Iowa caucuses had run their course

The Iowa Democratic caucuses had lost some of their charm as a national proving ground. The state party needs a robust debate on what’s next. In moving Iowa from its influential first-in-the-nation spot in the presidential nominating process, the Democratic Party is doing the right thing, though not for all the right reasons. The missing-results fiasco of 2020 was embarrassing. Impatient news media outlets hammered the state party officials who run the caucuses. Before long all Iowans were coming off as bumpkins.

But the national party deserved a large share of guilt for the delays, and anyway, waiting for numbers shouldn’t have become the scarlet letter it did. The most important part of the caucuses had already occurred: candidates sharpening messages in conversations with Iowa residents from all walks of life. Those unscripted interactions were easier to find here than anywhere else along the road to the White House.

That’s the argument Iowans have made for decades in the face of previous attempts to shift the opening contest to another state or states. But that personal vetting, that most laudable thing about the Iowa caucuses and the campaign that preceded them, had already been diminishing. And that’s the biggest reason that losing the caucuses feels less tragic than it otherwise might have.

Candidates have been blossoming earlier than ever into celebrities, or sometimes have been celebrities from the start. The caucuses had moved a long way from volunteers driving Jimmy Carter on back roads to instead featuring the same big money, same risk-averse professionalism and same huge rallies that are staples in general election presidential campaigns. During Barack Obama’s first Iowa campaign swing as an announced candidate, a high school gym couldn’t contain the crowd at one event, and another was held at 14,000-seat Hilton Coliseum in Ames. The opening act of Hillary Clinton’s second caucuses go-around produced such headlines as “Watch reporters hilariously chase after Hillary Clinton’s van at her first campaign event.” Donald Trump offered helicopter rides near the Iowa State Fair.

Speaking of Trump, a quick aside: The Republican Party has kept the Iowa caucuses first in line on the 2024 calendar, so Iowans will again vet and narrow that field over the next 14 months or so. It’s hard to predict whether the Democrats’ change will eventually threaten the inertia of the established GOP sequence. The Democrats pioneered the leadoff timing that led to Iowa mattering, and their preference groups and viability thresholds have been most closely associated with the caucus process’s quirkiness over the years. Republicans’ straightforward caucus approach of casting votes and counting them wisely avoided the confusing math and lack of transparency of the Democrats’ delegate equivalents. We’ve been papering over the caucuses’ other well-known ills for a while, especially the nature of a one-time in-person event that excludes people who work evenings or can’t find affordable child care or are disabled or are otherwise unavailable. And it certainly matters that Iowa’s electorate is more homogenous than the country’s, that the influence of biofuels on our economy can produce myopia and pandering, and that Iowa Democrats have been uncompetitive lately in state races. Iowans are not uniquely capable of testing the field.

And yet, the critics of Iowa who have finally won will likely find that staging a meaningful proving ground isn’t so easy. Put another way: It could turn out that Iowa was the worst state to lead off presidential voting, except for all the others. In the meantime, the Democratic National Committee needs to be accommodating as the Iowa party picks up the pieces. A state law requires that caucuses be held before any similar contest. The national party seems to be ordering Iowa Democrats to change the law, but they are a decided minority in the Legislature and would have a difficult time with that. Some solicitousness would be in order for all involved.

Iowa can take some time to be thoughtful about what to do with its nominating contest. The strange mail-in-vote caucus that state Democrats had proposed in their attempt to salvage first-in-the-nation status seems like it would be a primary in all but name, but it at least would address inclusivity and orderly vote counting. The party’s State Central Committee should lead a robust debate, involving as many rank-and-file Democrats as possible, over the best path forward. Should Iowa Democrats dump the caucus format entirely and hold a simple, state-run presidential primary, complete with absentee voting? But again, there’s that pesky state law requiring caucuses. Iowans are justifiably proud of their unique role in picking presidents over the past 50 years, especially all those Iowans who asked hard questions of would-be presidents or made it a point to go see and hear all the candidates, even those from both parties, to judge for themselves the mettle of the field.

The Democratic caucuses had lost some of their charm, but they were still substantive and they were still fun. Now South Carolina gets the fun. We hope Democratic candidates can manage to wander into a Rotary club there once in a while.

— Des Moines Register