Senator Chuck Grassley

With several Republicans now declaring their presidential candidacies, one US Senator believes Iowa continues to play a role with its caucuses.

Senator Chuck Grassley sees many advantages for the Republican Party to keep its first in the nation status with the February caucuses. Those advantages include an economic increase with area businesses with presidential campaigns spending money while in the state, Iowans that participate in the caucus take it seriously and do their research, and it allows for those campaigns that don’t have endless amounts of money to sell themselves to Iowans through “retail politics.” He talks about two examples where he believes the Iowa Caucus helped propel two individuals to become president.

“The first one was Jimmy Carter. (He) Practically lived in Iowa, lived in people’s homes over a period of two years. He won the Democratic caucuses in Iowa and went on to be President of the United States. The other one (was) (Barack) Obama. He had to prove to the Democrat machine that an African American could get (the) white European vote, and that’s what Iowa is 85-90 percent. And he proved that and he went on to be the President of the United States.”      

Grassley hopes that someday the Iowa Democratic Party can recapture its first in the nation status after the National Democratic Party voted in favor of South Carolina to jump Iowa with its primary. There are close to ten Republican candidates for president.