Opinion: God’s country? No question: It’s Iowa
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The Democratic presidential contenders made it official, pledging their allegiance to a nominating process that evolved through happenstance but whose key players view as inviolate. As The Times’ Mark Barabak reported over the weekend, the candidates put it in writing, signing an agreement not to campaign in those impudent states trying to crowd Iowa and New Hampshire on the electoral calendar.
Some of the Democrats, though, have felt compelled to go even further, invoking a higher power when discussing the sanctity of the Iowa caucuses.
‘I want to start by saying, ‘Thank God for Iowa,’ ‘ Joe Biden told folks in Mason City, one of his stops during a weeklong swing through the state that wrapped up Monday. He then went on to decry ‘attempts to diminish the impact of Iowa.’
Going Biden one better was Bill Richardson. Appearing at a Labor Day picnic in Sioux City, he said (and we kid you not): ‘Iowa, for good reason, for constitutional reasons, for reasons related to the Lord, should be the first caucus and primary.’
The gregarious Richardson, who revels in being ‘unscripted,’ no doubt was exaggerating for effect. But even some of those to whom he was kowtowing thought he may have gone a bit overboard.
‘That was a little weird,’ Sioux City resident Joe Shufro told the Des Moines Register. ‘I don’t know what God had to do with choosing Iowa among other states. I found that a little strange.’
Amen, brother, amen.
Addendum: Richardson was asked today about his remark as he continued to stump in Iowa (where he’s said he needs to finish in the top three on caucus night to maintain his White House run).
‘Look, that was an off-the-cuff comment where I said Iowa and New Hampshire should be first,’ he said, according to the Associated Press (we had wondered about his reference to the first ‘primary’; in what has often marked Richardson’s debate performances, he didn’t quite finish his hyperbolic thought).
-- Don Frederick