For months, the nation's attention, and the world's, has been on the heartland state of Iowa. Viewed by many people on the coasts as a state they simply fly over, or drive through, from home to destinations, it is a state that few people outside the Midwest understand or care about, until primary season for general elections. My business partners on the West Coast call it Ohio. Family members on the east coast think I'm in Idaho. Business associates say, "Oh yeah, the Buckeye State!" and I gently remind them, 'no...the Hawkeye State.' We have identity issues...
Iowa is a state of profound abundance, with estimates that the average Iowa farm feeds 220-270 people. The state boasts of 70+% of the nation's richest loam, and has the highest percentage of its land under human activity of some form. The farm I use to live on had black soil 30 feet deep. It often leads the nation in corn, soy, pork and/or beef production. When people think of Iowa, that is what they think...pigs, corn, agriculture.
But Iowa has another side few know. Iowa has often led the nation in the highest number of members of the United Nations Association per capita. It has had the highest number of travel visas per capita. It has had the highest number of peace/justice groups per religious body, of the 50 states. Many farms have screens open to the Chicago Board of Trade so farmers can have real-time data to move commodities, and many of those farmers are now college educated.
In this seemingly parochial state, very white (3-5th whitest state in the nation depending on the year, ~94.6%), Iowa has an underlying concern with national and global politics, and that is driven by the fact that its agriculture is deeply affected by global politics. When Carter announced the grain embargo against the Soviet Union, the Midwest states, including Iowa, were crippled, and it took some areas, some cities, over a decade to recover.
So what happened last night in Iowa's caucuses, for both parties, is historical.
In one camp, the Democrats, in one of the whitest states, in which one of the nation's whitest cities, Dubuque, use to serve as the meeting grounds for the Midwest Klaverns, summer meetings of the Klan in the 10s of thousands, this state gave a person of color the first real opportunity to participate in presidential politics. Obama did so by discarding the identity politics of two worn-out loons, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and discarding the politics of the party leadership which has tried so hard to look like Republican-lite. He spoke to a national desire to end the political wars which have resulted in meaningless domestic changes, the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, and White House arrogance, and he had not just Democrats, but independents and Republicans crossing the line to support his effort.
In the Republican camp, outspent 20-1, Huckabee tore apart the charade of the Reagan coalition which united Wall Street wealth with southern evangelicals. For two and a half decades, Repubs have been throwing crumbs to the social conservatives, acting like the party cared about abortion, gay marriage, and the like, while all the while simply using the evangelicals to amass amazing wealth at a level of maldistribution unseen since the Robber Barron period of US history. Huckabee comes along and lifts the voice of disenchanted Republicans who wonder where is small government, where is small business, where is fair taxation, and where are the social issues important to someone more than just during an election? Way outspent, Huckabee shows Wall Street how the facade, the charade, that was so expertly crafted by Pat Buchanon and minions, is crumbling.
Of the two, Obama's success is far more historical. Whether he wins the primary season, or the general election, what was important last night was that the US turned a page. Finally, 242 years after the Declaration of Independence, 143 years after the end of Civil War, 54 years after the Supreme Court ruled that separate is not equal, the US has standing before it with a real chance of victory, a person of color, and he was provided the opportunity to stand there with momentum, by one of the nation's whitest states. It was an electrical night last night in Iowa. It was a night of amazement and recognition that the state did something deeply, movingly, historical.
Is this heaven?
No...it's Iowa!
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