One speech trumps a whole state

In the early days, the Indians of Iowa were famous for decapitating their enemies and saving their scalps. Things have changed. Iowans don’t save scalps anymore.

Today, they are famous for decapitating presidential candidates who do poorly in the state’s caucuses. The head that rolled Monday belonged to Dick Gephardt, and a couple of other heads are only loosely attached.

The way a caucus works, for those unfamiliar with the process, is that a bunch of folks get together in a home, a school, a church or an abandoned grain silo, drink a little coffee, talk about crops, speculate on next week’s contest to select the Des Moines Chicken Queen and then begin discussing candidates.

Someone will start by wondering who this guy Getherd is, and another will respond that he seems like a nice man but lacks the strength to tend cows. Just as they’re getting into it, Mrs. Gahooley arrives late because she’s been baking some of her famous nut-filled, chocolate-coated Alice B. Gahooley cookies, which will cause a lot of ooohs and ahhhs and a 15-minute break to sample the goods.

Then they’ll get back to the business of the candidates, although Sam will have to leave because one of his horses is loose and running down the street, and some of the others have to be reminded of who’s who in the race. Eventually, they’ll select the man who could be the next president of the United States.

Trust me, it happens this way. I’ve been to Iowa.

I’m not sure that’s the manner in which leaders ought to be selected. The population of Iowa is about that of L.A., and other than being the birthplace of Herbert Hoover and John Wayne, there is very little else to recommend it.

I’m not saying that they aren’t nice people. Iowans are known for praying, brushing their teeth, eating their vegetables and not coveting their neighbor’s wives, except when the spiked cider at the shivaree makes them a little cuckoo. True, they represent the heartland of America and thereby make up a kind of voting average, so I guess they deserve a small amount of notice.

But should they have that much say about who is going to run for president and who isn’t? I guess Gephardt figured they did and went willingly to the chopping block, but if I were one of the others, I’d flick them away like flies on the sugar and move on to the fun work of tearing the other Democrats into confetti.

If caucuses are necessary, I would suggest that the first caucus hereafter be held in L.A., where the real muscle is, perhaps in the San Fernando Valley, which is sort of Iowa with oxygen bars. I’d suggest Hollywood, but I don’t think a gathering of cross-dressers, past-life regressionists, Transcendental Meditationists, out-of-body practitioners and unemployed actors would be considered a cross-section of anywhere.

They’d probably hold it at one of those after-midnight clubs where the young, hip, “in” people gather to dance to music that exceeds the decibel level of a departing jet, and where Paris Hilton might show up, possibly naked, followed by a camera crew ready to film any possible encounters.

A Hollywood caucus, complete with maybe one minor celebrity who is not in jail or on trial, would be interesting but probably not acceptable on the whole. I doubt if any candidate would take seriously whatever such a caucus came up with, if it came up with anything at all.

The Iowa caucus, as much attention as was paid to it, was still upstaged by the president’s State of the Union address the following day. While the Democratic candidates were jumping up and down shouting, “Look at me, look at me!” George W. Bush, that wily old Texan, was standing in front of America the way Julius Caesar stood before Rome in all his commanding glory, vowing that his empire would rule the world. In Washington, only the toga was missing. The promises were all there.

Bush said everything we wanted to hear, unless you’re a gay couple trying to legitimize a relationship, which, he insisted, God would not approve, and neither would he. For the rest of us, he promised to cure the sick, help the poor, educate the young, save the world and raise the dead.

It was a humdinger of a speech, which, even dissected and found empty, still bore the power and authority of a sitting president. He could have stood there singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” in a tutu and they’d have still given him a standing ovation, and Dan Rather would still be trying to figure out the subtleties of his message.

Compare the down-home, cookie-nibbling Iowa caucuses to that one all-encompassing, nationally televised presidential speech and you come to realize that nothing emerging from that heartland decapitation is going to matter much anyhow. If anyone beats Bush, it’s going to be Bush himself, and you can take that to the bank.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.