Thanks for the initial ping which lead to some very interesting discussion.
In light of the deep background information you provided, perhaps you have thoughts on the following:
The very marked division of Iowa which, graphically splits Iowa in half, very notable in electoral maps the state provides, with the western half solid blue and the east solid red.
Your previous post on this thread helped burn off the fog of my east coast ignorance of Iowa’s Caucus functioning. While I appreciate your thoughts, how does this differ from the more conventional tours through various key districts.
Prior to the internet the MSM tilted coverage by ignoring a candidates remarks on some issues or ignoring others. (See my tagline ;>). Unless there is an effort to honestly cover candidates efforts and responses voters elsewhere remain in ignorance still subject to manipulation by the MSM and two faced candidates chasing parochial concerns such as subsidies and pork barrel promises which affect others pocket books.
And lastly, how does that socialist Tom Harkin get re-elected in Iowa. It seems to be strongly at odds with the deep faith you describe.
Northwest Iowa and Pella have a major impact in the Republican caucuses, and especially on the Christian conservative demographic which is the base of Sarah Palin’s support. Northwest Iowa and Pella are less important (though certainly not irrelevant) in statewide Republican primary elections for non-presidential races, and for the general election.
Why?
To win in the caucuses requires a plurality of the vote, not a majority. That means it is very important to Palin and anyone else trying to reach that demographic to pay a lot of attention to parts of the state which have a strong Christian conservative influence. If she can “lock up” that part of the state, she can then focus on trying to get voters outside her base to vote for her.
For example, there are lots of Republicans who may not be Christian conservatives who may be very willing to listen to the mother of an enlisted soldier explain her views on defense policy. Still others may have a lot of concern about the oil industry, and that's an area where Palin can claim legitimate firsthand experience. Palin has parts of her resume that attract voters beyond her Christian conservative base, but those are voters who could easily gravitate to someone else in the Republican caucuses, so it only makes sense to work now on solidifying her base.
An important side point here is that evangelicals are going to have a default position of being suspicious of Mormonism. Any Romney supporters in Iowa's conservative Christian counties are going to be “soft” voters — people who are backing Romney because they think he's the candidate most likely to defeat Obama, but whose opinions could be changed if his flip-flopping on abortion or other issues became better known.
How can Sen. Harkin, etc., be explained?
Some of it is that Harkin and other key Democratic leaders in Iowa draw much of their support from the state's major urban areas, which are much less conservative overall, and their manufacturing operations may look much like the rest of the “rustbelt.” Des Moines definitely is not Detroit, but a tractor factory and an auto plant both generate many of them same blue-collar demographics.
However, the urban-rural divide is at best a partial explanation. Iowa has lots of rural Democrats, just like many parts of the rural South. Unlike rural Southern Democrats, in parts of the state which do not have a “Bible belt” character, many of Iowa's Democrats hearken back to an older rural Democratic tradition which is all but dead in most of America. A rural Southern Democrat is likely to be very conservative on social and other issues and generally will vote Republican on national issues; that definitely is not true of an Iowa rural Democrat.
Despite population shifts, Iowa is still a predominantly rural agricultural state, and more than that, its agriculture is based on types of farming which are increasingly mechanized and therefore fewer and fewer people are required to be more and more productive. The effect is that the state skews toward an older demographic of people who stay in agriculture because they love it but know there's a good chance they'll never pass their farm on to their children and will end up selling their farm to a neighbor.
Iowa has some of the most productive farmland in the United States, and a century ago, that drew large numbers of small farmers who knew they'd never be able to own their own land in Europe (at least not on anything beyond a small scale). The result was the creation of large numbers of ethnic communities which have preserved many European traditions, much like you might have seen in many large cities in the 1800s. The difference is that in rural America, people who want to be part of those traditions — often fairly narrowminded traditions — are the ones who stay, while those who don't want to be part of them can easily move somewhere else, and actually have strong incentives to do so.
The same dynamics that make certain parts of the state strongly conservative also create voters who are very concerned about the survival of their family farms or their small businesses or Social Security. The modern Democratic Party is an urban party, but in the not-too-distant past it was also the party of agrarian populism. Men like Harkin are able to appeal to a segment of the Democratic vote which basically no longer exists in national politics, but which still is a factor in rural America.
Iowa makes it possible, once every four years, to force the most important politicians in the United States to pay attention to the issues of rural farming and the elderly. That's not necessarily a bad thing in the Republican side of the aisle; elderly Republicans and rural Republicans aren't that different from other Republicans in other states and big cities since their primary issues tend to be those of economic conservatism, nationalism, and the religious right. Other than ethanol issues and farm-related subsidies, I don't see any major difference between Iowa Republican voters and national Republicans.
For the Democrats, however, Iowa becomes a way to push social programs. When combined with the vote of Iowa's university towns and industry, which aren't that relevant for the Republican caucuses but are **DEFINITELY** relevant for the Democratic caucuses, it can result in strange situations like a black inner-city Democrat from Chicago who manages to outshine union organizers like John Edwards and traditional liberal party leaders like Hillary Clinton.
As bad as Barack Obama has been for the country, his performance in Iowa shows what Iowa can do — namely, take a relatively minor candidate, give him the opportunity to talk to several thousands of people one-on-one and tens of thousands of people in small groups, and persuade them of his ideas.
A very similar strategy worked for Mike Huckabee in Iowa in 2008 and for Pat Robertson a generation earlier, and could very easily work for Sarah Palin in the upcoming Republican caucuses.
One complicating factor is that the Democrats won't have a contested race. Four years ago, Republican-leaning independents and Democratic-leaning independents generally caucused in support of the candidates in the party for which they usually voted. Iowa's caucuses are very different from an “open primary” in other states and there won't be much crossover voting because of the need for advance party registration, but some of that will happen and it will strengthen RINOs, not conservative Republicans.
It might be nice if a major Democrat decided to challenge Obama to keep Democrats in their own caucuses and primaries, but that's probably not going to happen, so we need to face the fact that there will be some crossover voting that will help RINOs and hurt conservatives.