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Floods change Iowa and farm policy calculus for Obama and McCain

Dante Chinni

Posted: 06.17.2008 / 9:27 AM EDT

The number of disparate outside elements that can influence a presidential campaign is vast. There are terrorist strikes and mass layoffs and gasoline prices, even the weather.

In August 1992, hurricane Andrew blew through southern Florida and southwest Louisiana, causing more than $26 billion in damage. At the time, President George H.W. Bush was criticized for acting too slowly in providing relief to those who suffered the worst damage. In the election that fall, Bush won Florida barely and lost Louisiana – a state he had won by 10 percentage points in 1988.

The recent flood damage in Iowa and other Midwestern states could create a similar stir in the 2008 race. Already Iowa Gov. Chet Culver has declared 83 of the state’s 99 counties disaster areas. Because both Barack Obama and John McCain aim to add the Hawkeye State to their electoral columns in the fall, the disaster becomes another story line in the campaign. Agricultural policy becomes a more important issue, and Senator Obama and Senator McCain may come under scrutiny for their stances on the farm bill, which failed in the Senate by a vote of 82 to 13 last month. (Obama and McCain were on the campaign trail and didn’t vote.)

Obama, for his part, supported the legislation, arguing it helped family farmers and ranchers.

In contrast, McCain is proud of his position against the bill. In his town-hall meetings last week, he said it was full of special-interest pork and tax breaks for the wealthy. McCain hopes that people see his opposition to the farm bill as proof that he is a man of principle who won’t back legislation that he believes is fiscally irresponsible. For some, his position may have shown that.

But that was before the weather stepped into the 2008 campaign.

Now, whether he is right or wrong from a policy standpoint, the politics of the farm bill may end up hurting him in the ravaged parts of the Midwest.

The biggest problem the floods created? More than 1 million acres of corn crops were lost in Iowa alone, according to estimates, and between 3 million and 4 million acres are expected to be lost overall. Corn prices spiked 11 percent just last week as a result.

“The prices of corn and soybeans have skyrocketed and that affects local farmers both positively and negatively,” Sioux County Supervisor Mark Sybesma, reported in an e-mail. “I’m sure that help will be needed in the future to those areas that are flooded but it is too early for that to happen.”

It means there are winners and losers in Sioux Center, Iowa, Patchwork Nation’s agricultural community (“Tractor Country”).

Those who make a living planting corn are figuring out what to do with their coming windfall of cash. But Sioux County is a big meat producer, too. The higher corn prices have cattle and hog farmers here shaking their heads, wondering how they will manage to pay for the commodity that makes up much of their feed supply. Already livestock workers in the area were muttering under their breath about feed prices after production mandates for corn-based ethanol had driven up prices.

While Iowans try to prepare for the full effects of the flood of ’08, tornadoes have been the immediate concern for Sioux Center residents in the state’s northwest corner.“The tornadoes that have devastated Iowa have made a bigger impact,” said Steve Hoogland, editor of the weekly Sioux Center News wrote in an e-mail. “Last week, about 90 miles south of here near Little Sioux (Iowa), a Boy Scout camp was struck by a tornado and four 13- and 14-year-olds were killed.”

Employees and students from Northwestern College in nearby Orange City will help with the cleanup in Parkersburg, Iowa, where a tornado wiped out the home of a student. Residents who have friends in damaged areas will aid relief efforts, too, says Paul Clousing, Sioux Center’s city manager.