Oh, I could even be a bit snide and say that, with a literacy rate of nearly 100 percent, all Iowans are capable of reading and marking a ballot without the aid of a preprinted, illustrated guide to the voting booth handed out by some political operative on Election Day.
Yes, I might even mount the soap box and say that not for five minutes would Iowans tolerate the level of chicanery, corruption and incompetence of public officeholders that barely causes a ripple of dissent here. And for that, I would rather leave the process of presidential ballot fixing to those everyday Iowans than to the political bosses of the East.
I could say those things and more, but I fear they would obscure a simple fact that your editorialist has overlooked. There was, indeed, a presidential candidate who once gave the voters of Iowa "the scant attention they deserve." In 1980 he spent only a few days campaigning in the state before the party caucuses. And he did not win. Was he foolhardy, or was he courageous? Based on reading other Inquirer editorials, I assume you believe the former. That candidate's name was Ronald Reagan.
Hal Horning
Philadelphia.
