Washington — On January 3, Iowa voters from 99 counties met at nearly 1,800 caucus sites across the state to discuss who should be the next Republican nominee to the office of U.S. president.
Approximately 25 percent chose former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and another 25 percent (only eight fewer votes than Romney) chose former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. Ron Paul, a U.S. representative from Texas, finished third with 21 percent of the vote. But how much do those results matter?
Iowa is important in the U.S. election process because it is the first political referendum on presidential candidates. It tests the candidates’ stamina, poise, fundraising ability and organizational skills, but success in Iowa is no guarantee of future success, nor does failure in Iowa mean the death of a campaign.
Since 1976, Iowa has held seven contested caucuses for the Republican nomination. Only three of the seven winners went on to secure the nomination. On the Democratic side, in the nine contested caucuses since 1972, five victors eventually won their party’s nomination.
In the past four decades, four candidates who lost in Iowa became president: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
In 2008, a young senator from Illinois — Barack Obama — won the Iowa caucus, the Democratic nomination and the White House. In contrast, the 2008 Republican victor in Iowa, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, lost the nomination to Arizona Senator John McCain, a fourth-place finisher in Iowa.
Sixteen years earlier, another Arkansas governor finished third in Iowa, with just 3 percent of the vote, but in November Americans elected that governor — Bill Clinton — president.
Many pundits link a third-place Iowa finish in 2004 with the end of Vermont Governor Howard Dean’s presidential hopes. His on-camera whoop, aimed at cheering up his supporters, was endlessly replayed on television and the Internet. It convinced many American voters that Dean lacked the gravitas to be president.
CAUCUS-GOERS NOT TYPICAL U.S. VOTERS
One reason Iowa results are unreliable predictors of a White House victory is demographic. Few people participate in the Iowa caucus; average turnout (100,000 to 150,000) is equivalent to the population of a dozen city blocks in New York’s Manhattan. In addition, caucus participants are a more homogenous group than the American electorate, and less diverse than voting populations in many other states.
The Iowa economy, with stable home prices and a 5.7 percent unemployment rate, is better than that of most states.
Another reason for unreliability is the process itself.
In the United States, participating in a political caucus is a much bigger commitment than simply going to a polling place to vote. For that reason, caucus participants tend to be more politically active than the average voter. They also tend to spend more time researching the issues and listening to candidates, and are more likely to take an active role in campaigns.
Caucusing is not for the timid. The rigors of the process impose a sort of political Darwinism, in which only candidates with the most committed followers survive.
Finding the caucus site is the first challenge, because it probably is not a regular polling place. Instead, it could be a firehouse, a church basement or a neighbor’s living room. Attending an Iowa caucus means you must travel after dark in one of the nation’s northernmost states, frequently in bad weather. Once there, you must remain until the caucus concludes, sometimes several hours later, listening to speeches on behalf of candidates and arguing in support of your candidate.
The caucus also is a rite of passage for candidates, who crisscross the state in rented buses, visiting coffee shops, diners and pizza parlors to meet prospective supporters. In Iowa, candidates get tired, hoarse and sometimes a little fatter.
But, despite the hardships, the Iowa caucus, like the New Hampshire primary scheduled for January 10, is a cherished tradition of American politics and an important milestone on the long road to the White House.
