 self. Our civic conversation is less civil. The flood of campaigns and TV ads never stops. The only people to make money off it are the TV stations.
So it went, and so it goes.
The Republicans intend for Iowa to go first as the 2024 cycle starts. Several candidates already are campaigning here. The Iowa Democratic Party says it is bound by state law to go first. Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kauffmann said the caucuses will move up to Halloween if they have to in order to retain primacy. If the Democrats don’t fall in line, Iowa’s delegates won’t be seated at the national convention (boo hoo), and candidates will be barred from campaigning here.
It doesn’t matter that much, since the Democratic brand is virtually unmarketable in Rural America — certainly where we come from. Kicking Iowa out of the early nominating process demonstrates the problem. The bicoastal power centers couldn’t care less about Iowa, so long as no one interferes with their ability to mine our economy and spoil the land. They have no idea what animates and frustrates rural White working-class folks to the point of insurrection. They abandon Iowa at their peril, up there flying over unable to feel the resentment beneath them.
Art Cullen is editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this editorial appeared. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.
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First error of the year. Please note how Randy Evans got this right.
Yes, the national D's screwed up how they handled this--and they should have decided on rotating states.. But for those of us who have been active in the caucuses for 40 years, the last several cycles were embarrassing, not encouraging. And yes, Iowa has a stronger civil rights history than any of the early states. But I did not hear Kaufman or Ernst point that out. Biden is coming to Newton to re-open wind turbine plant. Please cover that and not only temporary ill-winds.
https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2022/12/07/iowa-democrats-shouldnt-lose-sight-of-what-is-truly-important/