Iowa: Not so bland as to deserve losing the excitement

Iowa Caucus

Iowa: Not so bland as to deserve losing the excitement

What’s it take to cover a piece of the biggest news event to hit Iowa so far in 2016? I started with a little extra caffeinated tea with honey in the morning, and threw a pair of snow boots in my car –– just in case.

Iowa often gets a bad rap for our first-in-the-nation caucus placement. For starters, we’re not representational enough in diversity, critics say, and, well, that’s a good majority of the argument. They say that Iowa is built up of small farming communities, with not enough urban centers or diverse worship communities to check all of the boxes.

That’s a sentiment pretty well-ingrained in our country today: all the agriculture states are too far into the small-town, big-spirit Evangelical mindset –– without enough varied perspectives to be deserving of our political clout. Even many dedicated, lifelong Iowans and Iowa captives will agree the state gets too much credit. Remember when Rick Santorum claimed victory in the 2012 season? What a lot of good that did for him.

Am I a caucus diehard? Not quite. Am I in a hurry to push it off on another state? Not a chance. Surviving the caucus season, like anything else, requires the ability to read into nuance and step back when you find yourself buried in coverage. Every time we have a rush of media and candidates overwhelming state borders –– along with the most “let’s build a wall” jokes I’ve ever heard in my life –– someone like the Atlantic or Slate publishes their newest thinkpiece, arguing for or against Iowa’s status as “deserving” of this national circus.

There’s a lot to dive into with this topic, but there’s also a few stats that give me pause when I consider the argument –– diversity in particular.

For the record, did you know:

n Cedar Rapids is home to the oldest permanent mosque in the United States, completed in 1934 and known as the Mother Mosque of America. The Islamic Center of Cedar Rapids estimates the earliest Muslim immigrants began settling in Cedar Rapids between 1880 and 1888.

n In NPR’s recent analysis “The Perfect State Index,” which attempts to quantitatively designate the best representative state in the U.S., Iowa still tied with Florida, Indiana and North Dakota as the most religiously diverse state to represent national averages. “While people might think of Iowa as a religious state, it’s only actually, as a whole, as religious as the country,” NPR reported. “In fact, there are many other states that are far more religious.”

n Iowa also ranked high with NPR on the average-income calculator ($53,482), although that’s credited in part to our generally low cost of living. Not a bad thing.

n Finally, in a decidedly neutral or heartbreaking statistic (depending on your background), Iowa isn’t nearly as rurally-strong as in the past. A 2014 series by the Des Moines Register found that while Iowa’s population has grown 8 percent since 1970, growth is largely concentrated in urban populations like Des Moines or university towns. Floyd County saw a percentage loss of 1.3 percent of the population since the 1970s.

It’s not a perfect state, and we don’t deserve to keep all the coverage to ourselves. Still, we can shake off our Iowa-Nice shell and accept a little recognition now and then.

“The really important thing to remember about Iowa is not that it’s first because it’s important. Iowa is important because it’s first,” Register political columnist Kathy O’Bradovich told NPR.

That’s the kind of perspective I can enjoy on a late Monday night, watching precinct results flicker in over a plate of pizza and a story to tell.

You can reach Kate Hayden at khayden@charlescitypress. com

Kate Hayden

Staff Writer