Iowa’s Field Of Dreamers

The Republicans are investing less in Iowa. The national front runner, Rudy Giuliani, has all but written off the state—he is not likely to do well among the evangelicals who dominate the GOP caucuses. But Mitt Romney, who's atop the polls in the state, has been pouring resources into Iowa, and Mike Huckabee is counting on the caucuses to vault him from the second tier to man-to-beat.

All the candidates know the history of Iowa as a graveyard for front runners and a launching pad for long shots. George McGovern led the way. The anti Vietnam War candidate didn't win Iowa in 1972, but his surprising second-place finish to front runner Ed Muskie shook up the race. (Muskie's the only presidential candidate who won in Iowa and New Hampshire, only to lose the nomination.) The press began looking at Iowa as a harbinger: when ABC's Bill Lawrence said Muskie's campaign almost ran off an icy road in Iowa, reporters began sensing that the Democrats' establishment candidate was vulnerable in New Hampshire.

In 1975, the then obscure Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter wandered the state, introducing himself by saying, "Hi, I'm not a lawyer and I'm not from Washington." Carter didn't attract much attention at first. Steve Hansen, now director of the Sioux City Public Museum, recalls walking by his college cafeteria and seeing candidate Carter sitting alone. Hansen turned to a friend and asked, "Should we stop in? He looks kind of lonely." Carter's low-paid guerrilla staffers rigged straw polls, stacked political dinners and wooed national reporters. Carter's media man, Jerry Rafshoon, mortgaged his house to buy ads. It's now forgotten that Carter came in second to "Uncommitted" in the caucuses, but he beat everyone else in a crowded field and was on his way.

In 1980, George H.W. Bush defeated Ronald Reagan and declared he had "the Big Mo." The Big Mo fizzled by New Hampshire, but his strong showing on the campaign trail helped Bush secure the second spot on the GOP ticket. Dean's flameout in 2004 holds several lessons. Dean thought he had created the "perfect storm" going into Iowa, a Netroots-generated youth revolution that would flood the state in bright yellow school buses. But the out-of-town kids wearing orange caps were regarded as aliens by Iowans. At the same time, Dean got caught up in a negative ad war with Dick Gephardt. Their wrestling match turned into a suicide pact in Iowa, which really does value "niceness." Dean thought he had lined up the Democratic establishment by winning union support. On one late swing, the government workers union insisted Dean campaign for votes at a correctional facility near Ft. Dodge. Their goal was to win over prison guards, but it looked like Dean was stumping for votes among criminals.

Iowa does have one great virtue over the big primary states: the candidates actually meet voters at diners and farms and in their homes. In the large states, voters are reached wholesale, through media events and slick ads. Campaigning in Iowa is still mostly retail. "Someone has got to start this process and the question is: do you want to start it in California or New York, where … the media plays a disproportionate role?" asks former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack in an interview with NEWSWEEK. "Or do you want to start it in a place where these candidates have to visit with real voters for extended periods of time, answer questions that haven't been covered in the press and can create these surprising moments?"

There is something heartwarming about watching elderly ladies scribbling notes while grilling candidates on the intricacies of agricultural policy. But there can be too much of a good thing. Iowa voters are used to being catered to, and they can be even more difficult to satisfy than a K Street lobbyist with high-polish shoes and a big expense account. "You've got to be pretty real to convince Iowans," says Phil Claeys, 58, a '60s flower child turned community organizer. "We're not in awe of anybody. We're in awe of the corn."