The Iowa Precinct Caucuses: The Making of a Media Event, Third Edition
Although some people refer to Iowa as “flyover country,” presidential candidates and political reporters in the national press corps have no difficulty locating the state every four years at the beginning of presidential primary season.\ When Iowa Democrats pushed forward their precinct caucuses in 1972, the Iowa caucuses became the first presidential nominating event in the nation. Politicos soon realized the impact of Iowa’s new status and, along with the national media, promoted the...
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Although some people refer to Iowa as “flyover country,” presidential candidates and political reporters in the national press corps have no difficulty locating the state every four years at the beginning of presidential primary season.When Iowa Democrats pushed forward their precinct caucuses in 1972, the Iowa caucuses became the first presidential nominating event in the nation. Politicos soon realized the impact of Iowa’s new status and, along with the national media, promoted the caucuses with a vengeance. The Iowa Precinct Caucuses chronicles how the caucuses began, how they changed, and starting in 1972 how they became fodder for and manipulated by the mass media. Hugh Winebrenner and Dennis J. Goldford argue that the media have given a value to the Iowa caucuses completely out of proportion to the reality of their purpose and procedural methods. In fact, the nationally reported “results” are contrived by the Iowa parties to portray a distorted picture of the process. As presidential primaries have grown in the media spotlight and superseded the parties’ conventions, Iowa has become a political proving ground for the confident, the hopeful, and the relatively unknown, but at what cost to the country?The third edition of this classic book has been updated to include the elections of 2000, which saw the first winner of the Iowa caucuses to reach the White House since 1976; of 2004 and the roller-coaster fortunes of Howard Dean and John Kerry; and of 2008 and the unlikely emergence of Barack Obama as a presidential contender.
Contents Preface....................ixAcknowledgments....................xiList of Tables....................xiii1 The Media and American Politics: An Overview....................32 Iowa: A Political and Demographic Profile....................113 The Iowa Precinct Caucuses: The Decades of Obscurity....................254 The 1968 and 1972 Caucuses: The Emergence of a National Event....................355 The 1976 Caucuses: The Making of a Front-Runner....................576 The 1980 Caucuses: A Media Event Becomes an Institution....................817 The 1984 Caucuses: The Kickoff of a Front-Loaded Season....................1098 The 1988 Caucuses: A Media Extravaganza....................1359 The 1992 Caucuses: A Favorite Son Emerges....................18510 The 1996 Caucuses: Back in the Limelight....................20111 The 2000 Caucuses: More Important than Ever....................25312 The 2004 Caucuses: Change and Continuity....................28313 The 2008 Caucuses: From Iowa to the White House....................30314 Media Event or Local Event? The Caucuses in Perspective....................337Index....................345
