The two Iowans who will soon serve on the Republican National Committee predict Iowa’s Caucuses will remain the nation’s first contest in the 2012 presidential election. Steve Scheffler, was elected Republican National Committeeman at the Iowa G-O-P’s state convention earlier this month.
The man Scheffler defeated, Steve Roberts of Des Moines, has served on the Republican National Committee since the 1980s and Scheffler met with Roberts this week to discuss the long-term effort to keep Iowa’s Caucuses first-in-the-nation. Delegates at the 2008 Republican National Convention in September will ratify the calendar of contests in the 2012 presidential election and it appears Iowa’s Caucuses again will be the opening event.
"After speaking with Steve Roberts and kind of understanding the whole dynamics, I believe that the RNC’s rules committee and…the convention as a whole will endorse that idea," Scheffler says. "So I feel very confident that is going to happen."
Kim Lehman, the committeewoman who will join Scheffler on the Republican National Committee in early September, plans to meet soon with the woman she’s replacing. "I’ve spoken to a few (Republican National Committee) members from around the country and there isn’t evidence that they’re trying to strip Iowa from its first in the nation (status)," she says. Lehman says Iowa Republican Party leaders are working with Democratic Party leaders in the state to keep both party caucuses first.
"Both the parties understand the value of having Iowa first in the nation," Lehman says. "We’ll be happy to work, definitely, to accomplish that." Iowa benefits economically from hosting the Caucuses, according to Lehman, and that’s a great boost to the state’s economy. Lehman and Scheffler made their comments on Iowa Public Television.