McCain May Have Troubles in the Corn Belt

Sen. John McCain has clinched the Republican nomination for president, but can he clinch the vote of the Midwestern farmer?

The Arizona senator's presidential campaign almost met an early demise last summer here in Iowa, and it's often said that his troubles were due in part to his well-documented opposition to ethanol tax credits.

Now that McCain is the presumptive Republican nominee, those troubles may come back to haunt him once again in the battleground states of the Corn Belt.

Corn growers in particular have reason to question McCain's positions on agricultural issues. He didn't do himself any favors by skipping important votes on the Farm Bill in December, and he didn't score well on an in-depth study of the presidential candidates' positions conducted last year by the Iowa Corn Growers Association.

"As corn growers, we know that (Sen. McCain's) past record does not necessarily support our same position on many issues," said ICGA director Don Elsbernd in an e-mail response to a question from Iowa Independent. "But we are confident that we will be able to work with each presidential candidate to make sure that agriculture and agriculture policy continue to be an important part of our democratic process."

Through its Targeted Agricultural Education Project, the ICGA identified 12 of the issues most important to corn growers and compiled information on each of the Republican and Democratic candidates' positions on those issues. The subjects involved ethanol, of course, as well as transportation, trade and Farm Bill issues.

McCain was in agreement with the ICGA on only three of the 12 issues, while Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., both were in agreement with the ICGA on 11 of the 12 issues.

Mindy Larsen Poldberg, ICGA's director of government relations, told Iowa Independent that the project lasted for more than nine months as the ICGA studied all of the presidential candidates' positions.

"We worked with every presidential candidate and their staffs in order to find out their views on agriculture," said Poldberg. "We will not be endorsing any one candidate. But our job was to collect information on what we thought were the 12 most important issues for Iowa farmers this year, and determine what each candidate's positions are, whether they were Republican or Democrat."

The ICGA studied the candidate's views on the 51-cent blender's ethanol tax credit, a renewable fuels standard, ethanol import tariffs, trade promotion authority and the Farm Bill safety net. McCain scored well on Farm Bill subjects and trade issues but got a black "X" for his views on the ethanol tax credit.

The results of the project were mailed out shortly before the Iowa caucuses to the approximately 6,000 members of the ICGA. The results of the project are now posted on the National Corn Growers Association's Web site and are available to NCGA members all over the country.

"The candidates' past positions on our issues are absolutely important," said Poldberg. "However, I would like to think that whoever is elected to be president of the United States would take a look at the energy and agriculture needs of this country and take a more national view toward those things."