primaries sound easier :)
It is a lot easier to get people to swing by a polling place sometime during the voting day than to get people to go to a meeting at a specific time and listen to speeches and go through various phases of voting.
It’s for that reason that having a strong organization is important for Iowa. You need to not only have people who are in charge of the 99 counties, but you really need someone in all 1,700+ precincts in order to have a good chance of coming out on top. Those precinct chiefs have to be fired up and committed in order to bring in the number of supporters to win their precinct for their candidate.
Iowa is a whole different critter, and it really winnows out those candidates who don’t pay attention to details and don’t have real grassroots support. You can’t just throw money at the airwaves and win.