The Midwesterner: Blogging the Global Midwest

The Iowa Caucuses and the Real Iowa

The Republican caucuses in Iowa will soon be history, not a moment too soon for most of us but especially for Iowans themselves. For months, they have been bombarded with TV ads and swarmed by plagues of politicians. Even worse, they have been diced, sliced, anatomized, psychoanalyzed and socially parsed by teams of visiting journalists and even some local writers, all straining on slow news days to explain to readers and viewers what makes this bellwether state tick, anyway.

As a native Iowan, gone since youth but a frequent visitor in recent years, I may be permitted a voice in this debate, both on the state itself and on how it's being presented, before the spotlight shifts to New Hampshire and leaves Iowa in grateful obscurity for another four years.   

'Tis the Season to Be Blackmailed

If it truly is more blessed to give than receive, the governor of Illinois and the mayor of Chicago have just booked their reservations in heaven.

In the state and the city, the spirit of Christmas seems alive and well. But neither economy is doing so hot, and the two leaders' generosity will only make things worse. 

Gov. Pat Quinn and the Illinois legislature have approved a $371 million tax-break package that includes more than $100 million for Sears Holding Corp. and the Chicago financial exchanges, which had threatened to leave the state unless they got this deal. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has given Sara Lee Corp. between $5 million and $6.5 million, depending on how many jobs they keep, to move part of its headquarters from the suburbs to downtown Chicago.

Even at this time of year, these are some sort of stocking stuffers. But it's a suitable end to a year that has seen Midwestern cities and states, all desperately needing to create new jobs and stimulate new businesses, throwing multi-billion baubles instead at old companies, many of them shrinking, in deals that seldom add one job to the Midwestern economy.

The Midwest Commands American Politics

The Midwest has become the political fulcrum of America. Some Midwesterners, especially the over-politicked citizens of Iowa, might be willing to forego this honor, but the fact remains that Midwestern politics is setting the agenda for the election year to come.

If American politics are becoming more partisan, these Midwestern battles exemplify the split between right and left. With the Republican caucus in Iowa set for Jan. 3, the clout of right-wing Republicans, especially evangelical Christians, is pulling that party's presidential candidates far to the right of many moderate Republicans. In Wisconsin and Ohio, a Democratic backlash against attempts by Republican governors to break public service unions is pushing the Democratic party into a pro-union stance that may not play with the party's national electorate.

The probable Republican presidential candidate, whoever he or she is, is going to leave Iowa with a far-right stance that will be hard to shed in the national campaign ahead. On the Democratic side, President Obama is going to have to come out swinging for public service unions or risk alienating his party's base.

Drifting in the Driftless Area

I spent the last week in Galena, a gem of an old Victorian town, nestled in the hills and forests of the so-called Driftless Area, in northeast Illinois near the Mississippi River Valley. I came away thinking how this area could be more than the beautiful but generally depressed region it is now.

Galena itself seems to be doing fine. It is a tourism and second-home mecca, packed with good restaurants and refugees from Chicago. But the Driftless Area itself is divided between four states and some 25 to 35 counties, depending on where you draw the boundaries. None of these jurisdictions -- not the states nor the counties -- has been able to work with the others to leverage the region's scenic potential and combat the economic distress that, like the scenery, they all share.