Does Iowa Really Mean Anything?

After watching a little bit of the caucuses, and these interminable months of game-playing, nastiness, disingenuity and so forth, and after reading so many breathless bloggers following Iowa so closely, all I have to say is…

It’s baloney. It’s hype. Iowa doesn’t mean anything, and I’m not convinced it ever has, but it’s been a very long (too long) election season and we’ve got 11 months to go, so Iowa has been pimped and played up as the be-all-and-end all – the staggeringly important end to the beginning of election ’08.

But previous presidents have lost in Iowa, and previous Iowa winners have seen the national ticket elude them, so let’s not overthink Iowa or lose perspective. Iowa is fun-n-games for political junkies and an amusing diversion in the months when fields lie resting – but I am not convinced it “means” much at all.

This Iowa caucus is noteworthy for only one thing – but what a thing it is: Barack Obama today managed to confound those who live by the stereotypes about the Midwest. But really – if you think about it – it was not Obama who confounded them, but the people of Iowa, who have been caricatured as unsophisticated, bigoted rubes incapable of supporting anything but a white male, preferably one who thumps bibles.

Of course, the GOP in Iowa did go for exactly that. But we’ll see what happens, now. I suspect that Mike Huckabee, like a cheap wine, will not travel well for long. Obama, however, I think will have a longer shelf life. He is a terrific orator and he’s run a classy campaign.

New Hampshire is also meaningless. The fact that pretty much anyone can go up to New Hampshire and vote in the primary means it is a state ripe for manipulation and fraud and – like Iowa – it cannot accurately reflect America back to herself, or the rest of the world.

I could be wrong of course – I often am (note, I made no predictions for 2008) – but my sense is that there are surprises in store for both parties and the whole electorate in the coming months. I think we will not be talking about Iowa for very long.

Pajamas Media has a comprehensive round-up.

Dr. Melissa Clouthier has an interesting post on the results. So does Ed Morrissey.

UPDATE: I really like Peggy Noonan’s take on Iowa; she almost convinces me that Iowa means more than I want to believe, and she makes some clear and cogent observations about the players. Good work.

UPDATE II: Huckabee quoted G.K. Chesterton tonight:

Warriors fight, not because they hate those in front of them, but because they love those who are behind them.

You know…if anyone else had quoted Chesterton I wouldn’t have given it a moment’s thought, but my distrust of Huckabee is so complete that I wonder if his using that line is meant to attract the Catholics? If that’s unfair, well, I apologize, but it’s also a telling measure of how much work I find this slickster to be. I don’t like having to wonder about a candidate’s motives and manipulations all the time. I’ve had enough of the energy-sapping dog-and-pony show.

Does Iowa really mean anything?