Come and listen to a story 'bout the next big thing. It’ll save us from Iran and that greedy Saudi King. We grow it now at home, and it’s here to save the day. Who cares about tortillas and the price we’ll have to pay? …for corn, that is. Iowa ethanol! Liquid pork.

Iowa is having its fifteen minutes of fame. To listen to locals, their land is more than the heart of America; it’s a phenomenon - offering vast untapped energy resources and enough inveterate political wisdom to single-handedly anoint the 2008 presidential nominees.

Only pork barrel politics could elevate a state with a population slightly larger than Chicago to a political pot of gold.

One month from today each party’s winner of the Iowa caucuses will dominate the headlines as the newly ordained front-runner, and historically this has meant something. But the traditional candidate momentum bestowed by Iowa may disappear thanks to competition from other states now holding early primaries of their own. In the past there’s always been enough time between the Iowa caucuses and the other primaries to allow a surprise Iowa winner to gain enough momentum to overtake the front-runner for Round Two in New Hampshire, but this year the New Hampshire primary is a scant five days later, and 22 states will vote on or before February 5th, including delegate rich California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey.

So, given Iowa’s short shelf life, why have the candidates spent so much time there? Because Iowa, with its (albeit disappearing) family farms, still embodies the struggling America politicians love to save. And one subject dominates their stump speeches: Iowa can save America from foreign oil dependence.

Ethanol – Drink the modern Kool-Aid.

Let’s face it, politicians buy votes by giving you back the money you paid in taxes. Iowa’s subsidies for ethanol development include federal corn subsidies, federal ethanol subsidies to producers, tax dollars from the Iowa Department of Economic Development to build ethanol plants, and subsidies to gas stations that become ethanol retailers. Iowa collects billions in subsidies so beleaguered American farmers like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (lol) can continue to rape, I mean reap, the benefits of tax funded agribusiness. All while political ads plugging green bio fuel pander to a nation of good hearted voters eager to help save the family farm.

Escalating the debate, despite the fact that ethanol remains a high cost alternative with questionable benefits, politicians have now made Iowa’s liquid gold an issue of national security.

"This is not just good for the reduction of global warming, pollution, the domestic economy, national security. It is absolutely necessary in defeating the terrorists," Rudy Giuliani said announcing his energy policy, which includes increasing use of ethanol. President Bush had earlier proclaimed that ethanol “is good for our air, it’s good for our economy and it’s good for our national security.”

Iowa Congressman Tom Latham even went so far as to tout his state’s natural resources (read: corn) as ushering in the next Gold Rush. "The Mid West has the potential to be the New Middle East," he announced. "We are just in the infancy."

I can see the sign now: “Welcome to Dubaiowa – a Benz and a Deere in every garage.”

Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute estimates the ethanol industry is subsidized between $5 billion to $6 billion annually while a gallon of ethanol costs at least $2.50 to produce. In other words, Taylor said, “without the [government’s] ethanol program, the industry would collapse to dust. Nobody would make ethanol.”

But the hype of ethanol’s political salvation will continue - at least for another month.

We know markets track politics, so Wall Street volatility will continue to mimic the campaigns; and the most recent polls show Mike Huckabee and Barak Obama with surprise leads over Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton in, you guessed it, Iowa.

Still, next month’s caucuses remain overrated. The real contest is February 5th. Like that other mythical Mecca, Xanadu, Dubaiowa is just a passing pipedream. The deciding power lies in each American’s ability to see through the smoke. And with eighteen months of unpredictability to come, there are lots of better places to look for clues than Iowa.

Heather Flick

12/3/07