Iowa continues its importance for GOP

DES MOINES, Iowa — Ted Cruz discussed the pain of his parents’ divorce. Ben Carson recalled losing a young patient in surgery. Mike Huckabee described the anguish of administering the death penalty.

“If that doesn’t sober you up to reality,” the former Arkansas governor said to pin-drop silence from a crowd of hundreds of Christian conservatives, “nothing will.”

It’s hard to imagine such a raw, confessional conversation taking place almost anywhere but Iowa, where every four years White House hopefuls descend to bare their ambitions, present their visions and reveal a bit of their souls in pursuit of the nation’s highest office.

They come and endure the relentless scrutiny, even though Iowans have, at best, a middling record when it comes to picking presidents, especially on the Republican side.

Since 1980, when Iowa held its first seriously competitive GOP caucuses, the first-place finisher has gone on to win the party’s nomination less than half the time. Only once, in 2000, have Republicans sent forth a winner to the White House: George W. Bush.

Even so, Iowa has been swarmed by Republican hopefuls this election season and has already hosted hundreds of campaign events, including Friday night’s “family forum” in snow-plastered Des Moines, where seven candidates fielded more than two hours of questions, including, “Where was God on 9/11?”

“On the throne in heaven,” replied Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. “And the reality of it is … that God’s ways are not our ways.”

There are many reasons the candidates keep coming, including habit and the ease of campaigning in a friendly, readily navigable and relatively inexpensive state.

But the most important is this: Iowa will cast the first votes of the 2016 campaign, on Feb. 1, and whoever wins here will get a significant boost going forward.

For the rest of the field, a poor showing could effectively end their campaigns.

“Iowa is not a place that picks presidents,” said Drake University’s Dennis Goldford, who has co-written a book on the history of the Iowa caucuses. “But very often it decides who’s not going to be.”

That entails a certain creative logic.

One big incentive to compete in Iowa, despite the mixed success of past winners, is the fact that a candidate doesn’t need to prevail in the traditional sense, as in getting the most votes, to do well and reap considerable benefits. Simply beating expectations, regardless of where a candidate places, can be enough to claim victory and get a jolt of momentum heading into the contests that follow, starting eight days later with the New Hampshire primary.