From Iowa Cornfields, a Left-Tilting Tradition
DES MOINES, Iowa - The two young men in neat oxford shirts stand on the shady front lawn and hug. Brand-new wedding bands gleam on their ring fingers. Cameras click. They are oblivious. Happy. And legally married.
“This is it,” Sean Fritz told Tim McQuillan in August, after the rapid-fire ceremony in a Unitarian minister’s yard here in the middle of middle America. “I love you.”
As Iowans ponder whom to support in the Jan. 3 caucuses, their state is the first in the heartland to even consider legalizing same-sex marriage — placing Iowa again in the vanguard and reminding the Democratic presidential hopefuls that progressives here help shape history.
Much of coastal blue-state America has long dismissed the Hawkeye State as it has the rest of “flyover country” — all conservatives, cornfields and clapboard churches — ignoring a succession of cultural and legal firsts and liberal politicians who made their way to Washington.
The tradition includes Henry A. Wallace, the vice president whom Franklin D. Roosevelt jettisoned because of the Iowan’s extreme left leanings, and Sen. Tom Harkin, who bragged in a recent campaign e-mail that “in the Congress, there is no one who has stood stronger against President Bush than I have.”
Iowa public schools were desegregated nearly a century ahead of 1954’s Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka. The state was the first to admit a woman to the bar, in 1869 — three years before the Supreme Court ruled that states could deny women the right to practice law. Iowa City, with its renowned writing program, became a nuclear-free zone even before Berkeley. And there is no death penalty in the state.
“I spend a lot of time talking to people about how Iowa is not like the states that surround it,” said Lisa Hardaway, spokeswoman for Lambda Legal, a gay-rights group that brought the lawsuit that led to the Fritz-McQuillan nuptials. “It’s not like Nebraska.”
Iowa’s long-standing progressive tradition regularly makes its mark on politics. As often as not, caucusgoers deny victory to the perceived centrist running for the Democratic nomination and give their nod to more-liberal contenders. Think 1984, when Walter F. Mondale beat John Glenn, or 1988, when Richard A. Gephardt bested Michael S. Dukakis.
New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the national front-runner in polls, is struggling here in a tight race against rivals Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who are both perceived to be more liberal.
And as the campaign heats up, “the Democratic candidates are generally tilting to the left,” said Peverill Squire, a University of Iowa political science professor. But “Clinton is trying to resist it as much as possible, to position herself for the general election.”
In a purely political sense, Iowa is actually two states. The rural west of Republican Rep. Steve King — who is referred to by some as “Iowa’s own Pat Buchanan” — has a strong social-conservative element, while the “liberal core” is urban and eastern.
The state also is currently “ascendant,” said David Redlawsk, associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa, who notes that for the first time in 40 years Democrats control both the governor’s office and the statehouse.
So how did a liberal streak take root amid the cornfields and silos, broad blue skies and small, neat cities?
Progressive Democrat Ed Fallon — who served in the state General Assembly for 14 years and makes his way on foot or bicycle as often as possible for Mother Earth’s sake — believes that dirt is destiny.
The land, he says, helps mold the people. Iowa is rich, fertile and the basis for an agricultural economy that thrived because of farmers’ interdependence. Though “the rest of the world can’t replicate the Iowa landscape,” he said, “it can replicate the tight-knit communities that foster tolerance.”
That tolerance was written into Article 1 of the Iowa Constitution, ratified in 1857,which says:
“All men and women are, by nature, free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness.”
For Gordon Fischer, former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, the proudest product of his state’s tradition of tolerance is the very first decision reached by the Iowa Supreme Court.
In 1839, the court “abolished slavery” in the Iowa Territory, he said, a generation before the federal 13th Amendment. The case was called In Re the Matter of Ralph; Fischer called it an “incredibly bold” step.
Ralph was a Missouri slave whose master allowed him to travel to Dubuque so he could earn enough to purchase his freedom. Five years later, the master tried to bring Ralph back by force.
Not so fast, the Iowa jurists decided. Ralph was not a fugitive, because he had been given permission to move. He still owed his $550 purchase price, they ruled, but “no man in this territory can be reduced to slavery.”
In 1868, the court decided that 12-year-old Susan B. Clark could not be denied admission to Muscatine Grammar School No. 2 because she was African American.
To deny children an equal education because of their race, the justices wrote, “would be to sanction a plain violation of the spirit of our laws [and] tend to perpetuate the national differences of our people and stimulate a constant strife.”
That decision came 28 years before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plessy vs. Ferguson that racial segregation in public accommodations was legal. Separate-but-equal classrooms weren’t deemed unconstitutional until 1954.
But it wasn’t just the Iowa Supreme Court pushing a progressive agenda. Hawkeye State farmers were at it too.
A few years after the jurists here desegregated the schools, the so-called Grange movement was taking hold in Iowa and several other agricultural regions, mobilizing farmers to get state laws passed to make shipping rates uniform and fairer.
Such action against the railroad monopolies, said Shelton Stromquist, professor of history at the University of Iowa, formed “the root of a farmer, progressive tradition.”
The Iowa Farmers Union seceded from its national counterpart in the 1950s in a disagreement over the Korean War. The Iowans were against it. That group later formed the core of a new national organization, the U.S. Farmers Assn., which went on to protest the Vietnam War.
Iowa’s progressive leanings have shaped the personal as well as the political.
This was the third state in the country to reject laws that prohibited mixed-race marriages and the second — after California — to institute no-fault divorce. It was also among the first states to protect married women from rape by their husbands. The years: 1851, 1970 and 1982, respectively.
Perhaps the best compendium of Iowa’s social and political milestones is a thick friends-of-the-court brief filed as part of a case called Varnum vs. Brien, in which six same-sex couples sued the Polk County registrar in 2005 because they were denied marriage licenses.
Their view was that the Iowa Constitution protected their right to wed. On Aug. 30, Judge Robert B. Hanson agreed in a 63-page ruling.
That afternoon Sean Fritz, 24, heard about Hanson’s decision in an instant message from a friend. He raced out to buy rings and flowers and got down on one knee to propose to Tim McQuillan, 21.
Then the two Iowa State University students stayed up all night downloading forms and figuring out a game plan.
First thing Friday morning they filed the proper documents and roused the Rev. Mark Stringer for the quick ceremony (which can still be viewed on the local television station’s website).
Shortly after Hanson ruled that same-sex marriage was legal, the Polk County attorney asked for a stay to appeal the decision. That stay came midday Friday.
The matter is before the Iowa Supreme Court awaiting a final ruling. Similar cases in California and Connecticut are awaiting state supreme court decisions.
Although it’s not clear what Iowa’s high court will do, more than half of the justices were appointed by a Democratic governor, and the court has a long “tradition of independence,” said Karen Thalacker, who teaches constitutional law at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.
The strength of Iowa’s liberal core is apparent on the campaign trail, where the candidates and their stand-ins are braving ice storms and holiday apathy.
It took Edwards just 30 minutes to hit nearly every populist high point at a recent event in Iowa City, the heart of “the People’s Republic of Johnson County.”
Bring “the few, the powerful, the well-financed” who are “controlling the government” down to size, he cried. Make “those millionaires on Wall Street” pay “their fair share of Social Security taxes.” Give voice to the voiceless.
Two days earlier in Ames, former President Clinton reached way, way back to burnish his wife’s progressive past, reminding the audience of her famous speech protesting the Vietnam War as a Wellesley undergrad.
Her husband’s praise notwithstanding, Sen. Clinton faces a tough fight for Iowa’s staunch left, the people likely to attend hours-long caucuses on a January night.
This month the president of the Progressive Coalition of Central Iowa circulated a lengthy e-mail voicing his “deep concern” over Clinton’s candidacy.
She voted for the war in Iraq and “unlike others, never clearly expressed regret for having done so,” wrote Vern Naffier. She said she was “open to carrying out military action against” Iran.
“While none of the other candidates is perfect,” he wrote to his fellow liberals, “it seems to me that they offer us a much more encouraging alternative to our present situation.”
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
Edwards is the most progressive candidate so hopefully he will win Iowa.
It’s a shame that Kucinich was not allowed to participate in this election.
Edwards as the most progressive? Then why hasn’t he stated an immediate end to the war in Iraq, universal non-profit health care and the down sizing of the military industrial complex?
Good point, alexnosal. It’s a crime that Dennis has been shut out of Iowa. Kucitizens who want to help Dennis in New Hampshire can go to the link below and get on the phone for him:
www.call4dennis.com
Hey Common Dreams, why are you posting propaganda from the capitalist mainstream media? Hillary is extreme right. The Los Angeles Times thinks she’s still centrist. It’s not an honest mistake.
Good to see, finally, some truth about the upper Midwest. I’ve spent many formative years there, mainly Minnesota and Wisconsin, and I get rather annoyed with left and right coasters who look down on the great flyover as some political wasteland. The Dakotas too, have some fine progressive strains in their history.
Thank you for bring this issue to light, may it help to redress the imbalanced perspective this part of the country bears.
Now living in Montana - and even here, there are pockets of healthy progressivism.
Clinton is a fascist. I think Iowa voters will figure that out on their own. They don’t need the LA Times to figure out who to vote for.
Vote Kucinich in the Primaries! Then when he doesn’t have enough support (15%) he can have his caucus votes thrown to Edwards. What a deal!
Indeed, propoganda from LA. What’s wrong with Iowa isn’t some Disneyesque smoke about leftiness, it’s about the crush of corporate fiefdom featuring outfits like the Farm Bureau, a violent agro-industrial king pin. Ridiculous glaze: “Coveralls, tractors and the process of democracy.” Eat the lie!
I am aware of Iowa’s past small-farmer, prairie-populist progressive traditions - so was Kansas and Nebraska, but that’s all gone now.
The Grange movement used to be progressive, but in my area, the Pennsylvania Grange was one of the major forces behind the “gag law” that prevents PA consumers from being able to choose to buy dairy products from rBST-free cows.
Hold on, just who do you think all those party hack super delegates are going to vote for? With the exception of Hillary, the Democrats could nominate a corpse and beat the Republicans this time around. They will throw their votes to whoever will continue to support the DLC. And considering how tight the race is, they look to be the deciding factor.
I lived in northwest Minnesota for five years, and they are an independent and interdependent tenacious lot, and very supportive of whoever braves their winters. I didn’t like living in a Bible Belt, or Tornado Alley, but those people had a lot of admirable qualities. I don’t see those qualities in Eugene, OR, but I do see a lot of them in Springfield, OR in the older people.
Edwards is indeed the most progressive *electable* candidate. Kucinich is in good company though, as Dodd, Biden, or Richardson would make better presidents in a coma than Clinton or Obama. Sadly, this country isn’t very progressive at all, which is why $hillary and Oprabama are getting all the attention from the corpocracy that owns them.
Most of the states in this country are no longer following the votes of Iowans. Those days are long gone. People are now taking CONTROL of their own destiny and not relying on Iowa or New Hampshire to lead the way.
I took a special trip to New Hampshire today and saw more Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul signs than any others combined. Therefore, I have no doubt that the “sheeples” are once again becoming the “peoples” of their own mind. The top 3 candidates as far as New Hampshire voters are concerned, are becoming meaningless in the scheme of the whole!
The “Universal Law of Attraction” is working wonders! “In order to effect true positive change in your experience (life), you must disregard how things are - as well as how others are seeing you - and give more of your attention to the way you prefer things to be.”
In short, people are beginning to see themselves through their own eyes and will be voting accordingly.
Gail–well said my dear! Be FOR something and dare to dream it into BEING!
I’m a huge fan of Kucinich,but I have to say that if it has to be anyone else, I hope it’s Edwards.(this from a guy who sent DK a hundred bucks a couple of weeks ago)
The only candidates that I’ll support are the ones that will seek to insure “We the People” our right to self determination.
As I see it that means I can only vote for Mike Gravel ,Denise Kucinich or Ron Paul in the current presidential race.
visit: peace candidates .com
It’s time for “US” to evolve and quickly!
Things we may not know about John Edwards:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/us/politics/31edwards.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
All I can say to those who keep harping on the Iraq War to end and Universal Health Care…GROW UP! It isn’t going to happen in my lifetime in this money grabbing country! You should have thought about the results before you bought into Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ nonsense in 2002. You should have thought about it when you voted Bush into office twice! Once it gets started it’s damned hard to ever get it stopped. The Robber Baron Republican’s (aka Neocon’s) are going to see to it that it doesn’t end anytime soon. And as long as the American voter keeps voting these nut cases into office they are going to put a stop to any progress this country might make. As for Universal Health Care. It isn’t going to happen either. Clinton tried it the first year he got in office and the Republican’s almost ran him out of town on a rail! As long as there are Republican’s in the mix none of the above is ever going to happen. Most of you should have figured that out by now. They could care less if there are people starving in the streets or dying from disease. Half of what Ron Paul says he is going to do is never going to happen and he knows it. He is just blowing smoke up you fools rear ends for votes. So the candidates are being logical on both subjects. They know it isn’t likely to ever happen. American’s might be a generous people when it comes to charities but charity doesn’t begin at home as far as most are concerned. They are not remotely generous with other American’s who are less fortunate.
Good post tubleweed.
I see a little different end to the war. I think that the financial and U.S. death toll will eventually force the politicians to get most of the troops out as the public will start feeling the pain. I think that will be in our life-times however the U.S. will probably not relinquish their airbases during our life-time so in that sense you are more right than wrong.
Sad to say but universal health care will probably never fly in the U.S. Not only is there an unbelievable amount of money and power ready to stop it but also the public is so stupid that whenever an idea is labeled “socialist” they turn their back on it even if it is in their best interest.
yes, everyone is in a dither about Iowa but my guess is that it will not matter much in the long run unless the results are flashed on the TV screens of American once an hour for the American voter to be reminded what happened ten months ago.
Dear “guizar,”
John Edwards is not the most progressive candidate, Dennis Kucinich is.
Vote Socialist! Brian Moore for President and Stewart Alexander for Vice President! www.votebrianmoore.com
re tumbleweed 9:57am
“As for Universal Health Care…Clinton tried it the first year he got in…”
not true. his proposal, and every other one since, except for kucinich’s, has found a way to make sure the insurance corporations are still getting their piece of the action. kucinich is the only real anticorporate candidate, which is why he’s being airbrushed out of the picture.
For what it’s worth, the Green Party also endorses single-payer health care. But it’s verboten to even mention them in the media.
It seems that most Americans would rather get screwed by the insurance companies.
No, wait, that doesn’t make sense. Well, I guess the only analysis remaining is that the MSM is a propaganda machine, whose purpose is to separate people from their legitimate class interests.
“…caucus goers give their vote to the most liberal contenders”
Maybe people in LA just see flyover country but Mondale was from Minnesota (just north of Iowa) and Gephardt was from St. Louis (just south of Iowa). Geographic identity and the “one of us” concept is just as operant as political ideology. And Obama? Illinois is just east of Iowa.
truth, what a wonderful thing it is… exposing lies and misleading innuendo…
there are no Blue States or Red States in america - only the State Denial….
the first thing you do to an enemy is divide them… divide and conquer - the oldest strategy of human aggression
so who is divided using the terms Red, Blue, right, left, liberal, and conservative?
who does the dividing?
know your enemy is all I say
Iowa and every state in the union is made up of all walks of immigrants and a small population of Native Americans - who technically also immigrated here thousands of years before my ancestors did
truth - Kucinich is not allowed in the Iowa Caucus’ - no one in the media is even covering this story - including Common Dreams…
land of the free? know your enemy.
Exactly, as stated above, riiight.. Iowa is SO progressive, which is why they locked out Kucinich, the only real independent progressive on the Democratic ticket. Face it, Maria L. LaGanga, Iowa has been controlled by the MSM misperception, just like the rest of the country. They have just blown their ‘progressive’ legacy apparently (without checking, probably since the Reagan Era however, when the neo-cons got their start and the office of dis-information/Clear Channel were getting started in Texas). Anyone know what Nader’s experience with Iowa was? I don’t recall.
The primary system is BROKEN!
I’ll say it again B-R-O-K-E-N
Why the hell does an undemocratic, fixed process in a farm in the middle of nowhere (this from a midwesterner) determine who the two pre-determined front runners are from the two wings of the single American Corporate Party???
It sucks. Its a game designed to protect the rich and powerful, and its UnAmerican as heck.
We need a new system where EVERYONE votes in primaries on the SAME day, maybe with a runoff between the top two in each wing. AND we need to allow ALL candidates to participate. ALL!! AND we need to find a way to really focus on the ISSUES and not the damned horserace of the pre-determined and cash laden.
A quick google brought this up:
“Democrats have fought to keep Nader off ballots in tight races across the nation - a Des Moines woman recently lost her petition to block Nader’s Iowa bid. Drake University Associate Professor Lee Joliffe had alleged that signatures on Nader’s petition had been altered and were thus invalid.”
At least she lost her petition… maybe Iowa earned the right to be considered less ‘3rd party hostile’ - I’d have to check further. Nader sued and won lawsuits against several states.
And there is this little gem:
“October 31, 2007; AMY GOODMAN: Consumer advocate and three-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader sued the Democratic Party Tuesday for conspiring to prevent him from running for president in 2004. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Nader, his vice presidential running mate Peter Camejo and a group of voters from several states. It names as co-defendants the Kerry-Edwards campaign, the Service Employees International Union, private law firms, organizations like the Ballot Project and America Coming Together that were created to promote voter turnout on behalf of the Democratic ticket. According to the lawsuit, the defendants used “groundless and abusive litigation” to bankrupt Ralph Nader’s campaign and force him off the ballot in eighteen states.
CARL MAYER: To defend democracy. That’s the title of the show—excuse me, is Democracy Now! And this was the most massive anti-democratic campaign to eliminate a third-party candidate from the ballot in—probably in recent American history. It is—not content with having all these laws and statutes on the book that make it difficult for third-party and independent candidates to run, the Democratic Party and their allies in over fifty-three law firms, with over ninety lawyers, were engaged in filing litigation in eighteen states. They were to remove Ralph Nader from the ballot. It was an organized, abusive litigation process
CARL MAYER: Well, the SEIU very clearly, in emails and on their website, the SEIU had a project, which was called ACT, or Americans Coming Together. There were several 527 groups; these are independent expenditure groups. And the SEIU was involved in them. The SEIU was involved in trying to keep Nader off the ballot by using its members, for example in Oregon, to go into the convention, but in other states—in other states, to try to actually void petitions by signing in the wrong place. . . .Robert Brandon, who’s one of the defendants, and he’s a consultant to the Democratic Party. And he held a meeting at the Democratic Convention in 2004 with Moffett, Holtzman and a group of other high-ranking Democrats, and they said, our purpose is to keep Nader off the ballot. And they went, and they proceeded to do it, spending millions of dollars.
”
Interesting Nader would endorse Edwards after this! And interesting that Kucinich still sticks with the Democratic party. What a mess.
The primaries are not a “winner-take-all” system as the mainstream media (MSM) tries to suggest. They are based on proportional representation. So even if Hillary gets the most delegates from Iowa and is called a winner by the MSM, there are more delegates against her than for her going into the national convention.
I suspect way more (say by a 2:1 ratio) of Edwards delegates would switch to Obama rather than Hillary if and when he drops out. The same ratio would go to Edwards if Obama drops out.
I can’t say the same for Richardson’s delegates since he’s an ex-Kissinger associate.
Let’s talk about why DK “wasn’t allowed” in the debates.
The truth is, it’s not a matter that he was not allowed. He simply did not qualify. In Iowa, we begin the process of separating the “men from the boys”. In order to participate in the Iowa debates, a candidate must show a minimum level of interest in the state, including the establishment of a campaign office here, among other things.
DK didn’t care enough (or have enough money) to establish a campaign office in Iowa, so he was not invited to the debates. Boo hoo. Deal with it!
Ask yourself this - if DK had particpated in the Iowa debates, would he have shot up 20% in the polls - enough to be considered a viable candidate? I don’t think so.
re dmia 2:45pm
kucinich had, and still has, a campaign office in iowa. it’s located in the home of his state campaign manager, not in a stand-alone office building which charges rent. based on this technicality (if it weren’t this one, it would have been another) he was shut out—as transparent an attempt at vote rigging as one could ask for.
based on how his positions resonate with the public at large, he’s a viable candidate, which is precisely why he’s being shut out.
dmia - since you so callously seem to think it is OK to shut anyone out that doesn’t fit your “criteria” for being a man among “men” (Hilary might be offended at this reference) I’m curious to know which corporate lobbying group you work for? Basically your attitude towards this sham called a US election (which is simply the Corporate selection) is that of one who believes in an aristocracy. Tell me do you think we live in a democracy?
DK was shut out of debates and the Iowa caucaus because as hazmat states above - HE IS A VIABLE Candidate and his positions resonate with more Americans than ANY other candidate. Democrats, the supposed liberal party in the horse race, spent millions keeping Nader off the ballot last election. SOmeone posted that he is currently sueing the DNC for a concerted organized effort to derail his campaign. If you believed in democracy at all you would understand that we do not nor have we ever had one in the US. You would also think that keeping Karl Marx off the ballot is a crime. In a true democracy all candidates from all partioes get equal access to the media. In fact in most western nations elections takes weeks and follow these same premises. Billions are not wasted on corporate campaign tactics and ad firms which is the real reason there si so little money for anything good for the people in the US. Imagine if you could have the money spent on any one of the past 6 or so Presidential elections on something like education or health care for the underinsured and uninsured?
I digress tho, we are a Christian nation right? That’s why we have so many homeless and hungry CHILDREN here in the US of A$$
This is wrong several counts. Franklin D Roosevelt left Henry Wallace being on the ticket in 1944 completely up to the convention. Dennis J Kucinich is the only true progressive candidate. He is the only one with the guts to back up his words with actions such as pushing impeachment, which is now before the US House Judiciary Committee.
Also the left doesn’t exist in this country in any significant degree, as a left winger has to at least be socialist.