Why is Iowa Important?

[SharonClark]

6. Just knock that chip off your shoulder and move to Iowa

where you can meet the candidates as many times as you like, invite them to your home, ask them questions one-on-one. You might find you actually like retail politics instead of the wholesale politics of places like California where campaign money just goes to buying expensive teevee ads.

Don't believe all the Iowa stereotype you see on teevee. We're not all farmers and our farmers aren't ignorant rubes. They're well-educated and hard-workers who, unfortunately, have bought into the repug playbook generations ago. Iowa Dems are as liberal and opinionated as Dems anywhere, we're just usually more polite than Dems in some other places; we don't boo Dems we don't agree with.

Eventually the Iowa caucuses will be over and the candidates and the media will move on to bigger states with more diverse populations and life in Iowa will return to normal. The bigger states may have different results than the Iowa caucuses, may even negate the results. What happens in Iowa may not be important by the time of the national convention but it is important in honing the candidates' ability to get their issues across to the voters.