Politics: The Psychological State of Iowa

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Politics The Psychological State of Iowa The Hawkeye State launched Obama in 2008 and doomed Romney. How Iowans are feeling this time around will be crucial. By John Dickerson Posted Saturday, Jun 16, 2012, at 12:09 PM ET DES MOINES, Iowa—A stenciled portrait of Barack Obama hangs on the wall of his Iowa headquarters. The blue and red image was painted on drywall in his Iowa campaign offices in 2008. It echoes the famous Shepard Fairey poster and that first campaign when any treatment of the candidate's image could seem instantly iconic. Brad Anderson, Obama's current Iowa state director, cut it out and hung it in the campaign's 2012 location: a defunct Blockbuster video store that still has the mirrors on the ceiling used to thwart shoplifters. It's somewhat poetic: The Obama campaign is trying to rekindle its old glory in the shell of one of the businesses that went belly up during the economic downturn.  Iowa was the emotional center of the 2008 Obama campaign. The state launched him when he beat Hillary Clinton in the caucuses. Obama went on to win the general election in Iowa by 10 percentage points, but that margin of victory was out of character for the state. President Bush narrowly won Iowa by 10,000 votes in 2004 after having lost it by less than 5,000 votes in 2000. Now, like the rest of the country, Iowa is reverting back to its normal condition—a 50/50 state with narrow electoral margins. The latest polls show Obama and Romney in a dead heat.  In every calculation of how the candidates get to 270 electoral votes, Iowa is listed as a battleground state. But it's ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Drones Aren't Just in the Sky. Now They're in the Ocean Too. A Job-Loss Map That Should Throw the Obama Campaign Into a Panic We Don't Need More Scientists—We Need Better Ones	Advertisement
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