Why is Iowa the way it is?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Because Iowa isn't really that rural. Even though landwise it is, the large chunk of the population lives in Sioux City, Dubuque, Des Moines, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, ect. And while the western part of the state outside of Sioux City is extremely conservative like Nebraska and Kansas, (especially the northwestern part, go look at my thread in U.S. General Discussion on that), it's also not too populated. It has only about 20% of Iowa's population. The eastern part is much more populated and urban, and the urban areas tend to be Democratic and outvote the rural parts. It's actually very similar to Minnesota, except the urban population is much more spread out.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I think Iowa's Dukakis' second best state in 1988, behind only Rhode Island!

Anyway, IA seems to be 'distancing', and Kerry is up about 5 there in my estimation.

that was mainly because of the farm crisis of the late 80's. the economy was absolutely pitiful there. Note that Dukakis didn't do too bad in the Dakotas either.

In the last three elections though, Iowa has been about a good as a bellweather as you can get. Compare the results there to the national ones. Almost a perfect mirror, even for Perot and Nader.