The Iowa Precinct Caucuses: The Making of a Media Event, Third Edition » (3rd Edition)

Hugh Winebrenner is emeritus professor of public administration at Drake University, where he was Thomas F. Sheehan Distinguished Professor of Public Administration and Dean of the College of Business and Public Administration. Dennis Goldford is professor of politics at Drake University. He is author of The American Constitution and the Debate over Originalism.

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 As presidential primaries have grown in the media spotlight and superseded the parties’ conventions, Iowa has become a political proving ground for the confident, the hopeful, and the relatively unknown, but at what cost to the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....................ix
Acknowledgments....................xi
List of Tables....................xiii
1 The Media and American Politics: An Overview....................3
2 Iowa: A Political and Demographic Profile....................11
3 The Iowa Precinct Caucuses: The Decades of Obscurity....................25
4 The 1968 and 1972 Caucuses: The Emergence of a National Event....................35
5 The 1976 Caucuses: The Making of a Front-Runner....................57
6 The 1980 Caucuses: A Media Event Becomes an Institution....................81
7 The 1984 Caucuses: The Kickoff of a Front-Loaded Season....................109
8 The 1988 Caucuses: A Media Extravaganza....................135
9 The 1992 Caucuses: A Favorite Son Emerges....................185
10 The 1996 Caucuses: Back in the Limelight....................201
11 The 2000 Caucuses: More Important than Ever....................253
12 The 2004 Caucuses: Change and Continuity....................283
13 The 2008 Caucuses: From Iowa to the White House....................303
14 Media Event or Local Event? The Caucuses in Perspective....................337
Index....................345