Complex Iowa

A reader writes:

I'm writing as a native Iowan (22 yrs, including college), reconciled to a life on the East Coast. The reader you quoted who opined that Iowa "may be the most isolationist state" is, well, how I might I be charitable here, an idiot.

On the isolationist charge alone, next time your intrepid reader is in Iowa, have him climb into the cab of a tractor or combine with a farmer, as he rides his fields while simultaneously checking global commodity prices on his laptop.  The agricultural community isn't isolationist, but rather extremely sensitive to the "at home" realities of global integration. Regarding the reader's wholly generic statement that "on wars Iowa is not indicative of the country", the reader is only partially right -- the most thoroughly Republican parts of Iowa are indicative of the parts of the country that send more kids off in uniform to fight wars than those that send more kids off to Wall Street.

From a political culture perspective, western and southern Iowa are far more "Deep South" or "Conservationist West" than Upper Midwest or Vermont Granola.   The differences between the eastern and western sides of the state, moreover, indicate a degree of diversity beyond the grasp fo your reader.  While the western part of the state elects Congressmen like Steve King (5th district), the self proclaimed most conservative Republican in Congress, my home district, the Iowa 1st in the Mississippi Valley, elected Jim Leach for most of my lifetime, replacing him with Democrat Bruce Braley.

I'm with you on your read of the poll, Andrew. If Iowa Republicans are abandoning the war, its because they've felt the family costs, and they're turning despite the fact that in recent years the Iowa GOP has become increasingly Christianist, socially conservative, and Rovian in its composition.