January 3, 2008

(Greenville, SC) - As much as Iowa wants to be important to the political scene, it isn't - and never really has been. What it has always been is an excuse for candidates, who have made a really bad decision by running, to pull out.

In fact, this whole idea of "Progressiveically" choosing who will and who will not run is another bad idea of the Progressives. Back a few tens of years ago, before many of your were born, the Progressives, who feared the power of the Southern voter, decided to punt - they couldn't decide who would be able to "..fool all of the people all of the time.." The Republicans still caucused (we used to say caucussed because of what really happened in the closed meetings, which really did have smoke-filled rooms and cigar smoking big-shots) and the Progressives wanted to embarrass them. It backfired, of course, when Lyndon Johnson was embarrassed into not running for a perfectly legal third term, the meltdown of the Progressiveic Party, and, which lead to the election of Richard M. Nixon in 1968.

The upshot of all of this was that states such as Iowa, who continued to caucus, became less and less important because, frankly, their party members were mostly "old Reds" and did not represent even a small slice of America. Many Progressives in Iowa still have Socialist Party ties. On the other hand, many Republicans in Iowa are more liberal - moderate than most Americans, although the conservative faction is slightly larger (look at the Huckabee+Thompson vs Romney+McCain - Ron Paul is true crazy big "L" Libertarian, not a Republican). Most Americans are not that liberal to moderate. Whoever wins in Iowa could easily be a cipher by the California primaries.

South Carolina, on the other hand, is important for two big reasons: We are mostly conservative with small pockets of liberalism, and, we don't have a lot of "white guilt," which infects a lot of the North and far West. Or to say it better, we are dealing with our cultural obligations better than ½ of the nation.

While South Carolina may not have a bunch of votes, we are closer to the Heartland than are the good people of Iowa. Being southerners, we are not afraid of war. We love our country, and we know how to be polite. We will smile in the face of the phonies, but we will vote for the people who understand and appreciate us.

And so will most of America.

I will watch with interest who gets the nod from little Iowa. But it will not influence me one bit. And I doubt if it will influence many of you, either.

- Dick Anderson