'Cancel the funeral' for Iowa caucuses, former congressman says
Former eastern Iowa Congressman Dave Nagle, a Waterloo attorney, says the news of the Iowa caucuses’ demise is premature.
The Democratic National Committee’s rulemakers on the presidential nominating calendar have voted to strip Iowa of the first-in-the-nation status. But Iowa law dictates that the state hold the kickoff caucuses, and that is just what Democrats should do, Nagle said in a phone call.
“Cancel the funeral,” Nagle, a Democrat, said. “We can still be first. We should be first.”
Nagle said the he’s going to work to urge the Iowa Democratic Party Central Committee to hold the caucuses first. The former congressman has played key roles in keep Iowa first in past decades.
“You first of all, convince the Iowa State Central Committee, the governing body, to hold the caucus at the same time Republicans do as Iowa law requires and then you hold the damned caucus — the same way you would as if it were sanctioned,” Nagle said.
Nagle said the 2024 cycle is likely to be of little consequence for the caucuses if President Biden seeks reelection. But he wants to make 2028 relevant, arguing primarily, that smaller states like Iowa serve as a gateway for candidates who don’t have massive political war chests.
“They can’t stop us,” Nagle said. “You can tell people ‘don’t come to Iowa’ in 2024 and they won’t come because there is nothing on the table, but in 2028 they will at least have the opportunity to come and run someplace where they don’t have to have $25 million in their back pocket when they land at The Des Moines Airport.”
Nagle said he’s not concerned about Iowa serving as a junior-varsity contest with the DNC-sanctioned schedule, which replaces Iowa with South Carolina in the lead-off spot, drawing the top-tier candidates, leaving Iowa potentially for upstarts with less funding who are willing to defy DNC rules.
(Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa journalist and member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Other writers in the collaborative include:)
It's not 1984 anymore. There is no reason for viable presidential candidates to risk DNC sanctions (including being excluded from televised debates) in order to campaign here.
Iowa Democratic Party leaders need to accept reality and not spend years chasing the dream.