For America’s social conservative movement, 1988 was a milestone year. It was the first election cycle in which conservative social issues (led by the Willie Horton prison furlough issue) clearly turned a general presidential election from one party to the other, with minimal help from economic and foreign-policy issue clusters. It was the first time that social conservatives made a big splash as a distinct voting stream in Republican nomination politics. And because the stunning second-place showing of televangelist Pat Robertson came in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus, it marked the first cycle in which the battle for Iowa, already rising in importance in both parties as the major “winnowing” event prior to the New Hampshire primary, took on added significance as an early indicator of where social conservatives were likely to go in a GOP nomination fight. After 1988, the Republican caucus of Iowa became (among its other attributes) the social conservative primary.
In terms of foreshadowing the national nominees, 1988 was Iowa’s worst year ever. The winners of each party’s caucuses that year, Sen. Bob Dole and Rep. Richard Gephardt, fell far short of the nomination, while the third-place candidates, Vice President George H.W. Bush and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, went on to win their party’s nominations. Since 1996, though, the state’s record is perfect: The winner of Iowa has won his party’s nomination–in 1996 and 2000 on the Republican side, in 2000 and 2004 for the Democrats.
