The Folks with First Say

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Some of these traditional attitudes are rooted in a simple yet alarming demographic reality: Iowa's population is getting smaller and older. Since 1980 the state has lost 80,000 people, many of them younger workers who could not find jobs in a troubled farm-based economy. A University of Iowa study of recent graduates found that less than half continued to live within the state. "It scares me that Iowa is losing population," said Vern Harvey, a Bettendorf builder, after a recent Kemp rally in nearby Davenport. Replied Pete Agnew, an accountant in his late 30s: "People I know my age have gone to find the rainbow in California."

This brain drain has left the parents and grandparents behind. Iowa is now the nation's third oldest state. The nonpartisan American Association of Retired Persons, boasting 300,000 members in the state, is spending $250,000 on TV ads and phone banks to prompt older Iowans to make their presence felt on caucus night. Senior-citizen centers are frequent campaign stops, as most candidates vie to affirm their commitment to the sanctity of ever rising Social Security benefits. Only Babbitt, who advocates full taxation of benefits for the affluent, and Dole, who is willing to freeze cost of living adjustments, dissent from this united front of pandering politicians.

But it is a mistake to assume that Iowans can simply be reduced to a Grant Wood painting. Gone is the era when John Gunther could confidently declare in Inside U.S.A., published in 1947, "Corn is everything in Iowa." The state is still the nation's leading producer of corn and hogs, but these days only 10% of the labor force continue to work the land. "Many people in Iowa have never been on a farm," says Political Scientist James Hutter of Iowa State University. "I imagine that fewer than half of my students have spent more than a day on a farm."

These age-old images of Iowa, however, die hard. Even the candidates, who routinely feign enthusiasm while touring hogpens, foster the hayseed stereotypes. Although their state dominates the news in the closing weeks before the caucuses, Iowans can rightly claim to be misunderstood. Four myths in particular color popular assumptions about the state and its voters.

Myth: Jessica Lange in Country symbolizes Iowa farm families' being driven off the land they love.

The farm crisis was indeed real, but current problems are not nearly so dire as movie images would suggest. During the first half of the decade, Iowa farmers were devastated by high interest rates, falling commodity prices and a collapse in land prices, their primary collateral for loans to pay for equipment and seed. But then came a costly federal bailout: the $28 billion 1985 farm bill. Aided by a falling dollar that spurred agricultural exports, farm income soared by 30% between mid-1986 and mid-1987. "Farmers are making strides," concedes Neil Harl, a professor of agriculture at Iowa State. "They are not using income to buy machinery. It will be two or three years before we are out of the problem."

Myth: Iowa's economy is mired in depression amid a decade of prosperity.