David Michael Miller
I agree with Ted Cruz about something. No, really. He’s right about ethanol. Cruz is one of only two candidates running for president (the other is Rand Paul) who opposes the Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires that 10% of almost all the gasoline produced in the U.S. must be ethanol.
I agree with Cruz because corn-based ethanol is a terrible idea. (Ethanol produced from other sources can be much better, but that’s not what the debate is about in Iowa, where the issue is corn.) The total environmental impacts from producing all that corn far outweigh any benefits. Moreover, corn ethanol has reduced the world’s grain supplies and driven up the cost of food, affecting the poor the most.
But in Iowa ethanol is king. So pretty much every presidential candidate who comes through the state (and they all must) genuflects at the altar of ethanol. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders support the RFS, and they should know better.
Ethanol is the clearest example of why Iowa and New Hampshire should not be leading off the presidential selection process. These are states that don’t represent the nation as a whole very well.
For example, nationwide 81% of us live in urban areas. In Iowa it’s 64%. The entire country is 17% Hispanic, 13% black and 5% Asian. Iowa’s numbers are 6% Hispanic, 3% black and 2% Asian.
In fact, both Iowa and New Hampshire have demographic make-ups that resemble the United States in 1930.
We would be talking about very different issues if the candidates were forced to camp out in more urban states for two years. If, for example, the opening states were New York and California, the conversation might be focused on mass transit, gun control and poverty, all issues that affect all of us a lot more than, say, ethanol. And candidates couldn’t get away with dealing with the immigration issue by saying ludicrous things like proposing the deportation of 11 million people. They would need to have serious proposals to deal with a big issue.
And, in fact, if we were to select the two states that right now most closely mirror the current demographic breakdown of the country, they would be Georgia and Illinois. Candidates who would have to spend the better part of two years cozying up to voters in Atlanta and Chicago would need to address wholly different — and much more relevant — issues than they do now.
What about Wisconsin? Well, we look like America in 1974. Sorry.
To make matters worse, because the big urban states have become so reliably Democratic, presidential candidates barely campaign there even during the general election. Democrats take them for granted, and Republicans write them off.
But if states like California, New York, Illinois and even Georgia were in the primary mix much earlier, it would almost certainly change the national conversation and force candidates to confront issues that matter much more to a lot more Americans.
