they don't know when it lived, but it could be the earliest species of the whommo genus. i'm antonio mora, ray suarez is next with "inside story". have a great night. [ ♪ ] in coffee shops, school gymnasiums and american leaguon hauls, presidential candidates are trying to move iowans to move into the snow, to caucus with neighbours and choose a nominee. it's not only arcane, but iowa may not do the parties much of a favour as an early test. don't believe me, ask president santor im and president huckabee.

why iowa. it's "inside story". welcome to "inside story". i'm ray suarez. now, granted some place has to be first. as a test of a candidates viability early in the season, the thinking went. iowa can tell you useful things about fundraising, volunteers, organization, messaging, how much does it tell you really. right now, two non-politicians, top of the iowan polls, donald trump and dr ben carson, if one wins, and neither is the republican nominee for president, what will iowa have helped the party accomplish. here is david shuster. >> reporter: honoured by hollywood and "field of dreams." >> movie reel: is this heavy

yen. >> no, it's iowa. >> reporter: iowa had as long lofty role in presidential politics. >> in this election we are ready to believe again. thank you iowa. the state has been home to the first nomination contest for 40 years, a contest depending on retail campaigning. a southern governor practically lived in the state. he won the iowa caucuses. propelling him to the democratic nomination and the white house. >> in 2008 iowa approved a young senator, president obama, could attract white voters. >> at this defining moment history, you have done what the senate said we couldn't do. >> in this race vermont senator bernie sanders is trying to show that he can appeal the democrats

outside the north-east. that's why his campaign is excited about a poll suggesting that he is ahead of hillary clinton in iowa. on the republican side iowa doesn't have a good track record in predicting nomination and white house success. future president george w. bush finished third in 1888. john mccain, the eventual 2008 nominee came in fourth. that year the winner say the caucuses and governor mike huckabee. tonight i love iowa a lot. strategists in both parties point out that the e.u. caucuses narrow down the field. underdogs gain credibility and media attention. that means an influx much cash and a boost in organizational help and polling numbers. president obama, for example.

in 2008 got a 20 point bounce overnight in south carolina thanks to his victory in iowa. the main criticism is that the stay does not look like or represent the rest of the country. it's an agricultural state with a population that is 91% white. there are few latinos, and immigrants, and low unemployment. politics are personal, and residents take pride and show up on a cold winter's night to provide the country with a ranking and a review joining me now, one of the america's leading iowaologists, reporter david yep son, director of the poll simon policy institute at southern illinois university. welcome to the programme. did iowans know what they were getting into as parties shifted away from having the bosses pick

the candidates to having the primaries pick them? >> no, no one could have forecast what this has grown into. as david pointed out. it started years ago, it's a product of the democratic national convention of 1968 in chicago, turning into a giant riot. when the party informed itself in the wake of that, it decided it would open the party up, have more meetings, and let more people participate. in doing that, they backed the start of this process into the election year. it was the first place anywhere in the country that rank and file party people stood up and expressed a preference for a candidate for president. george mcgovern won the 1972 caucuses. he came in second. edmond won. it was a strong finish for senator mcgovern. he later went on to win the

nomination, and we look back at that, and i think the party and media people said iowa was telling us something. it was telling us about the strength of the antiwar movement. as david shuster mentioned in his piece, jimmy carter saw that, came to iowa in '075 and '76 to get a bounce of money and media attention into the primary. it's been going on in both parties since then. every couple of cycles other states flirt with moving into the calendar. getting ahead. leapfrogging them again. why is it important to the state to hold that status. >> well i think part of it is an ego thing. part of it is that i don't thing iowans are trying to surrender this to another state. wherever you start the election of an american selection, you'll

have an important political story, a story that people around the world are looking at. you can move this to wyoming, and it would be the same disproportionate out of media coverage. and the same criticism. few states are typical. country as a whole. one thing to note is two parties, the republican and democratic party, the people that show up tend to reflect a lot of the same people who are active in their party. the people you see on the floor of the democratic conventions look like the people that show up at the caucuses. when you look at the polling coming out of the country as a whole and iowa, it looks like two different sets of voters. let's take the republicans first. donald trump and ben carson take

half the field. leaving the third and fourth-placed finishes in a crowded republic field in single digits. that's in iowa. when you look at the national numbers, donald trump is ahead, but by a narrower margin, and ben carson trails him in a way that shows a candidate like him has an appeal in iowa that he doesn't have nationwide. what is that telling us? >> well, it tells me the campaign is early. there's five months to go before people vote. this will climate change a lot. the numbers that we are seeing are very soft. a way to look at the numbers in iowa, donald trump is at 25 and 30%. that means 70% of the caucus goers are some place else. the fact is most of them are undecided. they are soft. pol terse push respondents to

say how they lean. having watched this for years, there's a lot of race to play out. more debates, candidates will have gaffs, some doing well, some succeeding in organising. the short answer to why the difference is - it started in iowa, it's early and a lot can change. >> doesn't sound like you see it as likely that some day iowa will be knocked from its person or hustled into a group of other states, that iowa will do what it takes to stay first. >> i think it's true, it's an odd way to nominate candidates. i agree. we can think of better ways to do it. you have to be aware of the consequences. wherever you start this, there's going to be a dis proportionate amount of attention and influence. if you like money and politics,

you'll go to a regional primary, where it takes a lot of money to campaign in the primaries. there's a charm of presidential candidates meeting one on one with real americans, occurring in the state of new hampshire. one of the ways that they have tried to balance the influence of this state is to make newhampshire, south carolina and nevada early states. looking collectively, it forces presidential candidates to meet and visit with americans. >> after that, there's little contact with role voters. i think iowans take the attitude we think it's great, wonderful. it starts here. it has a good effect. why should we change it to give it to some others. the country can't agree on a

decision. political inertia. keeps the event first. gaved is the director of the policy institute at southern illinois, and a veteran observer of iowa politics. great to have you with us. we'll look at the ways iowa could distort and inform the race for presidents. it's the inside story. >> transcranial direct stimulation... don't try this at home! >> techknow's team of experts show you how the miracles of science... >> this is my selfie... what can you tell me about my future? >> ...can effect and surprise us... >> sharks like affection. >> techknow, where technology meets humanity... saturday, 6:30 eastern. only on al jazeera america.

welcome back to "inside story". i'm ray suarez. four years ago rick santorum, former u.s. senator won the island's caucuses. by the time the results were known, former massachusetts governor mitt romney was thought to be the iowan winner for a while. and went on to win. santorum went on to win several states. it was tempting to wonder how the result might have been different. it was understood to be the winner before new hampshire voted. the political reporters is helping parties that pick the

candidates to the fall. joining me, the president of brilliant corners research and strategy, they served on the polling team for the president obama's presidential candidates. the editor-in-chief. the republican o'brien murray. mr murray was named the political consultant of the year, by american association of political consultants. >> it's a dubious hon or by the way. >> i'll take what i can get. i'll let you go first. >> it happened a couple of years ago. >> you heard david give a justification to why this hurt. from a republican point of view, does it. >> david is a brilliant man. but i think he's missing some political campaign athletes. first off. no one will run for office that will say anyone other than iowa

would be first. it's fantastic. great retail politics, it's not expensive to move around. we have to fly from place to place, you can get around easily, and at the end of the day it's a swing state. it's republicans, democrats, it's trending. it's not a big margin of victory. it's a big story. the bigger thing too is it's not the win, it's the spin. walker, this year, they said he should be thankful there's no straw poll. why, there wasn't a straw poll. the expectations are such if they expectation you to win, and you come in second, you lost. if they expected you to come in second, you won. that's what it comes down to, the spin, not the win. >> i have to agree. i can't emphasise the retail politics, if you are a flawed candidate we'll find out about

it in iowa. do you know what you have to do. you have to get on the ground, touch people, hug them, kiss the babies and work the retail politics in a way that you don't. places before christie had the scandal problem, people thought that christy would be a front runner. we found out about the gruffness, that you get that in iowa that you don't get in other places. the other piece i want to talk about is diminishing. one of the things we talked about earlier in the senate was how iowa begins to move the field or weeds out candidates. i think the super pacts and the bringing on of the super pacts is lessoning that. if you look at a guy like newt gingrich, because he had people

ridi riding checks, i think you'll see in this time around. people that come in third and fourth, and iowa may be around a long time. >> making iowa less important. because if you have a sugar daddy you can run the table. >> for the republicans, that will be the case. you have the super pacts. jed bush outsourced most of his campaign to the super pacts. they keep the candidates alive, but they don't help them win. that'll be interesting. another thing that we are seeing is candidates declared later in the year than in the previous two cycles, i feel the whole cycle is pushed off a bit. if you look at clinton and sande sanders, they haven't campaigned against each other. clinton is running a campaign, a

vigorous ones. a deft organization, very involved. she, herself, is not as visible as other candidates have been in the past what about the knock that iowa is too much unlike anywhere else to give you an important picture of what candidates relative strength is? >> it's certainly the case. it doesn't decide the race. what it does do is pull the g.o.p. field to the right, in a way that impacts whoever the nominee is and the issue mix is for the duration of the general election campaign. for the democrats it has an effect where because it's whiter and more rural and the democratic base is so strong, it forced the democrats to contend for a more middle american population. given the base has transformed so much in the last 10 years, and the new women minorities,

the whole population felt that they needed to move beyond. is big enough. they bring them all in. >> it's interesting to see. >> hold that thought. >> we'll pick this up in an appoint. we talked about the ways iowa shaped the race. the shape worked hard to keep the status. are there other ways of doing this or has iowa got the job for life. stay with us, it's "inside story".

people putting money in new hampshire and south carolina, there's a temptation, maybe i can be the one who breaks out using the state. it's so different from what the

country is and becoming. michelle backman and others looked at it as a way to catafalque into other states. what should the earliest contests tell parties about the shape of the race. i'm back now. sorry, i cut you off. >> we were trying to get to the point that the caucus issue, it's organization. you mentioned michele bachmann. there were two issues, a debate problem. >> the debate, the process and the candidates. joe biden - what deadline he has. one, self imposed is a debate. you don't have to be in the debate to run. the other part about iowa. the caucuses. they are committed to go and sit

through the caucus. one of the things that e we in 2007 and 2008 did, was organise. and you could argue that when i look at the caucus state, we did very, very well, because we had greater organizations. it's about building the campaigns, and the problem getting there late is you don't have an opportunity to build the organization for a caucus. >> i dealt with a person about the vote in the caucus. >> no one state will be predictive. if you have a process that end you up with mike huckabee, coming with the big bounce out of iowa, what have you earned or proven. >> it didn't matter at all. >> i think iowa is more significant for the democrats than the republican. the caucus winner is not

intending to be the nominee. the conservative base in iowa is conservative and seems to be tea party oriented. we are seeing that in the support for donald trump, and ben car son and rand paul. it's a different basin that you see around the country. >> i would respectfully disagree in the point that anyone active in the process is not active of sorts of the whether far left or right. anywhere where you get the men and women coming forward, who wants to spend a saturday listening to a politician. >> if it had a ballot. that's a different process. that's a reason that president obama won last time. yes organised in those states. hillary clinton ran the rose garden campaign, the media. you and fellow compatriots ran

the ground game. it shows strength. you center to organise and do the retail politics, and for democrats, hillary clinton lost iowa too, but this time around. it is weighted in importance. let's be clear, if bernie sanders wins iowa, there'll be shock waves through the democratic party. >> he's leading in the polls in new hampshire. >> it's more important. >> it's expectation gains, and clinton loses big time if bernie sanders breaks through. >> there's enough money to continue going. >> it's about mechanics, rather than what candidates talk about to voters. i was so peck loor of things you have to talk about in new york, los angeles, chicago and boston, you didn't have to talk about in demoyne and others. >> actually, the states you

mentioned, and i live in new york. it doesn't matter. massachusetts, it's the same thing. what they talk about, it's not an urban message. what swings it is the rural areas. >> they have been doing major rallies, in cities in california, in the north-west, and taking the message out there. it's a reason they've been drawing a huge crowd. >> this is problematic. it's a wide state. it's a different history of whites than you say in alabama, mississippi, in georgia. you have whites voting for a black guy. we get to shows soon after.

the president a brilliant strategist. an editor, and o'brien murray, a strategist and cofounder. thanks for joining us. >> i'll be back with primaries and the performance of campaign of course, stay with us, it's "inside story".

iowa in so many ways would be a logical place to start running for president. it's geographically in the middle of the country, roughly in the middle in size,

population and per capita income. it differs from the coming america in a few fundamental ways. as the country reaches levels of foreign born population not seen for 100 years, iowa has not been much of an immigrant magnet. as the country looks ahead to a shift in population, iowa is a widest place in america. and its largest city demoyne would fit comfortably into a few neighbourhoods in los angeles and new york. i loved covering iowa politics, talking to the people, travelling to the small towns, and grain silos. i leave wondering whether iowans, less than 1% of the population has become a tiny tail, wagging one great big dog. i'm ray suarez, and that's "inside story".

macedonian police beat up refugees trying to make their way through the motorcycle donian-hungarian border hello, welcome to al jazeera. i'm here in doha. also ahead - russia confirms that it is providing military aid to syria and will continue to despite concerns from the west a symbolic moment. u.n. allowing the flag to be raised at headquarters. plus, the story of forbidden love in a south pacific jgl