NHPrimary.com: Why Iowa caucuses mean so little in New Hampshire
By Kevin Landrigan/The Telegraph of Nashua, New Hampshire
January 21, 2000
Web posted at: 4:12 p.m. EST (2112 GMT)
 NASHUA, New Hampshire (The Telegraph of Nashua) - So goes Iowa, so goes New Hampshire?
"The people of Iowa pick corn, the people of New Hampshire pick presidents."
That boastful response from then-Republican Gov. John H. Sununu in 1988 sums up the love-hate
relationship these two states have had since Iowa Democrats first nabbed the nation's first caucus
event in 1972.
The event has competed with New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary for presidential bragging
rights ever since.
But rarely have the voters from both states spoken with a single voice.
In fact, the only non-president to ever win both contests in a quarter century was a former Georgia
governor and peanut farmer named Jimmy Carter back in 1976.
"They are two very different cultures that hold very different political contests. It's little wonder
they would often come to different conclusions," says Hugh Winebrenner, founder of a CyberCaucus 2000
project that chronicles the event, and the author of "The Iowa Precinct Caucuses," a book tracing its
history.
New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner agrees.
"It is the exception -- not the rule -- when the people of both states see things the same way, and I
don't expect that to change in the future," Gardner says.
This question has particular importance in the 2000 campaign, where only 10 days remain before New
Hampshire voters cast ballots Feb. 1.
Texas Republican Gov. George W. Bush and Democratic Vice President Al Gore are forecast to win solid
victories in Monday's caucuses in Iowa.
Could wins in Iowa help give both Bush and Gore a much-needed "bump" to help them shake off underdog
Republican John McCain and Democrat Bill Bradley in New Hampshire, since both are now running
neck-and-neck in the latest polls?
That's not likely, Gardner says.
"You can find plenty of campaigns where a boost from Iowa never materialized, more than when it did
occur," Gardner says.
"The voters in New Hampshire take their responsibility very seriously and don't like being told by
anyone who to vote for."
Manchester pollster Dick Bennett of American Research Group is not so sure.
"The vote in Iowa probably won't give a 10-point lift to either Bush or Gore, but in New
Hampshire even a bump of one or two points can be the difference between winning and losing this
primary," Bennett says.
The other question: Can McCain become the first candidate in modern times to finish in the top three
out in Iowa despite not having actively campaigned there?
"The jury is still out on whether this has been a smart strategy," says Iowa Republican Executive
Director Dee Stewart.
"If it happened, it could propel McCain to a great finish in New Hampshire, like coming in second did
for Pat Buchanan back in 1996."
But history is replete with candidates from both parties who have waged a limp at best effort in Iowa
and paid dearly when the caucus votes were counted.
Sununu threw down that gauntlet after his man, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, finished third in
the Iowa caucus in 1988 behind both former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and televangelist Pat
Robertson.
With Sununu's prodding, the Bush campaign shifted into overdrive in the final eight days of the New
Hampshire primary to engineer an impressive victory, which many observers believe led to Sununu
becoming Bush's White House chief of staff.
That's the most dramatic example of a New Hampshire comeback from a setback in Iowa, but there have
been others --Republican candidate Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Democratic hopeful Mike Dukakis in 1988.
Expectations game
David Yepsen is a political reporter for The Des Moines Register and one of the most veteran observers
of this process.
"Iowa does have a history of winnowing the primary field in both parties. It's also a fact that since
1976 no one has finished out of the top three in a contested caucus and gone on to become the party's
nominee," Yepsen says.
The real goal for candidates in Iowa is to beat expectations -- even more so than in New Hampshire --
because a caucus requires such a commitment of time and polls of those likely to attend can prove
unreliable.
Bush has set the bar for himself at breaking the 37 percent record share of the vote that Dole got
when he won the caucus over Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush, in 1988.
On Wednesday, Bradley said he only hopes to improve on the best showing by an insurgent candidate in
his party -- the 31 percent caucus total U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts left with after
challenging the re-election of President Carter in 1980.
Steve Forbes hopes to break out of the pack and at least emerge as the social and fiscal conservative
alternative of the night by putting plenty of distance between himself and the three others contesting
here -- former United Nations Ambassador Alan Keyes, former Reagan administration domestic adviser Gary
Bauer and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch. Unlike New Hampshire, this is an event in which the "religious
right" remains alive and well as a political force.
A Des Moines Register poll found 43 percent of Republicans who say they will attend identify
themselves as "born again" or fundamentalist Christians.
On Monday night at 7 in more than 2,100 precincts, Iowans will resume their tradition of voting in
church basements, school auditoriums and even farmhouses at an event that at times won't even resemble
an election.
Critics say Iowa Democrats hold something similar to a schoolyard game of stickball, where the two
biggest kids get to pick which players they want on a team among an enthusiastic crowd.
In Iowa, the big guys are called precinct captains and their job for Gore and Bradley will be to get
enough committed supporters to the caucus who publicly have to declare their support.
Alison Friedman is a first-time Iowa caucus volunteer for the Gore campaign in the southwestern part
of the state.
"This sounds very junior-high-esque, like Red Rover," Friedman says, referring to another old
playground game.
Only candidates or voting blocs with at least 15 percent of those attending get a shot at delegates to
county conventions, who are divvied up locally based on how big the turnout was at each event.
Caucus-goers can declare themselves as uncommitted, and this group was bigger than the vote Carter got
when he won his first caucus test in 1976.
On the Republican side, the balloting is done in secret, but the results represent a straw poll.
County convention delegates who are later elected are not bound by those results. "The delegates at
every stage -- caucus, county and state convention -- are free to vote as they please," GOP Director
Stewart says.
Drake University political professor Dennis Goldfard says the caucuses have proven to be an important
test of a campaign's political organizational skill.
"If you can't get committed supporters to a caucus even in a snowstorm, then you sure don't have the
skills needed to help turn out the vote in a 50-state campaign for the fall election," Goldfard says.
Projected turnout
The long-range forecast Monday night in Iowa was generally for partly cloudy skies with a low of 21
degrees. Most of the state was hit with a snowstorm Wednesday that dumped from 6 to 10 inches.
Iowa Democratic Chairman Rob Tully and GOP Chairman Kayne Robinson are both predicting more than
100,000 will turn out at their respective caucuses.
If those marks are met, it will represent roughly 20 percent of registered Republicans and Democrats
in this state of 2.6 million people.
By contrast, Gardner points out in every contested primary since 1976 in New Hampshire, the turnout in
each party has been at least 70 percent of the total pool of Republican or Democratic registered
voters.
In Iowa, independents are allowed to participate in either party's caucus, and some actually too young
to vote Monday can go to a GOP event as long as they turn 18 by this November.
Tully says Gore has the institutional support and should get well in excess of 50 percent of all those
who attend, but Bradley has won strong support among independents that could make up more than 20
percent of those who show up in that contest.
Meanwhile, Stewart says magazine publisher Forbes has spent more time in the state than any candidate
in either party, while Keyes and Bauer have been drawing large crowds to their campaign events.
"We've also seen even more sophisticated use of technology to turn the vote out this time than in the
past, so we believe the combination will lead to a solid turnout," Stewart says. "There's a lot of
enthusiasm out there because Republicans are so optimistic about taking back the White House."
Winebrenner, the CyberCaucus 2000 founder, suspects those numbers will be inflated and the turnout
will be more like 90,000 Republicans and 75,000 to 80,000 Democrats. He blames last summer's straw
poll in Ames, Iowa, which drew as many as 40,000 to participate in the non-binding GOP event, as
lowering the interest in the caucus event.
Bush won that organizational test over Forbes, but the more important victory was it then led to
several GOP candidates dropping out of the race in the weeks to come, including former Vice President
Dan Quayle, former Red Cross President Elizabeth Dole and former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander.
"Bush had already sucked up most of the establishment money in the party nationally by the Ames event
and once the results were in, that well ran completely dry for Dole, Quayle and Alexander,"
Winebrenner says.
"I still believe many will not show up at the caucuses because they figure Bush has it all wrapped
up."
Jeff Dall is a Waterloo pharmaceutical company sales representative who has gone to several caucus
events but won't make this one due to business commitments.
"I was leaning to McCain, but if I did go I'd vote for Bush because he's got principles and he can
actually win the election," Dall says.
"McCain really hurt himself not only by ignoring Iowa, but by making it sound like ethanol subsidies
are a handout. Farming is very big in this state, and I thought he went overboard during a debate on
that issue."
Farming remains a major issue in both parties; many independent Iowa farmers have been unable to make
a profit the past few years due to lower-cost crops or livestock imported into the United States.
It's not on the radar screen in New Hampshire. "Farming ought to matter here because this is all about
free trade and the right for our entrepreneurs to find foreign markets as open as our markets have
always been," Bush told The Telegraph during an editorial board interview Wednesday.
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