Iowa's primary industry is agriculture, but Iowa farmers are more "worldly" and "educated" than most other farmers around the country, according to the Huffington Post Media Group's Howard Fineman. Why? Well, because they tend to be liberal on social issues, of course!
Fineman made the remarks on the the September 17 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, where he was on with host Chris Matthews to handicap the tight Senate race to replace the retiring liberal Sen. Tom Harkin (D) pitting Rep. Bruce Braley (D) against State Sen. Joni Ernst (R).
Although he didn't explicitly say so, it's safe to infer logically that farmers in socially-conservative red states are accordingly less "intelligent" in Fineman's estimation.
Here's a transcript of the relevant remarks:
MSNBC's Hardball
September 15, 2014; 7:52 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS MATTHEWS, anchor: The party that wins the close ones, just like in sports, usually ends up on top.
Howard Fineman is here, he's editorial director of the Huffington Post, and of course an MSNBC political analyst. So, analyze this one, Howard, buddy. It seems to me that it's hard to pick this one.
HOWARD FINEMAN: Well, it's hard to pick this one because Iowa is about farms and it's about farmers, if you spend a lot of time in Iowa, as I have, endless farm fields.
MATTHEWS: And she? Is a farmer.
FINEMAN: She's a farm girl, except Iowa farmers are probably the most worldly, educated farmers in the world, except for those in Minnesota and the Dakotas. These are educated people with liberal values in many cases on things like women's rights and education and Social Security and so forth. So yes, it's a battle of the farm wives, if you will, but it's a battle between the battles that's between the farm itself and what those women think about abortion rights, women's rights, education, and Social Security.
Because Joni Ernst has talked about privatizing social security. She's talked about abolishing the department of education. These are openings for Bruce Braley to save himself from his disastrous uh, he's not a lawyer remark [regarding Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)].
MATTHEWS: Can he make her into an outlier? Can he make her into someone odd?
FINEMAN: Well, he's going to try, but it's difficult. Because, we can make fun of the pig, you know, the hog castrater ad, but the fact is she's more of a farm gal than he is a farm guy. That matters in Iowa, but as I say, it's complex.
Look, you go out to Iowa during the presidential campaigns as I do.... They don't just care about the seeds, they don't just care about what they're planting next spring, they care about world issues and they care about education.
It's a highly-educated state, very sophisticated state, and you know, you don't want to be too wild in what you say. And that's what Braley is going to try to do with her.
