The Folks with First Say

(5 of 9)
In truth, Iowa is not doing badly these days, thank you. Republican Governor Terry Branstad hailed 1987 as the "best year of this decade for Iowa's economy." The state's current unemployment rate is less than 5%, significantly better than the national average. Many of Iowa's new jobs, however, are unskilled, low-wage positions. Organized labor, which has lost one-third of its membership since 1979, is particularly feeling the pinch. John Deere, the Waterloo agricultural-implement manufacturer, has slashed its work force from 16,300 in 1980 to 6,000 today. Rath, a major Waterloo meat- $ packer, went bankrupt, laying off 2,000 workers. Perry Chapin, who heads the South-Central Iowa Federation of Labor, broods, "If you want to work, you have to take a cut."

Myth: Iowans are not quite bumpkins, but they are a tad unsophisticated.

Nonsense. This canard cannot survive a single question-and-answer session between Iowans and a candidate. Small-town voters routinely ask probing questions about esoteric topics like Namibia. These days even the little old lady in Dubuque is probably watching C-SPAN as well as reading The New Yorker. In 1986, Iowa's high school students ranked first in the nation in their scores on the college-entrance exams administered by the American College Testing Program. Nearly nine of ten Iowa students graduate from high school. This commitment to public education fuses with Iowa's highly developed sense of civic duty, which stresses service on school boards and other local bodies.

Myth: Iowa stubbornly clings to its Midwestern isolationist tradition.

There is a germ of truth here, since Iowans in both parties are undeniably more dovish than the national electorate. The TIME poll of probable Iowa caucus attendees, for example, found that Iowa Democrats overwhelmingly and Republicans narrowly oppose aid to the contras in Nicaragua. This is in contrast to the poll's national sample, in which Republicans tend to support contra aid and Democrats oppose it, but by a narrower margin than in Iowa.

Yet the isolationist label is misleading. Iowans are in fact interested in world affairs, with a markedly nonbelligerent, almost smile-button attitude. Economics may provide part of the explanation: Iowa is that rare state that can be said to live off the peace industry. Devoid of military bases or major defense industries, Iowa is linked to the wider world through trade. Explains Democratic Party Leader Campbell: "Our farmers are proud to feed people overseas. There's a conflict between that and killing people overseas. This kind of thinking breeds a certain degree of pacifist sentiment."

Among Democrats, that sentiment is tightly organized. Iowa's leading peace group, STARPAC, sponsored a Democratic debate last September and subsequently gave its blessing to all participants except Gore. The antipathy is mutual, since Gore used the forum to attack STARPAC's demand for a pledge to ban all flight testing of missiles. Not long afterward, the Tennessee Senator officially embarked on his ignore-Iowa strategy. As Campaign Manager Fred Martin says, "Gore came to the conclusion that if it took pandering to interest groups to win the Iowa caucuses, then that wasn't the goal."