The Iowa Precinct Caucuses: The Making of a Media Event, Third Edition

8. The 1988 Caucuses: A Media Extravaganza

Chapter 8 lhe 1988 Caucuses: A Media Ixtrangalza THE 1988 PRECINCT CAUCUSES were the first in which an incumbent president was not seeking reelection since Iowa became a media event in 1972. Competition in both parties assured vigorous nominatingcontests . The Iowa parties were eager to be a part ofcampaigns that were expected to be intense, and they went to great lengths to prepare the Iowa playing field for the candidates and the press. The Republicans hoped to ride the Reagan revolution to another presidential victory. Ronald Reagan had profoundly affected the Republican party and presidential politics. Political scientist Gerald Pomper reminds us that since the New Deal the GOP had been divided into two wings: a moderate-to-liberal eastern faction and a more conservative midwestern faction. But by 1988, "Reagan's victories had completed the transformation of the Republicans to a coherently conservative party with no Significant liberal elements. Every aspiring candidate in 1988 claimed to be Reagan's authentic heir and the authentic spokesman of Republican conservatism" (Pomper 1989, 56). The Reagan era had also diminished the ideological and policy differences between Republicans and Democrats. Massive federal budget deficits limited spending and domestic policy alternatives, and Reagan's cooperation with the Soviet Union meant "there would be no ideological division on foreign policy issues." The parties remained divided, however, on social and lifestyle issues (Pomper 1989, 35). The Democrats also went into the presidential race with high hopes. The Reagan halo had dimmed somewhat. The 1986 federal elections , in which the Democrats gained control of both houses of Congress; negative publicity about the Iran-Contra arms affair; the failed Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork; and the stock market crash of October 1987 "all seem to have created a context for a Democratic triumph" in 1988 (Germond and Witcover 1988a, 2882). 135 136 Chapter 8 The 1988 Caucuses Political analyst William Schneider concluded that election indicators such as the Gallup Poll's president's job approval rating, the "misery index" (the sum of the nation's unemployment rate and the inflation rate as measured by the consumer price index), and the "normal" eight-year cycle in American politics pointed to a "close election, with a narrow advantage for the Democratic presidential candidate" (Schneider 1988, 2861). In Iowa, there were problems in the farm economy. The 1980s were very difficult for agribusinesses as the state experienced one of its worst farm crises. Commodityprices declined sharply, and land values that had grown continuously in the 1970s were in free fall by the mideighties . In 1984 alone, farmland prices fell by 20 percent. Almost half offarm families were seriously affected by the crisis, and by 1987 there were 22,000 fewer farms than in 1973. When farmed suffer, agribusinesses and state revenues also suffer (Schwieder 1996, 318). Aseries of Iowa Polls indicated that President Reagan's popularity had declined along with farm prices (Iowa Poll: 1987, poll nos. 283, 284, 289), and Democrats hoped that some of the blame for the agricultural crisis would fall on Republicans. The front-loading of the presidential nominating schedule continued in 1988 as more states attempted to increase their influence in the selection process by moving nominating events closer to the beginning of the cycle. A new addition was Super Tuesday, a southern regional primary on March 8 in fourteen southern and border states. The possibility of a southern primary was first discussed in the early 1970s by area Democrats who were interested in promoting candidates "who would address the 'special concerns' of southern voters" and in countering "the liberal activists who were so influential in the Iowa precinct caucuses and the New Hampshire primary" (Germond and Witcover 1989, 41). Seven nonsouthern states or territories also scheduled caucuses or primaries on March 8, making Super Tuesday a make-or-break day for the candidates still viable after Iowa and New Hampshire. By the closing of the polls on March 8, thirty-four states and territories would have held the caucuses or primary elections of one or both political parties (NationallournalI988, 2870). Although no one was quite sure what the impact of Super Tuesday would be on Iowa and New Hampshire, it was certain that candidates AMedia Extravaganza 137 would have to raise more money earlier for television advertising in those media-driven states. The Democratic party's 1988 nominating schedule, though highly compressed, reserved for Iowa and New Hampshire their first-in-the...