Editorial: Wither Iowa in ‘08?

Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2006 | 7:09 a.m.

The ink is barely dry from the postmortems of the Republicans' failures and the Democrats' victories in the 2006 midterm election, but already there is buzz over politicians preparing for campaigns to win the White House in 2008.

On the Republican side, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani are seen as formidable candidates. On the Democratic side, the possible candidacies of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are creating excitement, too.

The candidacy of one Democrat who doesn't have a household name - Tom Vilsack - bears watching, particularly for residents of Nevada, which will hold its presidential nominating caucus right after Iowa's caucus. That is because Vilsack is the outgoing governor of Iowa, which just happens to hold the first presidential caucus in the nation. Although barely known outside Iowa, he is popular in the Hawkeye State, meaning that other Democrats might not bother seriously campaigning against him when that state holds its presidential caucus.

That scenario played out in 1992, when major Democratic candidates stayed away from Iowa when Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin ran for president, and a meaningless contest with a favorite son will happen again if Vilsack stays in the race. That means the importance of Nevada, which will hold its Democratic caucus after Iowa and shortly before New Hampshire's primary, will take on even greater significance.

We haven't forgotten how politicians and pundits from Iowa and New Hampshire ridiculed Nevada after the Democratic National Committee decided to let Nevada go second in the presidential nominating process, upsetting decades of tradition in which Iowa and New Hampshire had always gone first. What a delicious irony it would be if Iowa ends up becoming just a sideshow and Nevada becomes the first real test for Democratic presidential hopefuls.