The Significance of Iowa

As I'm sure you're aware, the 2008 Iowa Caucuses were held yesterday and the results are in. On the Democratic side, Senator Barack Obama won by 8 points over John Edwards and, on the Republican side, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee won by 9 points over Mitt Romney. I watched the coverage on CNN and MSNBC last night and went to bed with one major question - SO WHAT!?

I suppose Iowa is important for a number of reasons - not the least of which is that it's the first chance for candidates to really gauge public opinion of their candidacy. We've seen two candidates, Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd, already drop out after getting less-than-favorable results and rumors are already surfacing that at least two more candidates will drop out before next week's primary in New Hampshire. Historically, however, the Iowa Caucus has not been a great indicator of how the Presidential race will end.

The Iowa Caucus came to national prominence in 1972 when a series of articles ran in the New York Times detailing how states that did not hold primaries chose their delegates for the party conventions. Since then, the Caucus has been widely recognized as the first step in the Presidential nomination process. There have been 10 contested races in Iowa since '72 (some years candidates run unopposed - like Clinton in 1996) and only twice has a winner gone on to be elected President - Jimmy Carter in 1976 and George W. Bush in 2000. That said, it's also true that the future President has never finished worse than 3rd in Iowa. Clinton actually finished 4th in 1992 but the 2nd place vote getter was 'Uncommitted' (who I think decided to drop out of the race shortly thereafter after it was determined that 'Uncommitted' was not electable).

If you're interested in learning more about the history of the Iowa Caucus, there's an interesting article at NPR.org that details the results of every caucus held from 1972 to 2008.