Questions hover in the political air about this time each primary season: "Why Iowa?" Anyone who has experienced Iowa must retort - "Why not?"
The experience of Iowa is something special, and possibly unexpected - nay, shocking. The Iowa handshake - a logical starting point - is a warm and welcome revelation to the Easterner. The Iowan's pressure to your offered palm is confident and warm.
I learned about Iowans on a summer story assignment in the State Capital and on the Iowa State University campus in Ames. In my opinion, the Iowans give such wonderful, from-the-heart handclasps because they are not afraid to like you, and they're perfectly willing to let you know it. Moreover, they are not a bit dismayed if you like them in return.
Eastern salutes, on the other hand -- so to speak -- may be coolly tenuous, even limp. Are the Easterners in retreat from commitment? Do we back off from liking? Do we fear the reaching hand may want something? We need to think about this.
If you want something from an Iowan, they are likely not to mind. In fact, you may get your wish, right then and there. Iowans are not even afraid you'll get more from the meeting than they do. In fact, should you be there as part of your job, it is possible to enjoy the company so much you nearly forget what you came for.
Sharing is part of the Iowa culture. This is a State whose farmers have had as much economic pressure as farmers anywhere, yet they feel they have bounties to share. They, in fact, shared their skills, first-hand, with farmers in other parts of the world. Maligned as somewhat insular, Iowans exchange cultures with China, Japan, Yucatan and nations of Africa. In addition, Iowa shared its own space, taking in a major portion of the Southeast Asia war refugees.
These new Asian citizens work hard, their children excel in school and their parents are active in small, entrepreneurial business. These qualities alarm folks on both American seaboards; the Asians are seen as rivals, willing to do more for less. There is negligible inter-ethnic tension in Iowa, and the reason becomes clear as you know Iowans. Farmers are not threatened by folks who work hard; hard workers are just like everybody else in Iowa.
Des Moines has a really fine newspaper. The Register and Tribune covers the local news with the same quality devoted to the editorials and the front page. And some of that news each year is written by a visiting journalist on fellowship from the Middle East, Asia or Africa, showing the folks back home how it is done in a land where press is free.
Iowa's universities have famous agricultural courses, and Iowa City has the oldest and best-known writer's school anywhere. Their biotech department is geared for the future, but Ames houses a scientist who is gathering data on ancient traditional farming and medical practices in the third world. The global approach - according to Iowa - appears to be that the third world -- maybe all the world's worlds -- need all the help they can get.
The eyes of Iowa meet yours with confidence.
The Governor's office in Des Moines is wide open and visitors are welcome. The highway patrol officer on detached duty as the Governor's security guard is more likely to offer you help than hindrance. "Up against the wall" is for vines.
"We're pretty calm here in Iowa," he says.
This is impressive to the visitor who has just come from the paranoia of the East Coast where cement barricades separate us from our centers of government.
There is no terror in Iowa. There is something very special going on out there. Warmth, openness, trust and friendship are thriving. They're not packaging it; we can't buy any. They'll share it for nothing, but we have to learn it and work at it. And we may never be as good at is as they are in Iowa.
Jo Campbell, now director of ECOTOPICS, INTERNATIONAL News Service, retired in 1986 after 30 years as a reporter for the Africa press branch of the United States Information Agency. Her assignments ranged from Iowa to Mozambique.