One day in 1992, a hitherto unknown business professor at the University of Northern Iowa was struck with an idea for a romance novel while out photographing the state’s unique covered bridges. Robert James Waller dashed out The Bridges of Madison County in a mere 11 days, an unabashedly syrupy yarn of midlife passion in the 1960s midwest with a title that stuck. It shrugged off sniffy literary reviews, sold a whopping 60 million copies and inadvertently moved the local economic dial up a notch.
Hollywood came calling. Spielberg would direct the film treatment. During the location scouting, choosing the evocative bridges was a cinch and Winterset – birthplace of John Wayne – was selected as the town. But choosing the farmhouse where the unlikely lovers met – she a devoted if bored Midwestern housewife home alone for the week, he a restless photographer with a pickup truck and endless supply of chilled beer – was vital.
The producers thought they’d found the perfect place when they happened upon a 1930s farm dwelling owned by Aaron and Lola Howell, then in their 80s.
Trevor Soderstrum recounted what happened next in the Ames Chronicle. The Howells hadn’t read the best-seller, so the producers gave them a synopsis of the story. The couple politely listened to their movie guests and finally said they weren’t interested. Perplexed, the executives came up with a Hollywood solution: more money.
Still nothing doing. Eventually, the man of the house explained the problem. Soul-aligned love affair or not, the story was about illicit romance and there would be no such shenanigans under the Howell roof, even if it starred Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood.
“This is her house,” Aaron Howell reportedly told his guests.
“I’ve never been in favour of adultery. There’s never been any in this house, and there never will.”
The film was released in 1995 and elevated by Streep’s warmth and Eastwood’s gnarled reticence, its popularity gave Madison County a lasting tourist boost.
But the Howell subplot was another example of the idea of imperishable Midwestern values.
And for the past year, Republican candidates have spent vast sums of money and thousands of hours trying to tap into those contemporary values: to make a connection. Ron DeSantis has completed the Full Grassley, the term for visiting all 99 Iowan counties and named in honour of veteran local senator Chuck Grassley, a habitual visitor to his constituents.
No matter what the subject matter is, the prevailing message from the candidates is that they can bring America “back” from the precipice of a dark and fractious future.
The gruelling courtship has reached its endpoint. On Monday, eligible voters among the three million Iowans will turn out on what will be the coldest caucuses night on record at -28 degrees, reporting to their designated caucus locations in the towns dotting the prairie state. All caucuses will start at seven o’clock and the closing debates and voting will be conducted briskly.
The caucuses are at once a local rite of passage and a national television show and political event. And it is the only night of the year when Iowa has the undivided attention of the other states.
“Well, it is pretty common for Iowans to think of themselves as the heartland. And the thing about the collective mentality is that it sees itself as a flyover state. And you can understand why,” says Mack Shelley, Professor of Statistics and Political Science at Iowa State University since 1979.
“If it weren’t for the caucuses, would many people stop off in Iowa? Especially in weather like this. And this is another reason the caucuses are seen as foundational to Iowa’s self-concept. It’s a sort of quirky process and rooted in a heavily rural tradition. And these things are interconnected. Historically, the reason why Iowa is first in the nation is sort of an accident. There wasn’t much forethought to it. Without that, would Iowa be very important nationally? Probably not.”
As Shelley points out, Iowa accounts for less than 1 per cent of US population.
Trump is going to declare victory regardless but in the sense of perceptions, you can lose by not winning by enough
“The population has stagnated here too. From 1880 to 1930 Iowa had 11 members in our House of Representatives. Now it has four. You can argue that Iowa is one giant agricultural plot with cities and towns that get in the way. I have driven through plenty of other states that are even more rural. But the self-perception of Iowans has they see themselves as feeding the planet – which is not exactly wrong. And leading in areas like science and technology. But also: a flyover state, if not a flyspeck in the country.”
A quick scan through Iowa’s electoral history suggests a state open to political persuasion. Internally, that remains so. Johnson County, for instance, home to the University of Iowa, has not voted Republican since Richard Nixon in 1968. “It has a strong liberal arts tradition,” Shelley says by way of explanation. Against that, Sioux County is steadfastly red: 83 per cent of voters opted for Donald Trump in the presidential vote four years ago.
Iowa has swung from endorsing Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 to Republican returns for the past two terms. Donald Trump lost the 2016 Republican nomination to Ted Cruz in the state but finished first in that year’s presidential election vote and again in 2020. This year’s polls suggest that Trump exerts a phenomenal influence over Iowan Republican voters.
“Well, culture wars for one thing,” Shelley says when asked about the reason for Trump’s surging appeal across the state.
“That particular point is connected to that issue of self-perception. It is very white compared to the country as a whole. The diversity is not there. It is about twice as rural as the country as a whole. It is very heavily evangelical as well. And that is arguably what runs and controls the outcomes of caucuses. So, probably three-fifths of people who will show up on Monday night are likely to self-identify as evangelicals or conservative white Christians.”
Sixteen years ago, Iowa Democrats were sufficiently convinced by the energy and optimistic message of Barack Obama to give him the crucial nominee electoral push that would generate historic momentum. This year, the Democratic Party has reduced its emphasis on Iowa. It leaves all those makeshift stages and local meetings and winter headlights on long dark roads the preserve of Republicans. A Saturday night Des Moines Register poll found support for Nikki Haley had jumped by 4 points since December, leaving her the clear second choice at 20 per cent. Trump remained out on his own with a 48 per cent preference.
“Trump is going to declare victory regardless, but in the sense of perceptions, you can lose by not winning by enough,” reasons Mack Shelley.
“It seems like the received wisdom is that if he gets 50 per cent then it is a landslide. But you do wonder if it is less than that, does it give Nikki Haley an opening?”
So, the true significance of this deep-freeze night is not the result so much as the hint it may offer into whether, within the collective Republican mindset, there is a plausible alternative to the lengthening shadow Donald Trump has cast across the cornfields and fabled bridges of Iowa.
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