Bloom, Siepker’s comments still fresh after Iowa caucuses
The Iowa caucuses concluded last week with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney edging Rick Santorum by a mere eight votes (30,015-30,007). It was a historic evening. A winner wasn’t even declared that evening until about 3 a.m.
I was locked to our living-room television that evening, with a laptop in hand, scrolling over southwest Iowa cities on the interactive map on the Iowa City Press-Citizen website. I couldn’t take my eyes off the television/laptop.
Like many Iowans, I take who I vote for seriously, and if the Republican party has a better alternative than our current president, I want to vote for him.
But, as the candidates and the pack of media invaded New Hampshire this week, it wasn’t words from Romney, Santorum or any other candidate that fixed to my brain, it was those of Stephen Bloom, an Iowa professor who, prior to the caucuses, wrote about his observations of Iowa in a 5,600-word piece called “Observations from 20 years of Iowa Life.”
It ran on the politics page of TheAtlantic.com before being forwarded and shared all over the world. Bloom’s controversial piece, in its entirety, is still available on their website at www.theatlantic.com.
Bloom, born in New Jersey, bluntly paints his picture of Iowans saying: “Almost every Iowa house has a mudroom, so you don’t track mud or pig **** into the kitchen or living room, even though the aroma of pig **** is absolutely venerated in Iowa: It’s known to one and all here as “the smell of money.” ...
“Not many cars in these parts of America. They’re vehicles, pronounced ve-HICK-uls — 4X4s, pickups, snowmobiles. Rural houses are modest, some might say drab. Everyone strives to be middle-class; and if you have some money, by God you’d never want to make anyone feel bad by showing it off. If you go to Florida for a cruise, you keep it to yourself. The biggest secret often is — if you still own farmland — exactly how many acres. Ostentatious is driving around town in a new Ford F-150 pickup.”
Those observations, and many more like it, in his piece have elicited hundreds of online responses from Iowans and others around the country. Those responses ranged from death threats against the professor to letters of praise.
Bloom makes some valid comments about Iowa in his 5,600 words, but like Kyle Munson of the Des Moines Register wrote: “Tone is everything when you want your satire or criticism at least to ring true if not be humbly received.”
Most of the comments above, and in his piece, are generalizations and stereotypes of Iowans and don’t hold true for Iowans as a majority. I’ve lived elsewhere long enough to know that’s what people think of Iowans. We’re simple-minded, uneducated. And that is the tone of Bloom’s piece.
The point of Bloom’s piece was we aren’t worthy of being the first state to host presidential candidates.
That’s why, I guess, I’ve watched Scott Siepker’s “Iowa Nice” video more than two dozen times since it was released. He points out the state is more forward-thinking than Bloom and the rest of the world gives us credit for — from legalizing gay marriage to fostering revolutionary agricultural methods.
Check out Siepker’s video, but know there are two versions — the original and the “clean version.”
In the video he asks Bloom, I assume, and the rest of the world: “You think we are all hillbillies? Well, four out of five of us live in the cities, punk. What about farmers you say? You think farmers are hillbillies? Sit down son. One Iowa farmer feeds 155 of you. ... You think farming is easy? The average Iowa farm is larger than 300 football fields. It takes a fleet of tricked-out machines and ****ton of ag science to make it all work.”
Here is my opinion: I believe Iowans to be hardworking and honest and understand the importance of cooperation and a balanced approach to finances.
Aren’t those the same qualities we want from a president? Maybe, just maybe, those “simple” Iowa qualities are the remedy to the struggles of Washington politics.
