Barack Obama is the most urban president in US history (no horseback riding or clearing brush on his vacations), so it's inevitable that Jeffersonians are trying to shore up their forever-disproportionate power in American politics. Exhibit A: An article by a University of Iowa professor and a University of Missouri professor defending Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses. Here's the concluding paragraph of "Iowa: The Most Representative State?" in the January issue of PS: Political Science & Politics:
Is Iowa representative? Yes, at least reasonably so. And when it is not, that is often because it boasts a superior performance socially (e.g., educational attainment) or politically (e.g., voting turnout). Further, with respect to other social goods, it might be mentioned that the politics of Iowa is well known to be corruption free. If indicators on corruption had been included in our analysis, they would be expected to boost its ranking higher. With respect to the leading dimension of economic conditions, which we did measure, Iowa is unambiguously the most representative state in the country. In addition, its geographic and historic centrality, commented on initially, should not be forgotten. All things considered, there seems no cause to take away Iowa’s first-in-the-nation presidential selection status. If one state must hold this position then it is hard to make a better pick. Although of course not impossible, if one accepts the first-place ranking of Kansas.
What this supposedly representative state does not have is any of the 109 largest cities in America -- or a population that is less than 91 percent non-Hispanic white. (Kansas is indeed more cosmopolitan: Wichita is the nation's 51st biggest city, and the state has a population that is 81 percent non-Hispanic white.)
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