Description: Once an obscure regional affair, the Iowa precinct caucuses have become political olympics, of make-or-break importance to presidential candidates every four years. How this transformation came about -- and what it means to state and national politics -- is the subject of this book, a penetrating look into the role of the media in the American electoral process. Ground breaking when it was first published in 1987, Iowa Precinct Caucuses has been extensively updated, expanded and revised in this second edition to reflect the profound, rapid changes that mark American politics.

With Iowa as a prism on the national scene, Winebrenner examines the beginning of the precinct caucuses and explores the serendipitous events that thrust them into the political spotlight in the early 1970s. In particular, Winebrenner focuses on the ways in which politicos in and out of Iowa, along with the national media, manipulated Iowa's caucuses into a position of undeniable prominence. Furthermore, he exposes the harmful effects of this prominence on the political process, extrapolating local opinions and results into unjustified and ultimately unreal national outcomes. A timely analysis of American politics on the ground floor, this book offers persuasive evidence that the public interest is ill-served when manipulation and distortion of events like the Iowa caucuses determine the viability of presidential candidates. It should be required reading for every citizen concerned about the nation's political future.

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