There aren't enough to matter. As veteran newspaper columnist Jules Witcover points out, Iowa is a cross between beauty show and dollar spigot. Check Out Reality Check Iowans are good for Norman Rockwell pictures, gathered in their small town coffee shops talking politics. But forget the fairytale that campaigning here is personal and pure. Millions have been spent on TV ads.
Candidates have huge professional staffs.
And Iowa's fabled ability to boost a nobody like Jimmy Carter to the White House has been shattered by the compressed schedule of big state primaries that makes money paramount. Critics still carp that Iowa is not typical of the country. Its population is small and 96 percent white. It has an unusually large senior population. And the people who go to caucuses are not even average Iowans.